long day, and the garbage's piling up

i got home at roughly 00.30. exhausted. barely able to keep my eyes open from just outside of afula.

i love receiving mail. last night's included a surprise bill for NIS 1000 from the "free" cellphone's company. let's just say i didn't sleep like the dead last night.

i got up 7.30, went to the city council (learning the hard why driving and parking in tel aviv's not something people enjoy. and waiting for five minutes at a red "left-turn" traffic light, before seeing the no left turn sign), and waited for half an hour. i didn't get what i went for - the ability to park our rented vehicle as a resident, and then rushed off to the cellphone company's headquarters.

more trouble parking.

eventually found the right place, waited for them to get their systems up, so that they could send me off to their customer service branch. hitting a peak in traffic, and having more trouble parking.

lots of helpful people sent me running around in completely the wrong directions - after 20 minutes i gave up, and discovered that i'd parked right next to the place.
brilliant.

after waiting some more, i had a rather pleasant encounter, and everything's supposed to be sorted out within the next two days.

theoretically.

finally began the journey to herzliyah. two lanes of traffic waiting for TWO turn-left traffic lights... and i noticed a no left turn sign on the lamppost. luckily, the traffic lights were correct this time.

took my mom to a museum in ramat aviv (involving a rather complicated run through a maze of unfamiliar streets), but it turned out we have to book in advance. so we took a bus to the heart of tel-aviv.

we walked slowly, mostly just sight-seeing... or people-seeing. whichever. on our way to a coffee shop in king george st., some kid bumped into me on his bicycle. i thanked him heartily, and two seconds later he clipped a little old woman's calf with one of his pedals, ripping a decent-sized hole.

at first she assumed i was her brother, and began shouting at me. when she realized her mistake, she let the little runt have it. i tried to be helpful, but my emergency situation hebrew is severely retarded, and i eventually gave up and just tried to find someone else to assist.

fortunately we had a volunteer. he was beginning to get things sorted out, when the old bat limped off, refusing any help. limping off with a really ugly, gaping wound.
lovely. i'm a little grossed out just thinking about it.

we all gave up, and carried on our journey. we took a pleasant stroll down sheinkin, sharing our distaste for some current fashion trends (bad taste and positioning when it comes to pants, these girls have). we went through the crafts market on nahalat benjamin, which had some simply *stunning* stuff - in particular glassware and a photographer selling some incredible stills fairly cheaply.

went to migdal hashalom, marvelled over the history of tel aviv and its scale model, and then made our way back to herzeliyah. had supper, began reading what promises to be fantastic (if you'll pardon the pun), the fairy-faith in celtic countries, and then left, homeward bound.

i've been retrieving things in bits and pieces, from the kibbutz, my old apartment, and my mom's luggage - my apartment is SERIOUSLY untidy, to the point where it's difficult to manoevre...

it's already 22.44, so i'm going to bed. with my book. and some salted liquorice. i'm doing alright.