I asked Sh. yesterday what Arizona was like. She said that it was supposed to be really beautiful. "Arizona is where many people retire to", she said. Later, when I was asking her about the weather, she said that it was very hot. "This is one of those places where old people die every time there is a heat wave, because they don't have an air ( Read more... )

I've been doing some babelfishing from German and Dutch. Here are some quotes ( Read more... )

I tried to order tiramisu in a restaurant in Florence. The waiter asked me whether I'd noticed that it was "tiramisu di kaki". Tiramisu di kaki? - I tried not to laugh very much. Yes, he said. What kind of kaki? - I asked. Kaki, he said, it is a fruit. What kind of fruit? Round and red, like this (he pretended to hold a tennis ball). Sort of like ( Read more... )

באתי מלוס אנג'לס לירושלים ובירושלים פגשתי את ניר ששאל אותי כל מיני שאלות על החיים בל"א, ובין היתר "של מי אתה חבר?". התפלאתי על נוסח השאלה, מניתי כמה אנשים ואז אמרתי: "תגיד לי של מי אתה חבר ואגיד לך של מי אתה?". והתעוררתי

We noticed that the "jam people" stopped indicating the date of production of the jam. The new jars say exclusively the expiration date. Probably they are trying to save themselves the annoyance of having conversations with people like me, who can't tell the difference between the two. Or maybe they are being nice and are trying to save us the ( Read more... )

People ask me sometimes: what do you do all day? Well. This.

Guilt works! It's been only about a week since I started posting my Portugal stories one after the other, and - here we go - I receive and email from H. "Yes, I am very busy indeed, yaba, yaba, yaba. But here is one story - you can post it to anafazim, if you wish. I forgot the password ( Read more... )

Last Saturday, I finally got this year pear jam. We came to the market sufficiently early, and - yes, he had it! Freshly made and delicious. When he handed me the jar, I was looking at it with fascination and anticipation of how awesome my reqeijão breakfasts were going to be from that point on (have had two of them since - awesome indeed ( Read more... )

Once we locked ourselves out (forgot the keys in the keyhole inside. For some reason, it was possible to lock the door, but not to unlock it). At such moments I always wish I had taken some lessons from fellow mathematicians whose hobby it is to pick locks - I know at least two people who are quite good at this. In fact, one can take an online ( Read more... )

In Portugal everything and everybody is very slow. If there is one person in front of you in a supermarket or a self-service cafe, there is absolutely no upper bound to the amount of time you will stand in that line. First the customer will take forever to find out what they want or where their stuff is. Then the person behind the counter will take ( Read more... )