Dimona in the Central Bus Station

So first of all, yesterday after coming back to Jerusalem after spending a day in Tel Aviv I had to go through security at the Central Bus Station in Jerusalem. After I went through the metal detector I waited for my friend’s enormous bag to be searched. I looked around and saw that the bag scanner (like they have at airports for carry-on bags) was not working today, but I saw that next to it was a very large cardboard cut-out of Asi Cohen. Who is Asi Cohen? I guess he’s sort of like the Israeli Will Ferrel (maybe not as big as that) or Seth Meyers or something….if I’m not mistaken he’s a performer on Eretz Nehederet, which is kind of like SNL except not on Saturday. And maybe not even live…I’m not really sure.

Anyway, originally “Assi” was holding a sign announcing an upcoming performance, but the security personnel at the Central Bus Station took the cardboard cut-out after the show and put over the sign he was holding a new piece of paper that said, “Please don’t stick your hands into the [x-ray] machine.”

I thought this was kind of amusing, so I whipped out my phone and tried to take a picture. I was right about to snap it when suddenly a voice called out from behind me something like, “IT’S FORBIDDEN TO TAKE PICTURES FOR SECURITY REASONS!”

I turned around I found myself staring at a big scary security supervisor guy. I couldn’t tell if he was joking, so I just kind of stared at him for a few seconds until he held out his hand and said, “May I delete the picture?” Except he wasn’t really asking for permission.

Caught off guard, all of my Hebrew flew right out of my head. I kept trying to say in Hebrew that I didn’t take a picture, but pretty much all that came out was the equivalent of, “I….I….I…..I—“ Finally the words came out, and the guard just kind of waved me away and that was the end of that.

But now I’m actually really pissed off. What the hell was wrong with taking a picture?
Oh no, the terrorists are going to know that we have a carboard cut-out of Assi Cohen guarding the x-ray machine! It’s just ridiculous.
You know where else they don’t let you take pictures in Israel? At the “secret” nuclear facility in Dimona.

Now I’m beginning to suspect that we don’t actually have nuclear facilities in this country, but rather heavily guarded factories for cardboard cut-outs of Assi Cohen.

All I know is, if I can’t take pictures of Assi Cohen guarding an x-ray machine…then the terrorists have already won.


Anyway, yesterday I spent the day on the beach with a friend and a friend of a friend. It was actually rather bizarre. People were playing “Beach Pong” everywhere, and one woman in particular looked like she took the game a little too seriously. She had a six-pack, and was even wearing a sport glove on her paddle hand. She had a sports visor and was grunting away like Serena Williams….. And all this struck me as very bizarre. Calling the Israeli game of beach ping pong (minus a table/net/everything) a sport and taking it seriously is kind of like calling Catch a sport. No, BASEBALL is the sport, Catch is a way of practicing one aspect of baseball.

So this was my first tanning experience. I actually didn’t really know it was going to be a tanning experience. I suggested, “Let’s go to the beach!” and to me that meant maybe getting our feet a little bit wet, maybe sitting for a bit, and then calling it a day and going off to do something else. Maybe this is because I’m from Los Angeles, and so going to the beach is not exactly a special full day event. Going to the beach was something I could do every day right after school if I felt like it—but I rarely felt like it. The people I was with, however, are not from areas of the United States with nice coasts. Going to the beach for them meant lying out on towels in bikinis for hours at a time, trying desperately to tan as much as possible because apparently the sun is going to be extinguished tomorrow.

I suppose my first clue as to the nature of our trip to the beach should have been when we were leaving the apartment. I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt and one of the girls said, “Aren’t you going to put on a bathing suit, Sam?” And I laughed as though that were a ridiculous suggestion and said, “Why? I’m not planning on going swimming.”


My mother and her side of the family have lovely skin that is difficult to burn, but I, unfortunately, have the skin of my dad’s side of the family, which is mostly Irish/Scottish. Meaning, my skin is actually transparent until I step out into the sun for 1 second or more, at which point my skin turns bright red. Tanning is not really something that is encouraged for people like me…rather, people like me are encouraged to pursue the same things a vampire might pursue.
The people I was with, though both Ashkenazi like me, had somehow tanned enough that they could easily pass as African Americans.

And so we sat for about an hour…. Me in my shorts and t-shirt and 5000 SPF sunblock, and them in nothing but bikinis. Eventually I decided that I was going to be a tomato (or lobster, as a friend of mine used to call me in high school whenever I got embarrassed and my face turned bright red) if I didn’t get up soon, and I ended up walking around Tel Aviv by myself. As much as I dislike Tel Aviv, I actually really like walking around it because unlike Jerusalem there are pretty much no hills.

As I walked around I bumped into an enormous group of punks standing around the fountain on Dizengoff…. It was actually rather amusing, because there was maybe like 50 people with mohawks of various sizes and colors, and they were all preparing to board a tour bus to somewhere. Where do large groups of people with strange piercings and chains and such go for vacations? Is there a travel agency that specializes in things like this?

Anyway, about 2 hours after I left my friends on the beach they called and said they were done tanning. I suspect they would have tanned longer, but the sun was starting to set at that time. And so that was the end of my tanning experience….. next time I think I won’t go with experts, but with vampires like me.


Anyway….on Sunday I’m taking a day trip to Haifa, which I’m excited about. It’s partially a day of fun and partially a day of figuring out where the hell I’m going to live. I need to find a cheap place to live after ulpan, and pretty much the only sizeable, convenient cities that are within my budget are Beer Sheva and Haifa. Or, if I really wanted to stay in Jerusalem, I could share a single room with a couple Haredi girls….or maybe a cupboard all to myself in Tel Aviv….because those also fall into my budget. So Sunday I’m going to Haifa to visit a couple apartments and then probably later in the week I’ll be in Beer Sheva. WOOOOOOOOT.