Here are a couple of pictures from our tiyul last week to Tel Aviv. The second picture is of Ellen and me. Ellen is in our ulpan class; her husband Kalmon is the one who walks at least 3 hours every day in the hills around RBS ( Ramat Beit Shemesh). Ellen and I are getting to be pretty good friends. It's strange how we've all bonded in ulpan. We made a list of all our email addresses just before the tiyul, and 3 people ended up sending us pictures because we hadn't taken our cameras.

I can't believe I have to go to class tomorrow. We were supposed to write a story about our family, using only words we already know. I have no idea if the possessive pronouns I used are right and/or if I put the words in the right order (adjectives firsts, pronouns after). I think Sarah really just wants to see if we used the past tense (avar) correctly: I was, he was, we were, they were, etc. I wrote "Hamishpacha sheli b'Missouri b'artzot habrite. Ima sheli hayta akeret habayit, v'abba sheli haya et roka-ach. Anachnu garoo b'shekoonah n'im. Babayit shelanu yesh haginah aval lo haprakim, rach tzeemtim. Abba ain lo sefarim. Hu ahav lsha-chake im han-kdim. Achshav yesh li c'aiv rosh m'cotevet et zeh." (It's supposed to mean: "My family lived in Missouri in the US. My mother was a housewife and my father was a pharmacist. We lived in a nice neighborhood. Our house had a garden but no flowers, just vegetables. Father didn't have books. He loved to play with the grandchildren. Now I have a headache from writing this.")

I have a long way to go, don't I?

Wednesday night we got an SOS call from a friend living here from St. Louis. Her in-laws had come to visit for about 10 days and were supposed to have flown back that night, but all the municipal workers all over the country had gone on strike and there were no outgoing flights from the airport. She needed a place for them to stay Thursday and Friday nights. We have a pretty small apartment and not much privacy. It's okay for a couple of seminary girls or a yeshiva bocher (student), but this was a couple just a little older than us. But we said yes, and we ended up really enjoying their visit and having some great conversations. We actually knew them somewhat, but got to know each other better for the short time they were here. They left tonight for a 1 AM flight. Most of the time Nathanne and Richard stayed with their kids and grandkids; last night we all walked over to their house for Shabbos dinner. Today they walked over there for lunch and we stayed home by ourselves. David slept for several hours while I read and took Emma out to play in the park. I didn't even hold her leash; she just runs around and always come when I call. Five kids came running out when they saw her and she just let them all chase her for awhile. Once in awhile she'd stop and jump up on them and give them kisses and they all had a great time. We felt kind of bad that Emma barked at our guests the whole time they were here. She couldn't figure out who was invading her space and was very nervous. They were good sports about it.

The weather here has been absolutely gorgeous. Here it is the beginning of December and we have temps in the 70's during the day with not a cloud in the sky. And you guys in St. Louis with snow and ice - I'm so sorry! I don't miss the weather there at all.

It's almost 11:30; I'd better get to bed. If I'm still sleeping (or pretending to be) when David gets home from shul, he walks Emma; but normally I've already walked her and am already davening when he gets home. But that doesn't leave me much time to check my email, eat breakfast and relax a little before I have to leave for ulpan. Hopefully I'll wake up early and be ready to face the week!