My favorite thing...Food!

Since food is a major part of my life back home, I decided to do a blog about the food I'm having here in Israel. I eat very differently back home than I do here because the options are limited and it's hard to get full. At 5am before we head to the dig site, there are coffee and pastries downstairs waiting for us. My favorite is the crossiant with the chocolate swirls in it. Not really breakfast but you have to eat a bunch to be prepared to dig for 3 hours. 

Breakfast comes at 8 to 830 and is definitely not you're typical American breakfast. It usually consists of cheese slices, salami, tomatoes and cucumbers, cottage cheese or yogurt/sour cream mixture, boiled eggs and pita bread. We eat lots and lots of pita bread. And you have to eat a ton or you won't make it through the dig! 

I usually save my apple and eat it as a snack later in the day because lunch doesn't come until close to 2pm. 

Lunch is provided by the hotel and always has an assortment of things to choose from. Hummus, olives and cucumber and tomato salad are always the cold bar options. Today we had a traditional Palestinian meal called "Makrubi" which is upside down chicken. Basically they put chicken, califlower and carrots in the bottom of this huge pan and the cover it in a ton of rice and cook it for 8-10 hours. The staff and chef were very excited to share it with us and it was delicious. I ate way too much!

Upside down!

Makrubi

Dinner is outside the hotel and you have to go find somewhere to eat. The first night we went to a little place right down the street and all ate together. We all had "schwirma" for dinner. This is chicken or beef or another kind of meat stacked up on a pole and roasted all day. They cut the meat off in shreds and stuff it in a pita  with all kinda of toppings. We had meat schwirma that I personally didn't like but if give it another chance if it was chicken. Luckily we met an Armenian man today who told us where to get good schwirma and falafel!

Today I learned how to say good morning in Arabic and thank you in Hebrew. Again, please excuse the spelling. It's all I can do to pronounce them, let alone spell them. 

Merhaban: good morning

Todo: thank you 

Also, when you say thank you (shukran) to someone who speaks Arabic, they do respond with you're welcome: 

Afwan: you're welcome

Now everyone has a good set of Arabic words in their heads!