So I had to go back to my base Wednesday morning, but I got to the train station about 20 minutes early and decided to go across the street to the beach!


This is a wednesday morning at about 9:00am. The only other people there were quite old. The school kids are already out for the summer, but they're not about to wake up that early. This is for sure one of the benefits of living in Haifa (read: on the coast) Anyhow, this is the view looking north...


...and here is the view looking south. I love the beach here. At this point was was asking myself if I really had to go to my train in 15 min.


In the summer, they have concerts at this stage (there are actually tons of places that they have concerts "on the beach" in Israel). I saw the Israeli version of the Spice Girls (Hamsa) here last summer and had a blast.


Here is a good view of how much room there is for the people. It's really fun to see concerts here. People usually dance in that open area in front of the stage (where the truck is parked). They've also had dj's come in and just spin from the stage. Also lots of fun.


So this is what the train looks like on a non-sunday morning. Tons of room to sit. One nice thing about being a soldier is not having to get out your ticket when that ticket-checker-guy comes around because all soldiers use public transportation for free.

This is also where things get a little interesting. So I'll exposit a bit here so we'll all be on the same page. The day before, I dropped my beret somewhere at the train station near my base. The beret is a part of the Israeli Army uniform, so you can get a ticket/fine if someone from the military police catches you without it, and I was kinda worried about this on the way back to my base. It didn't take long for things to come to a head, because as soon as I sat in this space on the train I looked over and noticed that I had sat down next to a girl from the military police! I started to panic a little at this point, but didn't want to get up and move because it might get her attention. I stayed in my seat wondering what to do, so...


I decided to be sneaky and take her picture! That will show the military police! Right under your noses! She was listening to a bunch of songs I like on her .mp3 player and not really paying any attention to me, so...


I decided to get more daring! Truth be told, she was a pretty cute police girl...but bad lighting, horrible sunglasses selection, and harsh angles were working against her. Shame.


This pic was taken at the Central Tel Aviv train station. It was funny as hell to watch this hapless guy keep trying to explain the train they needed to take to these girls (who just weren't havin' any of it). The guy kept pointing to way too many places on the schedule while the girls stared blankly and remained unconvinced. It was much funnier than this picture can possibly convey.


Ok, so somewhere in Tel Aviv, these two girls got on the train with some parents. They had so much style/spunk/sass/whatever, that I just had to go over and take their picture. I thought it would be an example of how much cooler Israeli 13 year-olds are than their American counterparts, but it turn out that the girl on the right is actually from Miami. You can't see their whole outfits from this pic, but it's pretty safe to say that they have cooler clothes than you (and the aisle was like their catwalk when they boarded!). Anyhow, I got all of their names, but totally forgot (but I gave them the address of this blog, so they can clear that up if they like).

At this point things get interesting again (ergo, more exposition). So I go to the office of the train station where I dropped my beret and asked if anyone found one yesterday. They guy said no, but he had one from the air force that someone found two weeks ago and hasn't been claimed, so I could just take that one. I also discovered one of the many tricks soldiers can use in Israel to get things free: go to a bus station or train station and tell them you lost your beret! Score! Anyhow, I decided that an air force beret was better than no beret at all, but I'm not in the air force and don't have the uniform to match the beret (and it's really obvious), so I'm still all too aware of the fact that I'm still at risk from the military police when...


I run into another 3 guys from the military police at my bus stop! Crap! Then I notice that one of the three is also not wearing a beret with his uniform, so I get up the courage to sneak a picture of them! Right after this, a soldier came to the bus stop with army pants, but a civilian t-shirt. They were having none of that, so they promptly wrote her a ticket...


This is for all the people that wanted a pic of me in my uniform. I figured that I'd give the people who aren't all that interested in that something to look at as well. This is the Israeli-modified/Caterpillar-built D9 tractor. The american army actually buys the armor kit that the israeli army makes for this tractor now. Needless-to-say, it is not easily stopped.


This is what all the trains look like thursday evening as all the tired soldiers are going back home. The girl closest to the camera (who is a sergeant, if you're wondering) took the headrest off of her seat and used it as a pillow while the girl on the other side (also a sergeant) is crashed out across two seats. The flash from the camera didn't even phase them. Soon after this, I fell asleep as well and only woke up just before my stop when someone bumped me by accident.


This girl was so funny that I had to take a picture of her, too. I doubt she is more than 14, but nobody can say she hasn't fully developed her "look." It was funny to watch her talking to people on her (not one, not two, but) three cellphones. The first person I ever see with three cellphones is a 14 year-old israeli girl...typical.

Anyhow, then I got home and wrote this post. You don't need a pic of that. Enjoy!