One Last Day in LA!

I LEAVE FOR ISRAEL TOMORROW. I can't believe it's finally here. I feel like I am somehow going to miss my plane, oversleep, or somehow forget that my flight is tomorrow. 

(On a related note, thank chickens I didn't go to Hume this past weekend. I would be stuck there tonight! First time I can ever recall a group actually getting stuck up there. It would have been a dream come true as a kid! And a...dream come inconvenienced nowadays. And ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE this year.)

But today was a lovely day. I had breakfast in bed for the first time, and then drove off to get a mani/pedi. 

First ever breakfast in bed! Grapefruit, eggs, turkey bacon, and a cinnamon roll.

Fun car we saw on the way to the nail salon

Pretty nails

Tonight there was more Settlers (I lost again, grumpy grumble) and we got to sous-vide the lamb we purchased yesterday. I've never heard of sous-vide-ing before, but essentially you vacuum-wrap an item (in this case, a piece of meat) and put it in a saucepan of water with the sous-vide. The sous-vide makes the water a certain temperature, which slowly cooks the meat and makes it very tender and juicy.



Before

 

After

You sear the meet at the very end, for texture.

Lots of cheese while we are sous-vide-ing!

Mmm, burrata!

I made mint sauce for the lamb

I made mint sauce, and there was also roasted carrots (dead-easy),and hasselbacked potatoes which are a little bit like an inside-out potato and a bloomin' onion had a baby. This was perhaps one of the best meals I've ever had, certainly one of the best I've had cooked in student housing. And it was pretty easy, too! Maybe I should invest in a sous-vide, too.

So tasty!



Fin.

And now we are sitting around, watching BBC America and, once again, relaxing. It is almost hard to remember that this is not normal, which I suppose is the ideal sort of vacation: when you completely forget about reality.

 

But this time tomorrow, I will be on my flight to Tel-Aviv from Newark, and then I'll be in a new country, on a new continent. I can't quite believe it is here. Maybe that is because I normally plan big trips like this for well over six months, whereas this time feels a little bit faster (only four months). But it is like those old Honda commercials imply: when opportunity comes knocking, then you come running. And I want to see Israel.

 

So off I go! Farewell, US. Next time I post will probably be on the other side of the country, and then: Israel!