Shana Tova (Happy New Year)

I've been informed that my next blog post is well overdue, so here goes.

I had a very nice Rosh Hashanna, spending the first night with my Israeli cousins who are living here and the second night with Australian friends.

My cousin Eli and her husband Bris hosted a dinner for about 12 people, 10 of whom were Israeli. It was a lovely night, and I also had the opportunity to see Eli's sister, Michal,(both pictured right) who I had not seen since she was in Australia at my sister's wedding. As I was only one of 2 that were not native Hebrew speakers, I was a little bit out of the conversation,

but I managed to pick things up here and there and even managed to offer the salt when someone requested the "melach".

I managed to contribute to the conversation much more on the second night with my friends Dani and Tom Hersz, but sorry, no photos were taken.

Workwise, things have slowed down a little as I finished my project. I have not worked very much this past week and I am hoping things will pick up again this week as I only get paid for the hours I work!

I took the opportunity of the time off to go shopping and acquire a good portion of my "fall" wardrobe. Despite what it seems like when you first get here, there doesn't seem to be a huge variety of options when it comes to clothing stores here. Either you go for the chain stores of Club Monaco, Zara, Banana Republic etc who have decent to high prices or you go to the various boutiques around the city and pay exorbitant prices, like $350 for a sweater. Another alternative is Macy's, the equivalent of Myer which has some ok stuff, but when I was on my way there I discovered a great store with really cool clothes for very reasonable prices. I bought 4 jackets there! And they get new stock in 3 times a week, so I imagine I will become quite a regular there.

If you're interested, I have started to build my own Google Map of my favourite places in NY. I will keep adding to it as I find more cool places to shop, eat, drink etc.

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