Following yesterdays blog post and ice cold shower which was [dare I say] worse than a Jordanian shower, I had some what of a sleep-deprivation induced conniption which included a new apartment search, chatting with the parents about how to prevent flea bites [because we concluded they are, in fact, flea bites...shout out to Godzilla], and me researching where to buy cat poisoning in Israel. Just kidding about that last one, but I think its a much more discreet attempt at cat murder than the previous option of throwing Godzilla out of the window. Once I finally defeated jet lag and fell asleep, I awoke to a beautiful 2 pm "morning" in Jaffa, and all my previous worries from the night before vanished. I started off exploring my neighborhood, which turns out to be in an incredible location, half a block away from the famous Jaffa flea market, with tons of cute cafes and restaurants. I sat outside in the sunny 75 degree weather, people watching, drinking coffee and eating rugelach. From there I walked down to the beach path which was a lot closer than I expected, about a 2 minute walk through the flea market. Walking through Jaffa was great, being a mixed city there are Israeli Jews wearing nothing except a bathing suit and coverup, to Israeli Arabs, wearing a hijab and conservatively dressed. I walked along the beach path which is about a 2.8 km walk into the heart of Tel Aviv. Stopping in my favorite Israeli cafe, Aroma, I bought a salad and coffee [round 2] and decided to man up and practice my hebrew, which involved me saying "shalom" instead of "hello", and than shortly after, "ani lo medabarat evret"[I don't speak hebrew], following her Hebrew response. It's the thought that counts, right. I ran some errands in Tel Aviv, and visited a couple of familiar places, including the hostel which I love and have stayed at in the past. Yes, I was that desperate person who sat in the kitchen conversing with hostel-stayers attempting to make friends. However, it was fairly successful except that the people I ended up meeting were leaving tonight. Regardless I used their internet and shiroteem [bathroom, hey, there's another Hebrew word I know], and then headed back to Jaffa. As soon as I started hearing Arabic again I felt comfortable, like I could actually communicate with people if I needed to. Funny, being Jewish I never thought I'd be more comfortable speaking Arabic in Israel than I do Hebrew. I walked back through the Jaffa market and decided pick up some stuff for the apartment which my room was lacking. I'm not sure if I was more excited because I made friends with the Arab store worker, or because he gave me 20 shekels off, and my total ended up being the equivalent of $13 for about $40 worth of stuff in the states. I went to a small market across from my apartment to get the necessities [coffee and cereal] until I can make it to a bigger market tomorrow. As I was writing this, Ofir called me in to say he made me a burrito [I thought I was dreaming those words], which ended up being one of the best non-Californian burritos i've had. My burrito high was killed when I came back in my room to find damn Godzilla curled in a ball inside my suitcase. Buying cat poisoning tomorrow.