I got the day after my birthday off from the army (that was nice of them), so I decided to use my free day to renew my soon-to-expire (Israeli) passport. I wasn't looking forward to doing this, as trips to the interior ministry typically involve lots of numbers being taken, very little progress being made, and waits long enough to meet someone, fall in love, get married, and conceive your first child before you actually finish the task at hand. Luckily for me, the complete efficiency with which they took care of everything left me in such a state of shock (and awe) that it made question just about everything (and everyone) I have ever known.

Here is the rundown:

9:47am - I arrive at "the missile" (more on that in a bit)
9:49am - I enter the interior ministry and take a number
9:50am - one of the women who work there notices which form I'm filling out and tells me that she can help me right this moment, seeing as how my transaction will take no more than 5 minutes and there are only 6 people ahead of me
9:52am - I'm back outside the building (slack jawed) trying to process how on earth that only took 5 minutes

After this, I remembered I brought my camera, so I took a few pics...


This is the main building in the section of Haifa that is called "The Government Village." Most of the national government offices that Israelis have to deal with on a regular basis are located here (including the interior ministry and the ministry of immigrant absorption). Everyone calls it "The Missile" because it looks like, well, a missile. I tend to think it looks bloated and/or pregnant. Either way, it's the most recognizable building in the Haifa skyline (not that there is much of a skyline)


This walkway that leads up to "the missile" is noteworthy for having several maps of Haifa at various stages in history. The pillars on either side of the maps explain what period in history the maps are from. Seems like a nice touch, so I decided to take a picture of it. Funny how everyone politely avoids actually walking on the maps. I mean, they are on the ground...so it's ok if you do, right?


This is a close-up view of one of the maps. I think they all should have had a "you are here" arrow on them. History be damned.

As a final note, I'll say that I got my new passport delivered to my door at 10:00am the next day! I don't know what happened to the Israel that I know, but I think I like this new version better.

both my mom and my girlfriend are asking me when my next post will be up. I'll try and do it tomorrow. I have two posts to write and neither of them are terribly exciting, but everyone seems to be ok with "not terribly exciting." Until then, just know that Madonna is on the front page of every newspaper in israel right now.

So I turned 25 today. Can't say I have ever been one to really "feel" my birthdays, and this was no exception. Inbal text messaged me at midnight to say "happy birthday," so that was a good start to the anniversary of my birth (she didn't want to call because she knew I was sleeping and didn't want to wake me up). A couple years ago I actually forgot it was my birthday until people started calling me to wish happy birthday. I was in israel and it was Rosh Hashannah, so I had a good reason to be thinking about other things. Anyhow, nature did grant me one random/funny gift today. And that gift is this man:


This guy fell asleep on the train and snored so loud! Seriously. Everyone was staring and laughing. I feel really bad for his wife. I have no idea how she gets any sleep at night. Earplugs, maybe? I also met this cool officer-girl who is also named Adi (so if she is reading this, leave a comment/email address!) who was amused that I was taking pictures. I didn't take a picture of him straight-on because in the unlikely case that he woke up as I was taking the picture.


I took this picture because of how common it is at every army base in israel. In every base, there are always places where there are just bullets strewn haphazardly on the ground for no real reason. New bullets, usually. If you ever lost a clip of bullets on a base, just wander around and pick-up the stray bullets and you'll be back in business in no time. Just a funny fact about israeli army bases.

I was working on some tank-related business today when I stumbled upon the bravest pigeon I have ever seen in my 24 (but 25 tomorrow!) years. What, prey-tell, made this pigeon so brave? What made this pigeon brave, my friends, was that this pigeon was not afraid of humans. This may seem like no big deal to you, but when was the last time you met a pigeon that didn't fly away as soon as you got within six feet of it? I was impressed. It wasn't the best looking pigeon I've ever seen, but without a doubt the friendliest. I found the whole thing so interesting that I hung out with him for about 10 minutes just to see how much he would let me touch him or stand over him. Turns out the answer was "a lot." At first he would look at me when I went to pet him, but after a couple times even that ceased to get his (or maybe her) attention. Then I decided to try and be intimidating, so I stood over the brave bird (with my legs on either side of him), but he just looked at me for a second and decided that it was a good time to clean himself a bit. I dispelled the notion I had that it was only me that failed to scare him by getting one of my friends to come over and pet the bird. The bird didn't budge. I know I'm not intimidating, but I had to be sure that the pigeon didn't know that. I mean, it's one thing to not intimidate people when you need to, but when small, winged animals decide your not worth the trouble of using the ability to fly, it's time to admit that the army uniform isn't having the ability you thought. Or maybe the uniform just makes me so sexy that even pigeon are interested. Would that it were. Anyhow, I was in the middle of fixing some stuff and couldn't run and grab my camera, so I have no photographic evidence that this occurred, so you're just gonna have to take my word for it. In the end, that brave, little bird met his maker when his bravery became a liability and a tank ran him over. Okay, I made that last part up. The pigeon wasn't killed by a tank. The truth was that a tank came and the bird just flew away. The end.

So one thing I'm really known for is being totally crazy for army food. I eat till I am about to explode just about every day and end up regretting that I can't fit more in there somehow because the food is so good. The thing is, I even love the combat rations! Seriously! And nothing better represents the combat rations of the israeli army better than the mystery meat in a can that is basically the israeli version of spam (except it's totally kosher for all times of the year). One of the many great things about being part of a combat unit is always having lots of the food lying around, so I get to take it home and cook it up! Yummy!