A very thoughtful and frustrated furloughed civil servant shares her experiences here:
http://bettefrank.blogspot.co.il/2013/10/day-6-sunday-october-6-2013.html

Definitely worth reading.

Tarragona 2013

I spent 4 days in amazing Tarragona, Catalonia, for the Spanish-Portuguese Microscopy Society meeting. Our hosts were gracious, the meeting was interesting, I was very pleased with the lecture I gave; an overall great visit. Best of all, our time coincided with the Santa Tecla Festival; their big blowout annual fest. Catalans are proud people with many old traditions and we were exposed to a lot of them. Dancing and exhibitions in the streets, concerts, human castle-building (see pictures). We were also given a guided tour of the city, which is built among and within the ancient Roman city of Tarraco, which was the Roman capital of its Iberian empire, and is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Our hotel was right in one of the central squares, the Placa de la Font. Our room faced the Plaza, and man was it noisy! 
I've posted a lot of pictures from Tarragona; you can find them on google+ 

Summer slogs on...

Every September, I think that the heat CAN'T go on!  I'm sick of air-conditioning, sick of no air-conditioning, sick of sweating, drinking so much water, the heat the humidity OMG.....

And yet,  2 days ago I was on the beach near my house at sunset, swimming in the clear warm sea, the clouds a brilliant orange, sipping a beer at a beachside cafe.  
There is an upside, I guess....

Everything in this country is politics, even funerals

Yesterday I was at the funeral of an elderly relative of my husband's.   As with everything in Israel (like Daylight Saving's time - see previous post), it was a political statement in itself.

In Israel, burials are controlled by the religious authorities. So if you're Jewish (as around 75-80 of the citizens are), you have been pretty much forced to bury your dead in the municipal graveyards, controlled by religious authorities. The burial is strange for Americans to see. The ceremony is outside under a simple canopy at the entrance to the cemetary. Everyone stands; no seating is available. The men and women are usually separate.  No microphone. You can't hear if you're not close.  Then after the (usually simple and brief) ceremony, everyone goes on foot to the site of the burial.  The body isn't in a box, but wrapped in a white shroud.  At the gravesite, the attendants jump into the hole, and lay the shroud into the ground by hand; no electrically driven elevator silently lowering it down, but real men working hard to get an object wrestled into a deep hole in the ground. Its rather brutal and very very direct.  I was shocked the first few times I saw it. 
  Yesterday, the daughter of our relative chose an "alternative" cemetary, which is supposed to cater to the needs of those who oppose the religious authorities dicating to us, or also those who aren't Jewish, or who's jewish credentials aren't "kosher" enough for the authorities.   It was beautiful. Plants, green grass, trees,  chairs for the ceremony, bottled water on hand, and even a pine box with the elevator at the gravesite. Wow....      It felt like we were making a political statement just by attending the funeral; defying those who dctate how we bury our dead.
     

personal stuff out - blog postings are NOT sacred

Well, I just butchered this blog. I know, I know, somehow you're not supposed to touch previous blog postings. But I say,this is my blog and I can do what I want, right?    I decided to take personal stuff out.  I hardly post here, and think its partly because I was uncomfortable with the intimacy level. But on the other hand, sometimes I have things to say that are too lengthy or too political for Facebook.  So I'll try here for a change.  So if you didn't read the personal details. too late!

So as I did complain already on FB,  we here in Israel already had Daylight Savings Time finish yesterday. This happens EVERY YEAR before Yom Kippur so that the religious don't suffer too much fasting. We waste millions of shekels, waste tons of energy that could be saved if we just kept it going. In fact, we should have DST all year long, as far as I'm concerned. Even in the dead of winter, it's light by 6AM here.  When I travel to Europe in winter, I'm always shocked that its still dark at 8AM.  But its a political matter, pure and simple. Someday it may change, but when?  This year there was an internet petition protesting the early rollback, with 250 thousand signatures. Not enough yet.

The Nobel for Ada Yonath and other matters

I've been a research scientist for 25 years, and for most of them have known Ada Yonath, and have even worked with her occasionally.  So of course its very exciting to see her on theTV in Stockholm, on the brink of getting the Nobel Prize in Chemistry tomorrow.  I know her pretty well, and can see the strain of being constantly in the spotlight, constantly interviewed. But she's handling it with pretty good grace, and I was thrilled to see members of her lab, especially her long-time colleague Anat Bashan, in the background there. Apparently quite a crowd travelled over there!

  Here's to you, Ada, and your long-held vision of what could be possible. You've been a daring, hard working scientist. Creative, fearless and generous.  Tomorrow we'll be cheering you!  See you back at home!


Many other things have been adding up to a very calm state of mind,  one that is so surprising for me. To actually look at life and feel good and calm, and not want to change anything.  True grace (at least for now)...

Pelicans on the move

Today I drove with a colleague up the coast, towards Haifa.  Near the fish ponds of Ma'agan Michael, we saw hundreds and hundreds of pelicans flying in flocks, circling the ponds.  It was enchanting