Random Preliminary Observations

1.   I keep forgetting it’s January, and then it starts raining and thus, I am reminded. 
2.  Okay, so this is probably blasphemy, but I discovered that my newfound love for falafel only stems so far; it is really good, depending on the place, but it’s interaction with tahini, which I have yet to find a taste for, tests my love a little bit. 
3.  “Everyone” speaks English; okay, so this is very American of me, and honestly I don’t really care if everyone speaks English or not, but the first few days it was a bit of a culture shock.  Most people have at least some level of basic proficiency, and everyone at the office speaks very good English because they work so internationally, but suffice to say, I have discovered, not everyone speaks English.  I have literally walked up to people, said one word (for example, "Train?"), and gotten a blank stare and a "No" as they walked away.  But, alas, that's why it's an adventure.  
4. Stemming back to the English thing, the majority of the signs and menus and train stops are written in Hebrew, so while you can manage otherwise, I would highly recommend learning the alphabet at least.  I have walked into a restaurant before without really knowing what I was getting into; luckily it was falafel so it was all good. 
5. I was warned of this, but there are cats… everywhere… You’re going to shake your head and say, “Yeah I’ve seen a cat before” but this is no joke.  Every street, a bunch of them… Rumor is they were parachuted in by the British hundreds of years ago to deal with the mice problem.  Now, what do we parachute in to deal with the cat problem? 



Cat I found chilling just inside a building entrance

6. Learn the money beforehand.  Those coins… are the bane of my existence… So many shopkeepers have just started counting all the little coins straight out of my hand when I was sure I didn’t have enough without breaking a bill. 
7. So apparently the Star of David initially had nothing to do with Judaism and it has something to do with combining the Hebrew letters that make up the name David but it was also used initially in a lot of ancient cultures including Mesopotamia; that kind of blew my mind.  
8.  To piggy back off of #7, Israeli tour guides are super geniuses who know every date and place of Israeli history, super well educated and studied.  So take a tour, at least for a percentage of the trips you take.  
9.  The trains are often so packed you can barely find a seat (and often can't), and I can’t figure out if that is a volume of people-to-train ratio because of a small country with a lot of people and not a lot of train lines or a human inability to spread out to less populated cars or simply a result of rush hour, which would occur in any country.  I’ll keep you updated on that.  But it can be a serious rush/struggle to get on the train at some points and it’s sometimes just a crowd of sardines smushed together waiting by the door to get off.  Additionally, there’s always a ridiculous amount of people heading in the opposite direction of me at the pedestrian bridge to the Herzliya train station in the mornings, but not very many people heading across the pedestrian bridge towards the train (maybe 8:20 a.m. is too late in the day, who knows?)
10. Finally, I'm a little bit obsessed with the beach/ocean here, not that I don’t have an affinity for oceans/bodies of waters everywhere (because I most certainly do) but the truth is, there’s nothing quite like running along a path by the Mediterranean at night, or during the day, close enough to see it but conveniently avoiding getting your feet all sandy.  Thinking about taking a swim at some point.  Might be a little chilly but hopefully bearable.  Warm by Buffalo standards regardless.  And the kite surfers/surfers seem to be having a good time out there!