It No Longer Hurts for Me to Swallow

...35

The night before last, as I was leaving the apartment, I stumbled across an exceedingly nice (and relatively large) sofa sitting on the street by the side of our apartment.  It was a little worn down and had some holes in it, but I went back up and got Tomer so we could bring it upstairs.  Simon's/Nathan's/BenJirik's/Scott's/Aaron's/Ohad's apartment (I'm just going to start calling this apartment Eli Cohen 24, because it's 10,000,000 times easier) has many pieces of furniture that they have dragged off the streets, and, to be honest, I'm jealous.  It took Tomer and I about 20 minutes to carry our monstrosity up only one flight of stairs because of its unwieldy nature and its resolute determination to just barely fit through every door.  In the end, though, it was definitely worth it--it's a pretty sweet sofa.

Nothing much happened that night, and I went to bed fairly early.  When I woke up yesterday, I felt considerably better, and it no longer hurt for me to swallow.  I caught bus number 46 with Jake from the mall to go to our first chosen Siyur, a walking tour of Old Jaffo.  It was a pretty interesting walk, although I feel certain we did something similar on Machon, my trip to Israel last summer, because at one point we crossed the wishing bridge, and I distinctly remember it.  Some of the highlights from the Siyur:

We were supposed to arrive at Kikar Ha'shaon (Clock Square) of our own accord at 9:30, with only the directions "Take bus 46 from Yoseftal Street."  Jake and I got on this bus and it drove in a somewhat snake-like pattern for a while, squiggling around Bat-Yam, before it got into Jaffo.  I then realized that we had no idea if it stopped at Kikar Ha'shaon, and when we would need to get off, so I asked the guy sitting ahead of me and he said "right now."  I hit the stop button as the bus turned and the driver was forced to a screeching halt, as the stop was right there.  I asked a person on the street how to get to Kikar Ha'shaon (because I didn't see a giant clock anywhere), and they told me to walk all the way down the street we were on (Yefet Street).  This worked, although I asked several more people as we walked down it, because it was longer than I anticipated.  As we were nearing the end of our walk, we saw some random Arabic guy riding a white pony bareback.  It was pretty funny, I will put a picture of it up when I get my bag back from Eli Cohen 24 (previously known as Simon's/Nathan's/Aaron's/Scott's/BenJirik's/Ohad's apartment).

At the beginning of our tour, we sat next to the clock tower and the guide lectured a little about the history of Jaffo.  While he was doing this, some darker-skinned man sat on a short column nearby and stretched his muscles VIOLENTLY, thrusting different parts of his body with a certain degree of vehemence.  At one point, he began chopping his bicep over and over again.  Later, he held up one of his hands and shook it with a Parkinson's determination until he flung it downwards, almost as though he was trying to get rid of it.  While most of the people on the Siyur with me thought he was crazy, I'm fairly certain he was some sort of monk.  Either way, it was highly intriguing.

Near the conclusion of the tour, we went to the museum of a woman named Ilana Goor, which was fairly surreal and almost DaDa-like.  One of the coolest things was that there was a sculpture by Aleksandr Archipenko, my favorite sculptor.  There was also a table designed by Le Corbusier, a very famous architect.  Once again, I'll put pictures of these things up as soon as I get my stuff back.

The best part of the Siyur, however, was after the formal tour was over.  Jake, Carie, Emilie, Cera and I stayed in Jaffo and had lunch at a highly esteemed bakery--we got toasted bagels, which were delicious.  We then proceeded to go to the Jaffo flea market, where I bought some shorts and two pairs of nice, loose genie pants that I'm extremely excited to wear.  I also bought a tiny Sheshbesh set, but I didn't realize until I got home that it has no dice.

Nathan is sick, so when I got home yesterday I went to go check up on him.  Earlier he told me he had a fever of 103, so I was a little bit concerned.  Adi and I arranged a doctor's appointment for him at 5, and then I proceeded to nap over there.  The doctor's office was pretty shady--it was just some random apartment over on Rothschild street, and 4 or 5 people were sitting in what would usually be a dining room, waiting for the doctor.  Two doctors also shared the "office," one was a dentist, the other an internal medicine specialist.  I then went down the boardwalk to pass out apples and honey to people in Bat-Yam with the tsofim.  This was pretty fun, and as we ran out of food we went to an ice cream place where Nathan could meet us.  I took him to some place on Ha'Neviim street to get him his medicine, and then took him home to go to bed.  Last night I went to Emilie's and we watched Pirates of the Caribbean 2 on that apartment's WORKING TELEVESION (it astounds me that they even have a TV), and then I came back home and went to bed.

I feel pretty good today, but the apartment has been a mess for almost a week now, and I really want to clean it up.  Despite (or perhaps because of) having slept almost 9 hours, I'm very sore today.  Classes start in an hour, though, and I have to go eat lunch.  Hope all is well with you, pictures soon!