Ma Neeshma?

You must be wondering what the title means if you dont happen to know hebrew. It means Wassup!! Somehow I, like others, have a fascination of asking anybody and everybody wassup! And this habit didnt change when I came to Israel for a short term. First time coming to a non-english speaking land had me anxious about the trip. My fascination increased day after day about everything native to Israel. First of all, the script is written right to left. The language sounds beautiful even if you dont understand it. There is a lot of "kh" and "h" sound in the words. For e.g. a few of the words:
1. Boker Tov - Good Morning (the k is pronounced somewhere in between k and kh)
2. Tzohorayim Toveem - Good Afternoon
3. Erev Tov - Good Evening (pronounced as er-hev tov)
4. Ma Shlomchah - How are you (male) (shlom kh'ah)
5. Ma Shlomech - How are you (female) (shlom ekh')
The second thing about Israelis is the patriotism they have for their country. I came to know that everybody is obligated to serve in the armed forces (3 years for guys and 2 years for girls) after their graduation. When you are in the armed forces you leave behind your social status and work together for the love of your country and that brings all the people on the same platform. So even after people complete their duty and start a civilian life, they carry over the good things they learnt in the army.
And besides that, daily training keeps everybody fit, which was quite evident from the people here, especially girls. Every girl had such an awesome figure to go with her remarkable beauty that she could easily compete in a beauty pageant and win too. And the best place to see such girls is to visit discs on the weekends (starting Thursday night to Friday and Saturday. Sunday is a working day).
Boy, I am still having a great time here. More to come later.