Toronto

We went to Toronto last week, for a 3-day collaboration meeting. Back on August, without thinking about it too hard, i said that i would come too. Actually, i was confused, and thought it was a totally different collaboration that was meeting there. and i didn't count on arriving there a day early and leaving a day late... Anyway, we DROVE out there, with Ben's boss and two other students. It was a loooooooooong drive.
it makes a lot of difference if you drive with friends/family, or with "colleagues". the former is a lot better... with work people, you get to talking about work most of the time, and when not, you learn about your co-workers things that you don't necessarly want to know.

Toronto itself wasn't that much fun. well, besides the meeting, that was sort of boring after the first day, we felt like we need to be "colleagueal" (is that a word? i learned it from ben), and followed other people to their choice of restaurants. that's how we ended up in an Ethiopian restaurant one day, an eclectic Italian the next day, and when we somehow escaped from everybody we ended up in the worst, most terrible, burrito place known to man.
Frankly, the only good places we found food on were a hot dog stand, an awesome sushi restaurant (too bad we found it only on the last day) and of course --- Tim Hortons. can't resist the maple dip donut... mmmmmmmmmm. it almost made the trip worth while. almost. not really.


the one half-day we had for some exploring, we wanted to go up to the CN tower, the tallest self sustaining building in the world, or something. unfortunately, we found out how much it cost, so we ended up just walking around. at least the weather was nice.


well, i sort of wish i didn't go, but at least i made it a little bit easier for poor ben, who also had to drive at least half of the way there and back.

I like the other Canada so much better!

The new place

it's pretty at 9D :)

here are a few pictures from our new apartment. we moved into it the day after coming back from israel (we were supposed to have a day's rest before, but our landlord asked that we move earlier...). moving wasn't that bad, considering that we only had to take everything 4 floors down in the same building (didn't even pack!), and almost all our furniture are from ikea, making it easy to take them apart and re-assemble in the new place, when they didn't fit in the elevator.
the new apartment has 1.5x the footage of the old one, but really feels like at least twice as large. there's room for everything, room for more than one person in the kitchen, and room for a proper dining table :) it faces south, west and east (yes, shlosha kivuney avir!)

above, an unsuccessful try to make a panorama view of our living/dining room (it's really too large for this kind of photography...)
there's our new view to the east, in daylight and during sunrise (yes, i was jet-lagged when i took that picture!)

our new dining table, kitchen, and the scroogim's bathroom (yes, they get their own closet! that's how much closet space we have now!)

i finally got a frame for that picasso poster i bought more than 2 years ago at the norton simon museum :) and i think there's some room for more art ;)

back to "normal"

it's been a week since we came back from israel, but it seems like a month. in the 7 days that passed we squeezed in so many things, that the trip to israel seems like a far, wonderful dream.

arriving home was exhausting for both of us. i had to pull my heavy suitcase through the airport and two trains, this being the first time ever that ben isn't there to drive me back from the airport, or at least take the train with me :)
ben, on the other hand, had to drive back from michigan, which isn't recommended if you had just landed after 15 hours in the air and a killing jetlag.
we arrived home almost at the same time, and happily found the scroogim to be very well taken of (and a bit fatter...).

the next day we had to move our apartment (see next post), cause our landlord Stella asked that we move one day earlier. that worked out fine for me, i was in no shape for concentrating on my work, but moving stuff doesn't require concentration... at least most of the time...

the next few days, i could enjoy the best view in our apartment -- jet lag had me waking up way before sunrise, which is just awesome. i missed this big orange blob over a large body of water (sigh. autumn sunsets from my 4th-floor TA apartment...). but i won't be doing the wake-up-before-the-sun thing for very long, at least until the sun decides to sleep longer hours.



the rest of the week isn't very memorable. things sort of blend into each other, naps taken at weird hours when my brain just shut down, and early mornings which are not in my nature... we went to work, drove to the suburbs to ikea and meijer to stock up, met friends, fell asleep on the couch twice during the same movie, cooked in our new kitchen, went for a run/walk on the lake, petted the scroogim. yawn. need to get over this jetlag!


p.s. we WILL blog about the trip to israel. it's just that there's so much to tell, so many pictures to sort through, that i'm now thinking to dedicate a webpage to the trip. Gary and i planned to do it together at israel, but there wasn't any down time there :) seems like we were doing something all the time!

Scrooge's Vacation

While we're here in Tel Aviv, we keep talking about the Scroogim. They're still in Chicago, and we know they're doing fine. Before we left for vacation to Tel Aviv, we had a minor crisis with taking care of the them: either drive them 300 miles to Michigan to my Dad's clinic, leave them at a pet-sitting place, have someone come and take care of them, or let them fight it out at home for 3 weeks alone. Options 1 and 2 were out because they don't do so well in the car, and they really like people, which are not very accessible at 1 and 2. Option 3 was pretty expensive, and they still wouldn't get to be around their human slaves enough. Option 4 would have been a mess unless we could teach them to flush the toilet, vacuum, pay the cable bill, and order pizza.

By chance, Keren bumped into our neighbors down the hall, Todd and Hiro, who love cats. Keren and I visited with them a few times, had a great time, and brought the Scroogim along. Everyone got along so well, and when the subject of vacation came up, Todd and Hiro were ecstatic to have the Scroogim for summer vacation/summer camp.

Here it is, September 1, and they've been with Tood and Hiro for 2 weeks. Gray and Black held still so Hiro could get a snapshot with the I-Phone (see left--thanks Hiro!). They're doing fine. No surprise. I guess we just miss our boys. When I get back, I'll shake their hands, and their Imma will give them 24 hours of hugs. Hiro and Todd will tell us about Scrooge Summer Camp. Then Gray will chew a shoelace in half and Black will poop in the bathtub, and it will be business as usual.