The other morning, I was dashing out of the house my usual 5 minutes late for Ulpan. When I got to the next cross street south, a man in uniform suddenly appeared in traffic and motioned for the guy in front of me to stop. "Great, I thought. A registration/insurance check is JUST what I need right now!" Unlike in the US, it is perfectly legal for the police to pull you over for the sole purpose of making sure your car really belongs to you, and that you have insurance. I was starting to worry how I was going to explain having David's car, which I had grabbed because it was parked behind mine in the driveway; when I realized that he was part of Bibi Netanyahu's security force, not a regular policeman.

We waited for what seemed like forever, and finally a motorcade of at least 7 cars and official SUV's came whizzing through and we were allowed to proceed. What I found funny was that it was obviously an official group of cars; (and everyone in Caesarea know's that Bibi spends his weekends here, whether they agree with his politics or not) at every single roundabout, someone pulled between the last SUV and the final sedan, which had a couple of security guys in it. You could see the frustration as they'd have to pass the interloper to catch back up with the convoy, then the process would repeat itself a couple hundred meters down the road. I breathed a sigh of relief on their behalf when I saw the last car turn onto the freeway entrance ramp to head back to Jerusalem, where the government is located.

My teacher got a laugh when she was using the sentence "I'm sorry I was late, it didn't depend on me" as an example in class. I was able to say "Ani mitztaeret sh'bati meuhar; ze talui b'Bibi" - translated: I'm sorry I was late, it was Bibi's fault

Completely off the subject, but I had to post a picture of Moshe's latest lounge spot. He is still not convinced that swimming is a proper way to cool off. He favors leaving his rear end on the pool deck and "standing" with his front paws in the shallow water of the first pool step. It's not a wonderful picture, I took it with my cellphone through a window screen; but it gets the idea across. He'll sit like this for hours if nothing more interesting is going on. I'm sure the pool guys wonder why that first step is always so dirty!