Happy Valentines Day!

Nothin too excitin happened these past couple days so a quick run through should suffice. Pictures are now up on Picasa :) More comin soon

http://picasaweb.google.com/mkrakauer2

Thursday:
Another exam - got a 99 on the last one and hope I did well again!
A group of us are tryin to book a trip to Istanbul for the weekend of March 12- 15/16...In Israel its cheaper usually to book through a travel agency - but we're having a hard time find the right times of flights. Instead maybe a smaller group of us might just book online? Idk It winds up being the same price for a nicer hotel and transportation to and from the airport if we go through the agent. Maybe if we have enough people we can get our own charter?
At night we went to Friends - it was super crowded so I walked 10 blockes to a diff bar. Talk about a cool way to learn the city. We walked down Ben Yehuda St to where it intersected with Allenby. There are lots of travel agents down Ben Yehuda - including one thats in charge of Turkey - plan on goin back soon :)

Friday:
NO class!! Yay

We went to Dizengoff center - which is one of the biggest malls like everr..its 2 different buildings and has almost every kind of store..its alittle like an outlet but its really cool. On the main floor every Friday is like an International Food festival. There were rows and rows of buffet type food and people offering you free samples. It was mostly sephardic style food but there was sushi, mini crepes, free squeezed juice, chullent, chinese, italian pasta, kineshes, etc. I had a bowl of spicy rice, lentils, veggies, a persian meatball and some other stuff. Everything is pretty cheap and kosher! We want to come back all the time and just split stuff so you can try everything. MM..
Then right next store is this dog park where we spent atleast 30 minutes watching the dogs run around. Its a fenced in area and the Israeli dogs are so well behaved. it was adorable!!
We wanted to make a Shabbat dinner but the stores closed too early. Instead at night we explored the Namal which was pretty snazzy on a Friday. So many placeshave outside seating on the port next to the ocean - cant wait till its warmer!

Saturday:
BEACH! It was 70 degrees and hot! Instead of going to the downtown Tel Aviv beach, we walked to the local Ramat Aviv beach 35 minutes away. Its still very nice and the crowd tended to be the local suburban families enjoyin their shabbat day off. Some people were surfing - the waves were crazy! Apparently Herzilia has the nicest beaches - and we want to explore down there soon. WE only stayed for a couple of hours but I think I have a teensy bit of color - cant complain cuz it IS only February. :)

Happy Valentines Day everyone!! Hope its a great one!