Jon Here…

Hello all. This week was pretty awesome. Kasey and I went to Tel Aviv on Sunday with a group of friends and went to the beach. Extremely nice beach! The water was very warm; you could just walk in and be instantly used to the temperature. After we swam around a bit we headed out further to go onto some rocks where we chilled, looked out to sea, guessed where Greece was (I’m pretty sure we found it…but you cannot see it). I found a place to jump off so Kasey and I did dives off of our spot. It was fun. We swam back and by then it was getting around lunch and our bodies desired food, specifically burgers because we walked by a burger joint on our way down to the beach.

Kasey and I, and a couple more people, came with us. We took orders for others as well so that they could sit and watch our stuff. Kasey and I went to this Jewish fast food place (the symbol was a bull…whatever that means). It took a while for them to understand us and for us to understand them and then to get our food. BUT once we did, it tasted glorious. I have to admit (even in the states) my favorite meal to eat on the beach is a burger, fries and coke. Something about life just seems more simple and alive when you have this combination :P I guess for me it’s cow and water…

After lunch we had a couple more hours to chill on the Med. It was a Jewish holiday and they literally shut everything down, even the beach! So we swam a bit more, went to the rocks again, jumped off and then took off. It was a VERY good Sunday and I plan on doing it again when we can. To be honest it probably won’t happen till after Christmas, because I don’t have that many weekends off anymore.

Monday I had off, so I dropped Kasey off at work and then me and Keith (maintenance guy) fixed up our new apartment. When he was doing something else I was cleaning a bit of the place. But after Kasey got home we chillaxed because it was my day off.

Tuesday we officially moved into our new apartment. It was still really dusty, even after sweeping and cleaning it. We moved all our stuff over there that night and pretty much just crashed. However! I have a story about our first meal in the apartment!

We really wanted Hot dogs! So I got a big bag full of hotdogs out of the freezer and started opening the top. This bag was full of hot dogs and air as well, so when I started opening it up the bottom burst open and all the hotdogs went all over the floor. Kasey started laughing, but when we looked down Polly was running all over the floor trying to get one! I picked them all up but she was already all over this one hotdog and was not acting normal over this thing. It was like cat nip times 10. She was chowing down on this hotdog to the extreme so we left it for her. We washed off the hotdogs, cooked some and had a really good meal.

The aftermath of Polly was that the next day her butt was exploding. Mass cat pooping. She had such a terrible time the next day when we were away that she started eating her cat food on a regular basis. The hotdog changed her into a somewhat normal kitten. So we were happy about that. The bad part was that she tracked poop all over our sheets and they had to be washed.

Wednesday and Thursday we continued to unpack and cleaning up. But on Friday Kasey and I went to JUC together (Kasey watched a movie…the one with the girl from Transformers and she is the devil…I know, I Know…you can judge away :P). But we went to the New City, went to a coffee place called “The Coffee Bean”. This was SUCH a good place! They had about 10 differnet fraps from you to choose from and even more coffee. It was glorious. We then got some cat litter (stuff that didn’t smell). Walked around, found a place to sit and made our budget for every month…this was not good, haha. After that we had lunch together at this really nice place, with the most amazing, biggest tuna salad we have ever had. AND it was only $8. So we were happy about that. All the pics of Friday can be sene on Facebook. Then we went home and watched LOTR’s (we are doing a marathon very slowly).

Saturday Kasey went to work, and I did homework at my new desk at our new apartment. I got a lot done. We went to church that evening and after church a nice couple holds a time of fellowship for everyone which includes food! They are always fun, and the food is even better :P I actually had my first boiled egg at this thing…it wasn’t too bad. Except that it was only a half a boiled egg with no yoke in it. They used the yoke to make a mix and then they put it on half the egg. I only had one, and went for seconds but they were all eaten. Sad day. O well.

Sunday was our IKEA day! And we both volunteered for a soccer/basketball game near Tel Aviv. We did this because on the e-mail that was sent out to Kasey the school said that they would go to IKEA and a big mall for everyone to do some shopping and eating! So it was a free ride and we asked around and the head people said they had no problem if Kasey and I took off to IKEA to get our stuff for our new apartment. But when we got there, we had no ride because anyone who could drive a standard was not “insured” with the school and those that were “insured” did not know how to drive a standard or they were the coaches and couldn’t get away, the IKEA was like an hour or more walk away.

So Kasey and I were stuck watching high school kids all day. At the end of the day we tried going to a mall, but they went to a different mall that was WAY away from IKEA (a different one that they said) and it was an expensive outlet store that only had a burger King and chip store. We did however drive by IKEA and waved at it. So our Sunday was, in our eyes, a complete waste of day of our day off together (we do not get another one for a couple weeks). We may go to IKEA on Tuesday to get the stuff we needed. We left home around 8am, and got back around 7:30pm. We had Macaroni and Chicken and watch 30 Rock to end our day.

All of you might be seeing stuff on the news about riots and stuff taking place here. Dr. Wright told us today that this weekend and this week are kind of celebration of Israel/independence or something around those lines (I was getting ready when he said this…sorry, hahaha), so this causes A LOT of groups and A LOT of Soldiers and police and still A LOT of Tourists. With big groups come riots…just a fact here. Dr. Wright said that Israel hasn’t had some excitement for some time now, and was smiling when he said it. Honestly I did not know what was going on in the news until I was told because Kasey and I are not around it at all. Dr. Wright also said that the safest thing to do is that if you see a crowd to just not go into it or near it. We are perfectly safe. It will hopefully die out soon. But again, big groups of both cultures bring riots and the news. We are fine.

Prayer Requests:

-Our budget is EXTREMELY low, please pray that we use our money wisely and that God continues to provide. And that we will grow in faith through being here

-Coninuous prayer for our protection in all things

-Kasey the teacher

-Jon the student. He has a 3 day field trip this weekend.

Praise:

-We LOVE our new apartment