Okay, so that title may seem weird, but here's the deal:

I turn 25 on October 17th (birthday wishes commence, hollaaaaa). The thing is, there's a Jewish/Hebrew calendar which operates differently than Secular calendars. The main difference is that it's lunar rather than solar and to make up for the difference, we add a 13th month like 30%~ of years. But, the point is that by the Jewish calendar, I turned 25 on October 10th.

So....am I 24 or 25? I don't really know. The point is moot anyway in 12 hours, but for now, it's been kind of fun to think about.

Because of the time difference, I decided just to make it a "birthday week" here at the Yeshiva and have been trying to stay festive all week. I bought a whole bunch of fine liquor for myself and everyone else at my Yeshiva and, also bought champagne both for my hebrew birthday and tonight for my American birthday.

I just want to say that I had NO idea how expensive good liquor is overseas. For a bottle of Cuervo 750ml, I paid ~$40. For a liter of Smirnoff Black I paid $50. Grey Goose, Patron, etc are all in the $100 range. It just seems a bit absurd to pay those kind of prices. Makes you appreciate the good ol' USA a whole bunch and also duty free. I've never really bought anything from Duty Free before but you can bet I will next time I'm in airport, ha. On the flip side, there are some fantastic Israeli wines and those are a lot cheaper than in the states.

Okay, so thanks to all for the charity suggestions and please keep them coming. I told some friends about donorschoose.org and it's been a HUGE hit. What a fantastic, fantastic website. I wish I'd thought it up myself (sigh).

Okay be good y'all. Chat more in a few days.

Ezra