I'm in Netanya, Israel. On the 5th floor of a hotel across the street from the ocean. With a balcony. I love balconies. [photo]

The ocean is always west. (Significant to those of us who, growing up in Chicago, guided ourselves by the lake, always east.). But this balcony faces north and I am glad of that. North of me and one block in from the sea, Netanya is not an upscale place. South is a little different, as you arrive in a couple of blocks at Independence Square with its dancing waters light show and places to eat and shop. North and east of us, tho, Netanya seems to consist of a mix of solid old neighborhoods and somewhat dilapidated ones.

There are many elderly observant Jews here (likely Sanzer chasidim) and it is quite a center of Russian Jewish population. Also significant French, Ethiopian, Persian, and Anglophone Jewish communities.

So why the restaurant at which we we had a really good dinner last night is called "The Scotsman" (tho painstaking cut-and-paste with Google Translate yielded "Gifts of the Sea" as its Russian name) and why its menu is in Russian and English but not Hebrew remains a mystery...

But then again, every traffic circle our driver Nissim negotiated on our way here was called "[something] Square."

Which, in a nutshell, explains Israel, Palestine/the Palestinian Authority, and the Middle East in general.