Day 28

Last day at work. Dinner with Hod and his French friend.

This morning I called Egged Tours to find out the bus schedule from Tel Aviv to Cairo, Egypt. The bus leaves everyday at 8:30AM. The lady there also said we would need to get a visa at the embassy, which is only open from 9-11AM. That is unfortunate, because it means we can't get the visas before the bus leaves, and it will take us an extra day to get to Egypt.

My father wrote me an email to let me know that something was wrong with the pictures that I had just uploaded to the website, so I went to Superstudio today to make use of a faster internet connection to figure out the problem. It turns out, for some reason my FTP program had added an additional suffix onto all the files that I uploaded, which was confusing web browser clients. I deleted all the extra suffixes and the pictures came out fine.

While I was there, I had a chance to see a few people again.

• Zeev still couldn't get the Kurdish lamb heart off his mind.
• Fabienne was playing detective to find out who set the photocopier on fire.
• Hod couldn't understand why we wanted to go to Egypt when there is so much more in Israel to see. He also said his brother and a friend from France were visiting, and asked us to join them for dinner later that evening.
• Kenny was very helpful by elaborating on what there is to see and do in Israel.

I've decided to take a back seat in our vacation plans, and let Angie choose what she would most like to see while she is here. Her plane leaves on the 26th, which doesn't leave us much time to get into Egypt, see all we want, and get back in time for her to make the plane. If there is more that I want to see after she is gone, I can always go there on my own.

We met up with Hod and his friend from France in Emek Rafaim, a town just southeast of Jerusalem. His brother couldn't come because he had to babysit. We chose a table at an outdoor cafe with a gas heater outside - it was getting a little chilly.

Over omelettes, salads, soups, and crepes, Angie and I enjoyed hearing about Israel from the viewpoints of an Alabama native, and a Frenchman who is currently serving his term in the French Army. After his immigration to Israel, he will have to serve an additional term in the Israeli Army.

Angie asked Hod for the three main differences he encountered in his move to Israel from America, and he summed it up as:

• Americans know how to drive.
• no football
• more Jews

After returning home, Angie and I made plans to drive to Tel Aviv in the morning and obtain our visas for entrance into Egypt.