Other stories

We played the nickname game again at our staff oneg on Friday night. I still have the package of cappucino gum from a few weeks ago and I'm willing to part with it if you can correctly match the nicknames to the given names. Nicknames: Little fish, Delores, Bernice, Peanut, Captain Clutch. Given names: Valerie, Andrea (not me), Steve, Rob and Bennie.

My cousin Boaz encouraged me to try eating watermelon and salty cheese (like feta, but Bulgarian, not Greek). I did. It was actually good. Not that I doubted him. Too much.

Last Thursday I went to the Hula Valley Bird Observatory. This is an area that is a pit stop in a race around the world for millions of migrating birds of various ilk. It is also a former swamp that was drained in the 50's to make way for agriculture. I don't think it would be fair to say that they're "re-swampifying" it, but there are a few big lakes there now. Malaria has not yet returned. We biked around the area - a little over 6 miles (11k) which was pretty easy (it's really, really flat), but it was also really, really hot. Just biking it alone, it could be done in about 30 minutes at a pretty easy pace. With a group of 40 students, it took nearly 2 hours. That included stops to look at the buffalo (no, I don't know why they're part of a bird observatory), a bunch of different types of birds, and talk about the reclamation of the environment.

Last night the participants went on a boat cruise in the Kinneret. Because there are 6 buses of students, we used 2 boats (they aren't so big). Whenever anyone asked whether I'd be on their boat, I apologized and said that I'd be on the other boat. I had a great grilled haloumi salad at an outdoor cafe and I believe no one was the wiser :)