Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Chanuka, A Baby And Wild Bus Chases

It's been a while since I last posted so here's a quick little recap of the main events...

Chanuka came and went. I ate too many latkas and a lot of chocolate coins. 

The Freddie's welcomed an adorable baby boy into their family and we all gathered for his bris last Thursday.

After the aforementioned bris, I hung out with the Freddie's for a few days. Shabbos was filled with good food, lots of staring at the baby, playing with The Munchkin and of course, naps.

It was so much fun hanging out at the Freddie's that on Sunday I spent most of the day there under the guise of studying. Sadly, the time came for me to head back to Ariel for class. I packed up my stuff, stole some leftovers and headed out to start what ended up being a bit of an adventure... 

Things were going well until I accidentally got on the wrong bus. After a couple of minutes of debating I figured I should probably just ask the driver what to do but he was an older Russian man with a seemingly permanent scowl on his face.

Despite my better judgment, I made my way to the front of the bus and asked the driver if he went anywhere near the stop that I needed. There was a bit of a language barrier and he didn't understand exactly what I was asking. 

After repeating the question a few times, he asked me where I was trying to get to. I tried to explain that I needed to get to a different bus stop to get a bus going out of the city. After a little more poking and prodding I told him that my final destination was Ariel.

The bus driver smiled and slapped his knee "Ariel? Why didn't you just say so?" He told me to stay on the bus and that he'd let me to know when to get off. A couple of minutes later he beckoned me to the front of the bus and said "You see that bus? That's the one you want. Looks like he already stopped here but  get off and knock on his door, maybe he'll be nice and let you on.". I thanked him and got off to knock on the other buses door. 

The driver on the 86 shook his finger at me and refused to open the door. Seeing that the driver on the 86 hadn't let me on, the other driver pulled up and told me to hop back on the bus. "We'll just catch him at the next stop!" the driver said as he nodded at me enthusiastically. 

We then spent the next five minutes or so following the 86 and missing it by about half a minute at each stop. Things were not exactly going as planned and I wondered if I would make it to my class on time.

Suddenly the bus driver pulled out all the stops and sped past a bunch of cars as we were turning around a corner. The other people on the bus who had no idea that we were in the midst of a high speed chase rocked dangerously from side to side. The bus driver ignored their cries, completely focused on the task at hand.

We somehow pulled up right in front of the 86 and the bus driver told me to "Make a run for it!" I didn't need to be told twice, after a quick goodbye I got off the bus and sprinted towards the 86. The driver on the 86 stared at me incredulously as I jumped onto his bus just as the door swung shut behind me.

The ride to Ariel went by pretty fast and before I knew it, the bus was pulling on to my street. I had just enough time to grab dinner before heading up to the University for class.

The rest of my week was pretty anticlimactic compared to the high speed bus chase but I'm not too upset about that...

Thursday, December 18, 2014

The Mad Man Builds A Bed (And I Pretend To Help)

On Saturday night my parents took me to IKEA to pick up a bed for my apartment. We checked out all of the frames and tried every single mattress that they had on display. After much debating and a little help from the nice salesperson, I settled on the TRYSIL bed frame and a mattress that I can't actually remember the name of.

The Mad Man and The Crazy Lady drove me all the way out to Ariel on Sunday and spent a good couple of hours hanging out at my place. I fed them soup and cookies from the freezer (because I'm a good hostess) while The Mad Man put together the bed.


I was super helpful and took pictures.


The Crazy Lady told me to stop being lazy and help put my bed together.

Look how helpful I'm being!

Getting the slats on was decidedly the most infuriating part of the whole ordeal but The Mad Man figured it out.

Time for the mattress! Doesn't look like much all rolled up and vacuum packed but just you wait...

Still kinda lame looking..

 Getting there...

TADA! The long awaited finished product.


Unfortunately the directions clearly stated that the mattress should not be used for at least 72 hours so that it could reshape after being vacuum packed for who knows how long.

After 72 very long hours, I finally got to sleep in my new bed. Getting the sheet on was a little tricky and I was almost crushed to death by the massive mattress. The near death experience was worth it though because the bed is super comfy!

A huge THANK YOU to all those who made this possible, it is greatly appreciated!!!

Hope you're all having a fantastic chanukka! I know I am. :)

Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Furry Crocs

Ariel's resident badass checking in.

Today I ditched school to hang out in the "merkaz". I took my imaginary motorcycle to get there but forgot my super cool leather jacket at home, which was unfortunate as it started raining while I was out.  Luckily I had an umbrella with me that I ended up sharing with a little old russian lady while we waited for the bus (like I'm assuming all badasses do).

A couple of days ago I noticed a blister beginning to form on the back of my heel. I tried to keep it clean and wear thick socks to prevent it from developing any further but it had a mind of its own and kept getting worse.

Yesterday it got pretty bad, I had a rough time hobbling from school and was extremely relieved when I finally made it and got my shoes off. As per usual, I took a picture of the disgusting wound and thoughtfully sent it around to a select group of lucky individuals.

The general consensus was, "that looks gross and infected, go to the doctor.", "you should put something on that" and the classic "Please never send me pictures ever again.". I didn't have any antibiotic cream or disinfectants to put on it but I did have a bottle of whiskey stashed away for a special occasion.

I deemed having an infectious wound on my heel as a "special occasion" and broke out the whiskey. Some for me and some for my foot. I don't know that it did much for my foot but I slept well.

This morning I embarked on an adventure to discover the center of Ariel and with any luck, find the doctors office. I successfully made it thanks to my navigator (a.k.a. Lorbles) and sat down outside the doctors office to wait.

A big burly man opened the door to the doctors office and ushered me inside. I explained that I had a bit of a blister on my heel and he said "let's take a look..!". I took off my shoe and proudly stuck out my foot for examination. He took a look and said "That's quite an infection you have there! Let's get you on some antibiotics...".

We chatted about this and that while he wrote out my prescriptions and he was excited to hear that I'm studying nursing.  He handed over the papers and then told me that I would need to do something about my shoes until the blister healed. Then he explained how to get to the shoe store that's right next to the pharmacy where they sell knockoff crocs for a whopping 20 shek.

I nodded (unenthusiastic about the prospect of wearing crocs) and thanked him. He eyed me suspiciously and promised me that they were great shoes. They even have ones with fur inside! He knows because he bought a pair and he loves to wear them as slippers around the house.

The thought of the big burly man wandering around in furry crocs was pretty entertaining. I promised I would check them out and then bid him farewell. The nurse stuck a band aid on my heel and I left to find the pharmacy (that's right next to the store that I did not buy crocs in).

Once again my navigator got me to the right place and I got the prescriptions filled. Made a quick stop at the spice store and then headed to the bus stop where I found the little old Russian lady getting rained on.

It's raining and thundering outside and since I already have a doctors note I decided to ditch the rest of my classes. I don't know why, but rain always makes crave freshly baked chocolate chip cookies so that will probably happen at some point today. I'll try to avoid "tasting" as many as I did last time...

Monday, December 8, 2014

Wildlife In Ariel

I bumped into this guy the other day while I was on my way to school.

Not sure what kind of animal it is but I was told that it carries all sorts of exciting diseases and that I should avoiding touching it. 

Pretty cute though, right?

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Possessed Printer

Today was a strange day. It started off normal enough, woke up, got out of bed and started to get ready to face the day.  I was making myself a much needed cup of coffee when I heard the sound of my printer coming to life.

Last night I had spent an hour trying to figure out how to make my fancy laser printer (courtesy of The Mad Man) print things for me, but had little success.  After countless failed attempts, I called my dad for help. The Mad Man listened patiently as I panicked and pouted my way through the problem and then happily guided me through the proper steps. In a matter of minutes the printer was up and running and I printed out the required papers before heading to bed.

Still half asleep I carried my cup of coffee over to the bedroom door to to stare at my printer in confusion. The printer whirred cheerily (between you and me, it was far to cheery) as it printed out a number of papers. I cautiously approached the machine to see what it had deemed important enough to bless me with, a paper stating that there had been some sort of error.

The printer seemed to have gone back to sleep so I shrugged and went back to getting ready for school. Twenty minutes later I heard the familiar whir of the printer, this time it was statistics papers that I had been desperately trying to print the night before. I guess I hit the print button a few too many times last night, because for the remainder of the morning my printer sporadically spewed forth a plethora of unwanted statistics pages.

Armed with a multitude of statistics papers, I left my apartment and made my way to the university. Things at the university weren't much better. We had group projects to present which took up most of the morning, then the next lecturer forgot her slideshow and intro to psychology was intro to psychology...

During chemistry a guy came in with some table legs and leaned them against  the wall of the classroom. A few minutes later he returned with a table top and proceeded to begin assembling the table. The teacher did her best to ignore it but after a few minutes gave in and asked the guy what he was doing. He responded that there was some event that he had to set up for and he had to set the tables up NOW.  There were talks of snacks and the teacher agreed to let him continue his job in return for some of the aforementioned snacks.

The random dude went about his business, carrying table parts in and narrowly missing hitting the teachers head with a table top. When the tables were put together he disappeared for a few minutes but reappeared brandishing a roll of al-bad to cover the tables with. The tables were covered and the guy left and did not return. Much to my teachers dismay, the snacks never appeared.

After a long and decidedly strange day, I think its time for bed.