Rediscovering the Straw in the Mango: A Most Delightful Day

...occurred exactly 2 weeks ago. I have to document it here on the blog, because I don't want to forget it myself when I'm old and cranky and surrounded by my cats. It starts with a 6:20 AM alarm, because Matan is somewhat crazy and decided he needed to run. I like to run. I just don't like 6:20 alarms. But I couldn't let him out-energize me, so we had a really great run along the beach. By 9:30 AM, I was at Kav La'Oved, and I don't remember the specifics, but I helped some people, which is always a good feeling. I stayed till 3, and left the office pining for food. Israeli food. For weeks, I'd seen the constant crowd outside of Super Falafel. Oh wow, was it super...perfection. I ordered in Hebrew, to the amusement of the Falafel Man, asking for a hetzi mana, or half-order. The falafal was exquisite (and I don't say this about all falafel), crispy on the outside, but hot and soft on the inside. After finishing it on a park bench, I wandered into Halper's Bookstore, one I've been eyeing for weeks as well. It is a total maze of books, most in English--an incredible collection of fiction, history, philosophy, everything...and I even got to chat with Halper himself, who is actually quite famous in the blogging world (http://melchettmike.wordpress.com/tag/tel-aviv/). I headed back to the electricity-less apartment (we knew we'd have to pay at some point) , eating some melted vanilla ice cream for good measure. Matan's sis Nitzan met me then, and we headed over to another place I've been dying to go: 24 Rupee, a vegetarian Indian restaurant. Nitzan and I chatted over some chai until Matan met us there. The food was AWESOME, and served on the typical Indian tin plates, which I really appreciated. As you can see, the place is totally chill and relaxing. We booked it out of there to make it in time for "Not for Bread Alone," a play at the Nalaga'at Theater...the only deaf/blind theater in the world. It was an incredible show, illustrating the dreams of the 11 deaf-blind actors and actresses through sign language, morse code, dance, acting, and the process of making bread (http://www.nalagaat.org.il/bread.php).