Lions, and Tigers, and Bears...well not really, but close!

This weekend Ben and I went to the Hai-Bar Nature Reserve, which is about a 30-minute bus ride north of Eilat. Ben had been there before, but this was my first time. Because we didn’t go in a car we were not able to do the safari ride through the open spaces where the animals are more free, but we were able to see the predator exhibit. This is more like what you think of as a zoo, except that some of them have been rescued and are being rehabilitated, and others are being protected because they are endangered in the area. We saw some pretty crazy animals, and some that just make you laugh.

My favorite animal was the leopard because of its size. What a huge cat! The male cat strutted its stuff around the enclosed area for us and then made a really low grunting noise like it had a massive hairball! The tail was what really amazed me…it was so long and at the base it would take two hands to go all the way around. The female cat was cute (but that’s probably because she was sound asleep). She was lying against the fence with her legs in the air like Cosby and Maybe do when they sleep.

Now for my least favorite animal, and it's not the snake, that's mom's! If you don’t already know, I have an aversion to birds, it’s better when they are in cages usually, but with these birds the cage did nothing to dispel the fear (and actually this time disgust!). I was looking pleasantly at some furry little animals on one side of the path and then turned around to see what was on the other side…birds, big ones….vultures! Oh my goodness. My only experience with vultures until then was in the Lion King when the three vultures are sitting on a branch hopping around saying, “Whatch you wanna do? I don’t know, whatch you wanna do? Now, don’t start that again!” These were different, they were alive for one thing and seemed at least three times the size of the cartoons. One of them took flight across the enclosed (thank goodness) space and its wingspan seemed almost twice the length of my body! When it landed, it kept is wings outstretched and walked stealthily, lifting each massive foot high into the air with each step. To make things worse it traveled in this manner towards the decaying carcass of a calf and proceeded to drag the body in an attempt to rip off some of the skin. Wow, I didn’t like birds before, but this creature was especially unlikable. I made an attempt at impersonating the vultures’ eerie walk, but I have to say mine just looks goofy, whereas his was downright spooky.

Other Updates

Funny Moment: The other night I went to the little market near our house to get something for Ben because his stomach was hurting. The guy who works there knows us because we go there what seems like at least once a day. I was trying to ask him what to get for a stomach-ache but he wasn’t understanding so I put my hands on my stomach like I had a stomach ache. He gave me a pregnancy test!! It was pretty funny, we had a laugh, and I did end up walking away with some Tums. Aw, language.

Ulpan: Well, we did end up deciding that we couldn’t spend 6 hours of our lives each week with the horrible woman that calls herself a teacher, so we quit the class. However, quitting the class doesn’t mean we quit learning Hebrew. We are going to be working with one of Ben’s coworkers (or another private tutor if that doesn’t work out) because we still really want the help, just in a different environment. We feel pretty good about our decision even though it puts a slight hiccup in our learning, it just wasn’t worth the pits in our stomachs each time we went to class; we’d rather not learn Hebrew through fear and force.

Visa: The visa may take a bit longer to get. Unfortunately this time I have put Irina and Serge to work getting me more paperwork for the visa…it just seems to be endless. However, since I don’t know when I will be eligible for work, and even when I am I’m not sure about finding work, I went to the social services office yesterday to ask about being a volunteer. Here’s an example of how small Eilat is, when I told the woman where Ben works she told me her son works their too…Ben only has 3 coworkers! Anyway though, she was very nice and made it a point to tell me they like to place people for volunteer work where it will benefit the volunteers as well. So she is in the process of finding out if they can insure me (not being Israeli) and if so then she says she can most likely find a place for me working a few times a week in the schools with younger kids learning English. I think it could be good for me to have that experience. I have not heard back from her yet but hope to at some point this week.

Library: Last week I found the library. It’s heaven…there is a whole room of English books! I paid enough to take three books/DVDs out at a time and am so excited to have it available. I even looked for some of the authors I have been reading lately and found quite a few books by those authors that I have yet to read…how exciting!

I think this owl looks like Luna....what do you think? Kind of?