Second day can't be so bad, eh?

So for all of you out there dying for me to say that Hebrew School would be easier than I have written; you are going to be disappointed. After waking up veeery slowly from a sound sleep, I managed to get to class powered by a fistful of cheerios (made by Nestle in Israel) and a dream that I had grown as a student. When I arrived, the teacher had decided on speaking Fluccish for the morning and the students in the class were lazily writting their Hebrew dissertations on the philosophy of lexicography and it's social implications. I prudently decided to run myself through counting as a vigorous mental exercise. I managed to dodge being called on for most of the day but two thirds of the way through I was discovered by the teacher and she asked me about "what I can't do." I said "i can't speak hebrew". She said this answer was unacceptible and then said something in spanish and I laughed...then realized the class was all looking at me, along with the teacher. "what?" I had proved my point! I broke her down to english but she still made me said I couldn't do something else so i said speak Japanese. It was good enough to coast me through the day. I did learn that things could be worse, though: A girl in my class used to speak perfect Hebrew but got into a terrible accident and is now starting over from scratch. Tomorrow my attitude will be different.

Naomi and laid low during the afternoon. I brought her to tears working on my homework - she's so supportive - and after finishing that and reading for a while the two of us hit the town. We went to the largest mall in Tel Aviv, which is as populated by teens as any american mall. Using the crest of my mohawk as sort of a dowsing rod, we manage to find all the shops we don't really want to be in. All is well, however, as I have mastered ordering iced coffees. Apparently they speak Hebrew outside of Hebrew school here, so I have to be on my guard. I have a blank look set aside for any questions that come my way. Naomi is my savior. She dives in and explains everything to the shopping attendants, who proceed to give me "you are SOOO cute, what with your trying to learn (slowly, apparently)." She then has full conversations with them in flawless Hebrew. This is usually followed up with comments about how her Hebrew is rusty. So modest.

We decided to go along with my answer in school today and help me experience Japanese culture via sushi. As usual, we took the We Don't Know Our Way Around Tel Aviv route and ended up in the restaurant, which was decorated with victorian era paintings and frescos. Their menus sported the name "King George". As we left King George and headed for actual sushi - our mistake - we found the place we were looking for two doors down. Best sushi I've had. One of my small joys is getting a menu in Hebrew, reading the words, and occasionally being rewarded by correctly reading a foreign word in another language. Example: shhh-eee-rrr-i: Sherry! llll-ii-cc-ooo-rr-ss: Liquors! Hooray! We sat at the bar and watch a jedi master craft sushi with an 18" ginsu knife. It was glorious. He spent five minutes administering tiny cuts to this carrot and then throwing bits away. We though he was practicing until he somehow unfolded the carrot to produce a perfect replica of Big Ben complete with a working timepiece. I couldn't even muster up the WORD for carrot. So it goes.