Lentil Soup

So this morning, I woke and took the usual breakfast stop at the hotel before deciding what to do for the day, my blog was written at exceptional speed just for a change and I remembered the booklet I had been given by tourist information was sitting in my bag, so I took out the little green book of knowledge and started to read on all the things I could do if I had the time, which currently I do.

So when blogging was blogged I took myself to reception and asked Roni where I would find the buses I needed to see some of the sights I might like to visit. Roni then asked the security guard who gave me a big list of buses and where I could catch them, the lost in translation occurred again, he told me to go to the round square just down the road, what he meant was the roundabout, I love that things don't always translate the way they are meant to, it makes life very interesting, and quite funny too.

So I left the Hotel and went in search of the Post Office, it's not far away so I found it quite easily, but the queuing system was not so easy, take a ticket and wait, you would think that would be quite simple, but its not, people do not like to wait, and quite often people would walk in and walk straight up to any empty desk, so I waited my turn, 870 appeared on the board and I wandered up, the trouble was so did another woman, who happened to be 869, the lady at the till tried to explain that if she and her colleagues pressed the number button at the same time it would quite often miss a number. So the dilemma, do I let her go first, I did, I'm polite and anyway I was clever enough to take two tickets, so 871 was called and I went and purchased my stamps.

From here I wandered to Gal's bakery and settled to read my book with an Americano, the cakes in this little bakery are beautiful, I didn't take but I dribbled all over the display case. I like to sit and watch because that is how I have found out what to order, the delights that were delivered to my neighbours were mouth watering, and next time I'm in I will be ordering them.

I walked down the road and decided the weather was far too blustery for a day of walking the streets of Haifa, so I settled for a day of coffee hopping, so Panorama Centre was next, I went to Ego and Coffee next, and settled once again with my book, Jack and Jill, by James Paterson, I keep thinking I have maybe read this book before, but I persevered, the waitress came over and asked what I would like, I fancied soup today and she informed me the two choices were Vegetable or Lentil and Lentil was her favourite, so I settled on Lentil. Now having moved from Scotland to Israel Lentil soup is something we do very well, so I had my fingers crossed. When my soup arrived, the colour was not as it should have been, it was more muddly coloured and when I stirred my soup, the Lentils were not the orange but the brown Lentils, but the taste was lush and more earthy than Scottish Lentil soup, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I continued to read my book until my backside became numb and I need a toilet stop again.  I asked for my check and then was left with another issue, the check arrived with 12% added to the bottom, now as mentioned before you have to leave a tip in Israel and I was confused, if 12% has been added do I still need to add a tip, will I be chased out the road for my shekels.  I decided to ask google and he said if service is added you shouldn't leave a tip, so I didn't but let me tell you I walked very fast to the toilet........

So I walked back to the Hotel and settled on washing the smalls, this done, I continued reading my book  until my eyes said no, My Beloved arrived back earlier than I was expecting, mainly due to the fact that he had spent a day in Herzliya again, and by the time he was finished there was no point fighting his way across downtown in the traffic so he came home.  Poor lad was cream crackered and we decided to eat early because otherwise I would have to carry him home, he may be small, but is rather well put together and a firemans carry was out of the question.

My Beloved had an urge for Pate from Sleek, because he loves the bread that comes with it, unfortunately for him Sleek doesn't open until 8 pm, so we decided Barbarossa would be best, and we were right.  The Pate was lush and we took a small salad with it too, then came the dessert menu, I did, My Beloved didn't, that didn't stop him stealing some of mine, but I soon stopped that, with one LOOK.....

When we got back to the Hotel My Beloved was seriously flagging, so being so Crock and Crow we settled on pass and play scrabble on the ipad, but we couldn't even finish the game before I was loosing my fight with heavy eyelids, so lights out and night, night all.