Furnished Apartment as Israelis

I intended to write a light-hearted email this week about my silly frustrations in our Israeli apartment, where the floor is so hard everything breaks and every piece of dirt can be seen and how I'm getting better at squeegeeing... 

Sadly, no one is feeling particularly light-hearted here in Israel right now.  With rockets, in the hundreds, being fired into southern Israel from Gaza and increasing Israeli military action in response, we see and feel the country entering war-time mode.  Mostly we don't feel any of the tension up here in Haifa, but we do feel the indirect effects.  One of our new friends, who was supposed to be joining us for Shababt lunch this weekend, got called up for reserve duty, along with 30,000 other Israelis.  We will be thinking about him and all our friends in the south a lot this weekend.

In war-time-related news, we also picked up our gas masks this past week.  As Israeli citizens, the government gives us our very own gas masks in case of chemical attack.  Here is a picture of Matt showing off our new acquisitions and feeling quite Israeli.

 On a happier note, we will be hosting our first meals this Shabbat and hosting an overnight Shabbat guest.  It is nice to finally be on the giving side and not just the receiving side of people's hospitality.  We (read:I) did a lot of cooking and are really happy to show off our new digs to our new friends.  Here are some pics of the place all decked out, including our house-guest (check out the old pics of the empty apartment for the full effect).

We wish a safe and happy weekend to all,
Stef and Matt