some pictures from our hike last weekend

pictures taken by the lovely katz sisters...

so pretty huh?

my really low expectations don't seem to be helping

everytime i open ynet (ynet.co.il -- for news and such) i breathe in and say, it can't really be worse that something that's already happened.

nope. it is. and it will be. low expectations for the present and high hopes for the future are hard to maintain simultaneously, but i'm not given much choice in the matter I feel.

well, what can I report. Despite the craziness of war, I've managed to really have some amazing moments the last few weeks. This weekend we went on a hike at 5am near Sde Boker (Nachal Tzin/Ein Hake'ev) which was amazing... I didn't bring my camera since I knew that there was no chance of my pictures being more numerous or more impressive than Idan's. SO... please check out his flickr site to see those goodies. If you scroll back you'll also see pictures of the sunset from near his dad's house (location not mentioned to avoid making it more well known by the general public) which was quite amazing as well.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/idangazit/ - on the side you'll see a link for the "Nahal Zin" pics.

I'll add some of Miriam's pics in a separate post as well.

So after that awesome experience, I came home, pretty much dead from not sleeping, etc. and in the evening went out for dinner with Miri, Ori, Gil and Chen who I FINALLY got a chance to see after a long long time of not. Dinner was amazing - we went to this cute little cavernous place in Jaffo, and had awesome wine and food, and as usual, being with them was lovely. Kitzur, it was a great great weekend and made everything else going on in the country a little bit easier to swallow.

Que mas? Oh yeah, so my ticket to the states is set: September 20th - October 8th. I'm psyched. I think it'll be so so fun to see family and friends and hang out, and in general have vacation time. But I'm sure there will be some elements of culture shock and such as one would expect after returning to the place you grew up and supposidly feel at home in after not being there for a year. I know I've changed and grown and gone through a lot of things and thoughts that have made the Lerone now not the Lerone that visited last Rosh Hashanah... but in a good way. Gotta keep on growin'... (does anyone else know/remember this Sheryl Crow song from the Boys on the Side soundtrack??)

ok, back to work... or whatever form of procrastination i choose next.

hiking fun, job search not fun

Went hiking last Shabbat with Amitai and his buddy (now my buddy too!) Danny. Got some lovely shots to share with you :-)

amazing, eh?

don't let the sun go down on me....
yay! i'm finally getting a "taste" of what Amitai did every weekend during his year in Be'er Sheva
i'm not the only one that has to fix my pony tail ;-)
the view out there is surreal, in such a good way. breathtaking, really. i have a bunch more, let me know if you want me to pass them along.

so, job search....bahhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

it's not surprising that it's kind of frusting, it was like this back when i was looking for a job in Boston after graduation, but i'm usually pretty optimistic around here and i know that something will come through and it will all work out like it should. :-) right???? riiiight. i've been a to a couple interviews and such and keep sending my CV out as much as i can.

not living on the kibbutz has been an interesting transition so far. i like seeing my family a lot, but i have to say that i do miss my room there and Iris and Aviva and the rest of my buddies. I'll just be sitting here doing nothing and somehow, even when we did nothing on the kibbutz, which was a lot, it felt more like something since we were doing nothing with other people. an interesting phenomenon, much like how reading your book in a place other than your house feels like you're doing something, just because of the change of scenery.

on the other hand, i've been wandering around Tel Aviv a lot, many times with Amitai walking beside me, neighborhood shopping or what have you. it reminded me how i really do love living in/near cities where you can people watch and wander without too much purpose and somehow never be too far from where you might want to go.

it's nice to have Eyal back! it feels more like Israel with him here and his friends all around, etc. It was great to see them as well. It'll be cool if the whole Eyal, Noam and I in an apt thing actually works out...we'll see. living with boys will be a fun but interesting experience should it come through. but groups of guy friends are different here...in a good way.

well, i should really keep going on this job thing but i just needed to take a break and i was seeing if anyone actually left any comments, but nope...oh well. i'm ok with talking to myself too, i do it all the time anyway :-P

hope you like the pictures!