An Interesting Day

With the help of Yakov Schreibman from Galron, who also happens to be Vice President of the hospital, today I went to Jerusalem for an interview at Hadassah Hospital (at Ein Kerem) for a job involving translating pamphlets, bulletins and press releases from Hebrew to English, and to work on the English part of their website. A week ago they gave me two documents to translate and they evaluated the translations today. (I subscribed to a translation service, and ran the text through that first, just to get the idea of the document then did my best.) They liked it, gave me one more test "on the fly" which I passed, so I am hoping to hear that they want to hire me--my "day job!" We will see.

After the interview I changed clothes, and went to explore the biblical village of Ein Kerem. In addition to being a village rich in Christian history, considered to be the birthplace of John the Baptist. There are several monasteries and historic churches there, but they were all closed when I was there. So I found an interesting set of stone stairs, and climbed and climbed. On my way I saw ancient stone houses built right into the mountain, with tiny courtyards behind iron gates, riots of pink and purple bouganvilla, iron shutters and doors painted turquoise. I found several artists' studios, one of a painter, and one of a ceramicist, with gorgeously colored, meticulously detailed tiles and jewelry. I went down one really narrow alley and could hear someone playing a flute or recorder--very sweet sounds. But it was really hot, so I finally went back to the hospital (to clean up and change clothes, yet again, for a performance by Galron!)

We did 7 songs throughout a lovely ceremony to dedicate a new auditorium to be used for teaching by the emergency room staff. One surgeon made an imaginative, funny, interesting presentation chronicaling the changes in equipment used for teaching medicine over the years--complete with a glance at ancient and medieval paintings on the subject, every one of which had all of the observers watching the teacher, not the body in front of them! Oh it was funny! He took 10 minutes, and we would have been happy with 20! (We all know how unusual that is!)

I sang the solo in the "gospel" "Garden of Peace" and afterward I must have had 25 people stop me and say how they enjoyed it, and the rest of the music by Galron. It is amazing how people respond to our performances! I enjoy them more, now that I know most of the words, and most of the choreography!

Driving home down the pine-studded hills around Jerusalem in the late summer sunset I could the sky as it turned that inimitable Mediterranean pinky-goldy-pale blue the color that Jerusalem stone holds and reflects. I love living in a place where the sky does that!