A Hiatus of Sorts

I have really let the ball drop on my blogging the past couple of weeks. I've been busy, but it's the kind of busy that if you asked me what I had been doing, I wouldn't really have a good answer for you. And I am leaving in 20 minutes to go to the airport, which signals the beginning of my 2-week vacation to Israel, so I imagine that things are going to get worse before they get better. I have been keeping a list of things to post about, so I will get all caught up when I get back. Tonight I get to look forward to spending the night in the Amman, Jordan airport. It turns out that most of the Gulf countries have a pretty healthy disregard for Israel, and it is really hard to get a flight with decent connections in to Tel Aviv. I have to make sure that customs in Israel don't stamp my passport (they need to stamp a piece of paper I have paper clipped inside), because if I have an Israel stamp, chances are that Bahrain won't let me back in. Bahrain and Israel are not friendly neighbors. A few examples: there are many people here who want to ban Starbucks because it supports organizations that are friendly towards Israel, one of my coworkers was told that they stopped carrying her favorite variety of Toblerone in all of the grocery stores because Israel started importing it too, and... I guess I can just think of two examples right now. In other news, Gaza called off their cease fire with Israel last night, so I am hoping that things stay somewhat peaceful while I am there (and after that, too). I hope that everyone has a wonderful Christmas, and I will post all about my adventures when I return!