Saturday night

[cellio]

I'm writing this Monday night from K'far Giladi, a kibbutz a few miles north of Kiryat Shemona, which is in pretty much the northernmost tip of Israel. I haven't found any evidence of network access so far.

Saturday night after havdalah I called zachkessin, with whom I'd played unsuccessful phone tag Friday afternoon. (Aside: Friday night I saw that I had a message, so I went to the front desk. The clerk of course greeted me in Hebrew; I responded in English, asking about a message. He then said something that turned out to be "Zach called", but with his accent and the fact that we'd just been in Hebrew, I heard "zeh kol" -- which I couldn't make sense of in this context, though those are perfectly reasonable words elsewhen. When I got more of the message I understood what had happened and was able to laugh at myself.)

Anyway, he drove to the hotel soon after and we headed off to the event, which was in Alter and Naomi's apartment. (I think they're on LJ; I welcome a reminder of who they are.) On the way we made a quidk grocery stop, and Zach handed me a bag -- bag! -- of chocolate milk and insisted I had to try it. I asked about a drinking vessel, and he asserted that you don't pour it into something; you drink it from the bag. I wasn't sure if he was pulling my leg. It did work, more or less, but it's an acquired skill. The chocolate milk was very good, though, so it was worth the effort. (He rightly pointed out that it's easier to pack for shipment in bags, and another of my US-centric assumptions fell by the wayside.)

Then we headed off to the event. I think there were 22 people there in all -- friendly and cozy. Alter is, mundanely, an archeologist, so he showed me his collection of pottery pieces. You can't go anywhere in Israel without encountering pot shards, I'm told, but he goes on digs for the interesting ones. He also showed me a big chunk of something I thought was quartz; it was salt. He was kind enough to give me a small piece of glazed Byzantine pottery to take home.

When I arrived they were just getting ready to paint dreidls, so I joined in. They've got several talented artists -- the moreso given that we were improvising brushes. I wonder if any are scribes (or interested in becoming scribes); I didn't think to ask at the time.

The feast, cooked by kmelion (and I also saw joshbrown in the kitchen a lot), was wonderful. It was fish and dairy, so we had more of the great cheeses I've encountered here at breakfast every day. The fish (I think she said "saint peter's fish", which I don't know -- a white fish of some sort) was very tasty; she stuffed and covered it with herbs and baked it with olive oil. There were also other yummy dishes, including latkes (not with potato) -- after all, it was "8th night", though it missed the actual 8th night by one day due to Shabbat. Oh, and one item that turned out to be purchased, and I'd love to find this in the US: little pickled eggplants, about the size of olives. They were great! And I could get eggplant easily even though Dani hates it. (It's too much trouble to cook just for myself.)

There was a lot of good conversation, and I enjoyed meeting everyone. They had another visitor from overseas (England, I think). They had intended to play dreidl, but we never quite got to that before people had to leave.

I recommend the hospitality of the Shire of Ma'ale Giborim to any other SCA folks who travel here.

Comments

[cellio]

I really enjoyed the chance to visit with you and meet your shire. You have a lot of good people there.

I still don't know which night, if either, we're free later this week; the phrase "itineraries are living documents" has been used a lot. Please don't decline other plans on my account because I have no idea if we'll be able to hook up. I probably won't know anything until Wednesday. I'm sorry. (Internet access in K'far Giladi is challenged, so don't assume I'll see a return comment and I haven't seen my email at all.)