The problem with being a person with a tendency toward the obsessive is two-fold. Firstly, should one not be immediately good at something then it is quickly dismissed as stupid never be attempted again; which anyone, that has had the extremely rare experience of having seen me ice skate will attest. This also results, in things that cannot be simply dismissed as being stupid incredibly difficult. For this examples of musical instruments and languages come to mind – here the perfectionism makes them very difficult as there is no possible way to be perfect with them.
The second obsessive problem then is the seemingly resulting lack of time. As with any adult life, work takes up a good chunk of any given week. Until recently, the still as yet uncompleted, thesis corrections were then taking a large proportion of the remaining time.
But, all work and no play makes Morgan a boring boy. With cabin fever setting in I forcibly pushed myself into going out and meeting people. This whilst an excellent plan, has resulted in almost zero progressing with the thesis since.
Weekend 1 of meeting people resulted in dancing the night away into the wee hours. But last week brought with it the beginning of Hanukkah. A festival of which I previously knew nothing about – but the story goes that the Jews escaping the Greeks ran off into the dessert and the only thing that God provided was a single jar of oil and with this oil some 5000 (or other silly number) were fed for 8 days. The resulting tradition therefore is to light candles in remembrance and eat nothing but fried food for 8 days. This means I have been indulging in a high level of Institute provided doughnuts and things that look like onion bhajis (without the curry powder).
The lab group of the weekend 1 people invited me to a proper traditional Hanukkah dinner party on Thursday night. I was told to wear a shirt and to bring nothing.
Thinking that this would be a formal affair and being British, I couldn’t turn up empty handed.
Accounting for Israeli time I made sure to catch the train that arrived 15 minutes before I was supposed to be there. Knowing it was 2 km as the crow flies. I figured, a casual stroll would be half an hour if you knew where you were going. So, I played a game of look at a map before I left get a general bearing from the train station of the direction I need and see what happens. If nothing else the smartphone, GPS and Google Maps will get me there in the end.
And so I headed across the city…
Only to reach my intended destination, with none of the intended getting lost along the way. Which was a little bit of a shame, and a little surprising given I didn’t have the sun to orientate myself off of.
Nevertheless, I reached my destination well within normal accepted time parameters given my travelling. I was greeted with a tiny kitchen of four women dancing around each other – a well rehearsed routine of stir this, wash that, prepare the other.
I presented my wine, and of course, again being British apologised immediately. I had sought out Kosher wine (because yes that’s a thing), but I’d also read up that if they were super orthodox that simply me handling the bottle would have removed the Kosher-ness of it all. Though I also knew that for most Jews so long as I didnt open the wine or touch the bottle after it was open it’d be fine.
Having finished explaining myself, the four ladies looked at me dumbstruck. None of them knew a thing about what I was talking about. They laughed, and I was handed a bottle opener.
What followed was a lovely little meal of a whole variety of bhaji things, made of various different vegetables – all of which were of course fried. The lovely people even made an attempt at telling me what was in them, there was one of beet (but not beetroot), one of corn (sweet not popping), one of “it’s like eggplant and avocado but not”.
But the gem of the evening had to be these little beauties
What you have there, is tiny, bit-sized doughnuts, obviously fried, rolled in sugar, fried again to caramelise the outside, dipped in melted chocolate, and finished with white chocolate. Otherwise known as a diabetic coma.
Around the dining table, a few faces I didn’t recognise were amazed by both my (admittedly terrible) Hebrew (they were being kind after I managed 3 sentences, saying where I came from and how long I’d been here) and my approach and apparent comfortableness with with getting to know Israel(/is).
As the conversation continued, my intentions of seeing the country came out and before I really knew what had happened a road trip the next day to Haifa, the country’s Northern-most city was organised.
Unfortunately, with traffic and no less than 4 accidents on the way, we didn’t get to see all that much of Haifa in the daylight – thanks to the silly early sunset (the above photo is at like 4 in the afternoon).
But it still meant that we could have a nice meal out
And I got to see the city of Haifa from the mountain gardens at night
I’ll get proper res photos up in a gallery at some point. When I get a chance and my upload speed isn’t so dire. But so far, thesis be damned – there’s a whole world out there. And when there’s people offering to take me on road trips, I’m not going to say no. I’ll be sensible during the week, thank you very much.
This post brought to you with the classic Nirvana album after “I fancy something like the Foo Fighters, but a bit harder and a bit 90s grunge” thought process. It’s really nice to hear more than just “Smells like teen spirit” in some VH1 flashback show.
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