icebrrrg.com

up at a reasonable hour on tuesday (7am!) for a drive out to ein gedei – a spa on the dead sea. we popped out to the back where there were two lovely tubs of mud available. cris, pat and i got out their first, and i was *ahem* lucky enough to snap a few shots of their frolicking. frolick, gentlemen, frolick! the others came out and then there was generaly dirtiness — with the goal being lustrous skin and a new sheen to the pelt, er, hair. the mud was cold, very very cold, but that didn’t stop us from a bit of mudwrestling.

you’re supposed to let it dry, but the cold winds cut it short a bit — so it was a good idea to hit the sulfur showers. it was *not* a good idea to get any hot sulfur water in the eyes. into the spa to shower and back to the resort, pack up, and off.

we stopped at a macdonald’s .. fascinating, it was very similar to the ones back home. although the counter worker had a new and interesting way of taking and managing orders. on the road again, back to jerusalem, for lunch at the consulate.

we met the folks our hosts work with, and heard all sorts of interesting stories, including the one about the poorly-made grenade being thrown over the wall and sitting there for months — it landed in a tree, and the dogs couldn’t sniff it out. when it was found, the israeli bomb squad came … one israeli specialist walked up, looked at it, and kicked it. the marines all took a big step back. turns out it was a big ol’ dud — still, yet another new and interesting way to do something!

we had the bestest armenian pizzas and palestinian pizzas (both are called sfiha), some of laila’s homemade hummous, some yummy shatta (made from peppers) … and got to take it all home for us. which was great, as dinner was about 3 hours later (pasta and meatball spice). we had a speaker, who told us about the early situtation of the iraq invasion, and how the US markets itself to the local communities in places like israel and iraq.

quote of the day: “this invasion will be business casual”