bed bug.

I will give a proper Eilat/daily life update soon. In the meantime, I've attempted to respond to some questions/comments I've received and tell you about last night's horrible bedfellow.

Eilat is a large city located at the most southern point of Israel. Egypt and Jordan can be seen from Eilat. It was a fun, but short, weekend--full of some amazing hikes. I'm still working out the kinks in my volunteering. I also don't think I'm being utilized to the best of my abilities. I'm finding that in order to be better utilized I really need to just tell them where I want to volunteer...so I'm seeing if there are any 'new' opportunities before, or if, I decide to head back to the high school (where I seemed to be of better use). Meanwhile, my Hebrew is thankfully improving--but I still have a long way to go. I feel healthy and well. The cold and rainy weather has started again. This is already, and continues to be predicted as, a horrible Israeli winter.

Only other news to report is of my the centipede that was in my bed last night. Shortly after getting into bed I felt something crawling on me. I hesitated for a few seconds thinking it maybe was my hair or blanket brushing against me, but soon jumped up, turned on the light, and found that there had been a centipede crawling on me. Needless to say I was completely grossed out and creeped out, so I called for reinforcements. By the way, this centipede was five-six inches. My roommate and an Israeli friend from the Kibbutz came to my rescue. We tore apart my bedding and looked everywhere, which isn't very much considering my room is extremely clean and organized (and small). I'm sure we spent about 45 minutes looking and not finding the centipede--I was starting to look foolish, the little girl who cried spider. As I finally decided to give up and go to bed, I took my sweatshirt off of the radiator--which was previously laying on my bed--and shook it out. Sure enough the centipede flew from the sweatshirt onto the floor.

Our friend from the Kibbutz says it is called a Nadal and, noticing the yellow on it's back, warned me this kind is poisonous. (They took it outside and killed it.) Tonight at dinner with my host family I asked them about the Nadal. Orr, the dad, said that the poisonous ones around here aren't nearly as poisonous as those located in southern Israel (don't ask me why). He said that you would know if you got bit, it would hurt, and upon protocol you'd want to go to the hospital. He said that basically it'd hurt but the poison could affect your heart and put you at risk for a stroke (thus the necessity to go to the hospital).

So anyway, that was disgusting. Just to reiterate, I am fine and was definitely not bit. The consensus is that it probably crawled in while our front door was open. (That or the little baby centipede I saw crawling around inside a few weeks ago grew into the five inch monstrosity that I saw.) Nobody thinks there are more in my place/bedroom.

That's all for now. Time for me to go to bed.