Snow!

Well, I think that I may have spoken too soon with all of my fancy pics of sunshine and tanning. Woke up this morning and what did I see? Big fat flakes of the white stuff falling all over my poor rose bushes.

Luckily, I had the car today (I am in a car pool with two other people) and didn't have to walk to work, but it was still shocking to see. Most of it has now melted all away and I hope to have pics of me browning myself in the sun again soon but in the meantime it looks like hiking is cancelled for tomorrow.

More pics in Flickr.

Hiking

What a fantastic weekend! Started off with me meeting a local hiking group at 6am on Friday. We jumped in one of the orange 'servis' taxis and drove about 30 minutes out of town to a small village called Kurf Nameh (or something like that). We there met up with a local woman who then guided us on a 4 hour walk through beautiful olive groves and other small villages along the way.
In Bel'in we were stopped by a woman baking bread in a round outdoor oven. She invited us to sample the fresh goods along with some pure olive oil and thyme mixed with sumac and sesame. You rip off a bit of bread, dip it in the oil and then into the herbs. Delicious.

Tons more pictures of the hike over there on the right in my flickr account.

Rest of the weekend was spent studing Arabic, playing ping-pong and eating good food. Not a bad life, just wish you were all here to enjoy it with me.

Sheep, sheep everywhere

Sorry for the delay in new postings, kiddos. I have been busy busy busy with work. We are working through the inception phase of our new project and hosting conferences, etc. In other news, there were sheep grazing outside of my window today. 21 degrees! I do feel for all of you out there in the wintry lands, I really do.
Posted a few pictures over on Flickr, including a couple of some martyr posters. Weird things those. When people die in a martyry way, they put a poster up around town of them. Some of these include obviously staged pictures with guns and bombs, but others are weird ‘just sitting around the house’ kind of pictures. Very macabre.
All that said, I have yet to feel any real threat to my personal safety and have been having a very nice time with folks both Palestinian and foreign. Hope to get over to Israel in the next few weekends and do some touring around. Maybe down to Eilat for some scuba diving. I’ll keep you all posted.

Spring

That's right you unlucky northerners. It is the second of March and the bushes are just bursting with life. One more good rainstorm and I think that my garden will be in full bloom. Still a little nippy some days, but rarely below 12-15 degrees. Wonderful.

Life is good. Working hard these days preparing for a conference that we are running. Playing a bunch of ping pong, studying Arabic and missing you all very much.