2-3 August 2007

Random Political Celebrity Moment:

Tipsily walking back from the annual Beer Festival, a friend and I walk by two men engaging in a conversation in the middle of the street after midnight, one barefoot in shorts and a T-shirt and the other in a black suit. As I walk by, I notice their faces. As soon as we pass them, I turn to my friend and say “Omigod! Do you know who they are?! That’s Dan and Sallai Meridor!”
I call my friend who moved to Israel last week to tell her who was standing right by us, and she said I had to talk with them. Gathering all the strength a man has with his share of beer in the bloodstream on a Wednesday night, I went up to them.

Translated from the Hebrew:

“Excuse me, are you the Meridor brothers?”
“Yes we are”
“I just wanted to introduce myself, I moved to Israel from Washington, DC. I think you know my friend who used to work in the Embassy?”
“Of course! What are you doing now?”
“I’m transferring my studies in Government to the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya”
“Best of luck to you”
“Thank you, nice to meet you, Shabbat Shalom”

I was talking with a former Justice Minister and the current Israeli Ambassador to the USA in the middle of the street in the middle of the night with no security guards. Up there with motorcades and the drones of surveillance planes in the middle of the night, random politician spotting makes this place feel more like DC. WOW.

Today was mainly spent waiting for the doctor-on-call at my healthcare clinic to diagnose what I already self-diagnosed: ear infection. Never having one when younger, I could quickly tell that the black hole of pain on the side of my head wasn’t normal. After two hours of waiting, she finally prescribed a lot of antibiotics to be taken multiple times per day. Blecch.
The rest of the day was spent updating my CV, getting interviewed for an article on nightlife in Jerusalem, and stocking up on East Asian groceries at a store where the Japanese female cashier told me about a concert this Saturday night in flawless Hebrew.

Fun, pain and surrealism all at once. I think I'll continue my rental contract through next year...