Superficial Joy

About a week-and-a-half ago I went outside the city limits of Tel Aviv! Really I have no idea where we were except near Jerusalem. It felt AMAZING to be outside in the woods, smelling trees and dirt and not dog poop! Our 7 miles in nature replenished my spirit. Israel suddenly seemed way more fun--which is not saying much since I have ventured no more than about 3 miles from my apartment in any direction. Here's a brief view of my outing with Ingrid...

I have a rocky relationship with luggage.  My luggage has not arrived with me at least a dozen times over my lifetime, including 3 times last year alone (Dallas, Nepal, Abu Dhabi). My belongings were no different. At first I wasn't going to ship my stuff...school in Abu Dhabi ended the last week of June and I had to be in Israel August 1 to begin quarantine. I thought I would use my shipping allowance [read: defrayment] to check a bunch of extra suitcases and stay in the UAE during the month. As the lockdown restrictions and the heat increased, however, my longing for home also grew. I met a woman in Abu Dhabi also moving to my new school in Israel and decided to ship my stuff using the same company she had hired. We ended up combining our stuff with that of a 3rd woman moving to the same school from Dubai (who also happens to be from the same place in Dallas I'm from, but that's not really related here).   Off our stuff went to Dubai to wait for transport to Tel Aviv, pr...