Shopping in Israel

Some of our American MFO freedoms have been restored! And one of those is a day trip to Be'er Sheva to go to the mall on a shopping trip. Even though we are not in a war zone (wink wink), we must travel in convoys and must wear our body armor and helmets to travel through Egypt. Sounds like something everyone wears to the mall, right? Everyone not in a war zone...

 

Just before you cross the border to Israel, all the body armor is stored at an MFO outpost. You don't need all that protective gear in Israel because it really isn't in a war zone. While we were killing time at the Fijian outpost, waiting for the boarder to open, I met a cat. This cat was really nice, but something happened to his lip and he looked like Two Face from Batman:

 

 

Two Face tried to stow away into Israel with us. He jumped in the van and hid under the back seat. We shooed him out, but I was tempted to let him go to Israel and give him to opportunity to have a better life. Smuggling animals across the boarder is probably illegal though.

 

The mall in Be'er Sheva is like an outdoor outlet mall. There were all kinds of stores to go in to. Some modern and some not so much. A few of the clothing stores we walked into looked like they hadn't received new inventory since 1992-- but there were people buying this stuff like it was the hottest new trend. And then there were actual modern American stores like American Eagle. I bought a couple cute blouses, a pair of jeans and two super cute dresses. 

 

Most of the clerks tried to speak Hebrew to us at first. My confused face and simple reply, "No" tipped them off to switch to English. All the receipts were in Hebrew too, so I didn't know where to sign. I guessed. I probably looked retarded. And everything was in shekels, so I only had a vague idea of what I was spending.

 

Tracy and I ate in a restaurant called Burgus Burger Bar. We thought it was just going to be a burger joint, but when we walked in, it was much nicer than we anticipated. We ordered grilled chicken wraps that were absolutely off the hook with sautéed peppers and guacamole inside. We also ordered virgin strawberry daiquiris that were basically the best thing on earth. It was hands down the best meal I've eaten since I deployed. I gorged myself. I couldn't help myself.

 

 

 

It was so nice to walk around like a normal person and feel like I'm not deployed to the desert. We only had 3 hours total of shopping time since we had to get back to the boarder crossing check point in time for curfew. No one is allowed out after 1600 or the Egyptian Army has permission to open fire if they feel the need to. Once again, we are not in a war zone. I'll go again in a few months to indulge again for an afternoon.