GRADUATION

Hi all, my graduation at Manchester University will take place at 2:30 (UK time) this Tuesday. You can follow it live here:

http://www.manchester.ac.uk/aboutus/dates/graduation/live/

fresh fruit juice

Today we were invited for lunch at my supervisor's place. We walked off our lovely chulent with a stroll around campus - what a great excuse to excessively pick citrus fruits...

grapefruits!

the little pond in front of the Wolfson Building where I work

enjoying the sun (feels like 20 degrees Celsius!)

Wolfson Building

little fountains are found all over campus :)

the 50 year anniversary garden with the particle accelerator in the background

date palm trees

LOTS of oranges!

our oranges :)

and then we found the clementine tree...

time to juice our fruits!

the juicer is my new favorite gadget!!

PURE citrus mix (grapefruits, oranges & clementines)

no sugar, no preservatives added!!

fleamarket in old Jaffa

Last Friday we went to Old Yaffa in Tel Aviv, specifically the lovely flea market. If only we had our new flat already and some kind of budget, I could have bought half the market with all its pretty things! In the end I only went home with a set of Hamsas (חמסה) for my family and a huge earring holder for all my treasures!

Jona's babylamb

last weekend we met Jonathan, one of Nisim's many cousins. Jonathan's family is big in the sheep insemination business and once in a while he brings us a newborn baby lamb to play:

picking fruits on campus

The Weizmann Institute is a great place for a daily fruit-picking routine!

Shabbat Shalom!

A quiet Saturday is a great day for a stroll through the fields:

deep cleaning!

My fist free Friday I spent cleaning the apartment. I don't even want to get started on telling you how many buckets of black water I carried out. Fortunately my balcony has a hole in the corner through which I could sweep out the remaining dirt water... The bathroom was particularly dirty!

Below you see some pictures of my huge temporary flat: 

my room

my balcony

bedroom again

living room

our kitchen

bathroom (after cleaning)

well deserved food :)

After the huge cleaning session, I rewarded myself with a plate of left-over pasta (yes, that is pasta!) with corn and tuna...

flat viewings

Throughout the week we viewed some flats (my current flat is only temporary). None of them was anything we would just jump on. For Thursday we had arranged another viewing. As Nisim went back to Tiberias (תיבריה) earlier this week, I ended up viewing the flat on my own. The landlord did not speak any English/German/French/Spanish etc. so our only means of communication were "זה"  "יפה" ""כן" . While I was visiting the flat, the current resident was brushing his teeth and lay down on the couch to watch TV. Another family also came to visit but wasn't so impressed (its quite small). All in all it was a bit of an awkward situation, but the flat is gorgeous. If everything goes well, We'll sign papers as soon as Nisim gets back (I wouldn't want to sign a contract in Hebrew...). I hope I didn't jinx it now...

Update: Nisim has signed the contract last week and we now officially have a flat from the 20th of December :)

Hebrew - יברית

Yesterday I took my very first Hebrew class! From now on I will be visiting the Hebrew Ulpan twice a week for 2,5 hours (a shit long time!). We are about 25 students from a very mixed background on different (low) levels. Some know the Aleph-Beth very well, others are better in numbers and some read well.  In between it should be a good environment to learn a not so easy language together - !בסדר - I have missed a few weeks already, so the class is not so easy on me. However, I am able to read & write block letters well (not much help if the teacher scribbles in unclear script!), can count somewhat and know a few chit-chat words. I'm sure I will catch up soon :)

the Aleph-Bet is to be read from the right, just like all pieces of written Hebrew. (At least they're not writing from bottom to top...).

Rehovot - רהובות

Okay, we arrived in Rehovot (רהובות) on Monday. After picking up the keys for my part-time accommodation, I went to meet my supervisor Ido Amit in the Weizmann Institute of Science. All I can say is that I am really really happy to be in the Amit group - everybody is so sweet and helpful! I used my first week to get organized and set up my Mac which comes with a Hebrew keyboard (!). The only thing that gives me a bit of a headache is the confusing organization of the Weizmann campus. The Institute is (literally) a huge park with tons of green (name orange, kumquat and passion fruit trees!) and a million of buildings randomly scattered throughout. Most of the buildings were built in the Memorial for somebody and all of them have long name. In fact the campus is a beautiful place to get lost! I am just loosing a little faith in my personal navigation skills. Its seems impossible to go anywhere in straight lines... I do own two maps: one of them is in Hebrew (think LONG names!), the other one doesn't have any building names at all (not very helpful). For some reason there are no maps whatsoever located anywhere on campus - maybe its to confuse people who don't belong here (think terrorists)??

the Weizmann campus is absolutely HUGE! I am getting lost on it on a daily basis

main gate of the Weizmann Institute of Science

Kumquat-trees on campus (תפוסיני)

The Wolfson Building where I work in the Department of Immunology

the particle accelerator (I heard nowadays they throw huge parties in that building)