A few weeks ago, my friend Rani invited me out for coffee to meet his neighbor. Apparently, he discovered that a non-Jewish journalist named Kathrin from Germany is living next door to him while on assignment. “She has a blog…you have a blog…” The three of us went out along with our friend Michal B. and chatted with Kathrin about Israel. I felt as if I was representing the entire country when explaining to her the diversity of the people, political opinions, levels of religious observance, etc. Well, I was. Her English was fairly good and I tried to put my best face on the place we’re both living in.
Just go here and plug in this.
Select “German to English” and have fun. Anyone know what a mad contact stock exchange is?
By the way, the highlight of the evening was when I asked her if she knew who Dirk Nowitzki was (which of course she did). That made for a fun few minutes of chatting.
On a completely unrelated note, I have to tell you something but you have to promise not to tell my roommate that I told you. She was telling me what to do the other day, to the effect of “you were sick last week so I cleaned by myself, now you’re going to clean”. She then proceeded to instruct me how one is to clean the apartment (I was under the impression that I knew already. Apparently not…check THIS out…) She takes the toilet brush, sticks it in the toilet, scrubs, THEN USES THE SAME TOILET BRUSH TO CLEAN THE SINK. Umm…did I dream that? I asked two of my friends if that’s normal here. This is basically how they answered.
She of course thinks I’m the idiot foreigner.
I promised my friend/boss Michal A. that I would say that she was disgusted and that Israelis do NOT do this. I can’t wait to learn what “they don’t do” next.
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