Whitest kid at the beach

So on day one, we woke up at 3pm. On day two I woke up at 4am, wide awake, and rolled over to see Naomi looking back at me with the lucidity of a person who was ready for lunch. After having a good laugh about wakihng up before the sun, we ended up playing a game and relaxing before trying to get more sleep. Fail. So we dragged ourselves through yesterday successfully. Naomi went to her first day of work at the hospital and met with the powers that be, and I went to the Hebrew school to take the placement test.

The placement test was so hard! I sat staring at the first page, leaving blank after blank empty, and managed to write down two things: My name and my telephone number. Then the girl next to me looked over and let me know that I didn't need to fill out any more of the id information and I sighed a relief. The instructions for the sections were all in Hebrew. Great. The first section of the test was easy enough. The second section was a paragraph about something involving students, a bus, a crazy driver, and a lesson they all learned, but this was lost on me. I feel like I was missing a few critical words - one of which was repeated ten times in the story - to really understand. However, I am an excellent test taker so I managed to get a few right anyway. The second story was a bit lighter. All in all, the lady placed me in a beginner's class that had been going on for about three or so months that she said I'd be okay in, but only after I repeatedly assured her that I would rather do this than go to the beach. So -

The beach was a lot of fun! Despite my Iowan terror at Water That Moves, it was pretty nice. We went with Naomi's second cousin, Yoni, who I will explain about in a minute. We went on a wild hunt the other day for swimwear that didn't look ridiculous and actually managed to find a suit that ended prior to my knees, showing off my magnificent thighs: Both well sculpted from years of taekwondo and translucent white from years of dormancy. Yoni said seeing me in that suit made me look British, which I suggested might be because of my luminescent paleness, but from now on when I mention myself in a suit it's easiest to picture Daniel Craig in your minds. That's what I do.

Naomi, the swim champ, is scared of waves. I like to jump up and be taken away by them and meet them head-on. Naomi meet's them butt-on as she's running to the shore. We swam together for two minutes. After that she suggested we could sit right where the water hits the beach and enjoy the tide. They have this in Iowa - it's called a wadding pool. It's for toddlers. So we went our separate ways - Naomi to the sun and me to the yam (Hebrew for sea).

Yoni and I went out and I explained the differences between Israel and Iowa, which was quite amusing to him. Yoni is great. He met us at our apartment when we arrived and has given us several tours of Tel Aviv already. I have been practicing my Hebrew on him which he enjoys, along with my constant two-year-old-questioning "what's that called?" One of the great things about the beach is the lifeguards sit in a tower and yell things over a PA system. I love it because it's manned, not by some sexy Israeli man or woman, but a grumpy overweight 50-year-old who sounds like he could be anybodies grandpa. As Yoni said "Not like David Hasselhoff." I assured him it wasn't like that in America either, unless he was referring to was a middleschooler who watched mainly girls instead of the pool. So a yound David Hasselhoff.

What, you don't have anything better to do than read my blog all day? Go enjoy yourselves!