"Usually 30, but for you--I give 25..."

Hm...What to tell, what to tell...
I'll start with an enlightening cultural experience.  For my "Markets, Games and Strategic Behaviors" class (probably my least favorite of the four--I like math, but only when it's taught in a way that's comprehensible to the average human being), we have to do a project on bargaining in Israel.  My partner, Josh, and I chose to test the effects on prices of bargaining in Hebrew and English.  We began our project on Wednesday morning in Daliyat Al-Karmel, the Druze village fifteen-minutes away from campus by bus.  The first thing we learned was that bargaining is best done quickly; the longer you linger in a store without accepting or offering a price, the less pleasant the storeowner becomes until you as the patron actually feel that you are doing him/her a favor by leaving without buying.  (Granted, in the first store we were essentially just testing the bargaining waters, with no real intention of making a purchase.  So I guess he had a right to be something less than pleased.)  There weren't enough stores in the village to be able to draw any conclusive conclusions from our experience just yet, but it was interesting to note that when we bargained in Hebrew in one store, the storeowner assured us that he would not be giving us "a tourist price," a response which one could take to mean that because we were using the local language, he did not see us as one hundred percent, fresh off the plane, culturally ignorant tourists.  (On the other hand, one could also imagine that "I won't even give you a tourist price" is a line that he feeds to tourists on a daily basis, in an attempt to trick them into believing that they're facing an especially good deal.  For the record, we made him bring the price below this "un-tourist" price before making our purchase.  Please excuse me while I brush the dirt off my shoulder.)  If you ignore that section in parenthesis, then you could say that our research is off to a pretty good start.  If nothing else, this project is helping me get over my fear of bargaining (I always just feel so bad!).
This weekend I'm in Herzeliya/Ramat Aviv/Rishpon with the Hutts.  Michal and Noah's English never ceases to amaze me (though I love catching their slang when they speak in Hebrew, too :P), Amir is no longer too scared to talk to me (he showed me his Go-Gos!  Remember those?  Weird plastic faces.  I think mine came in a purple coffin back in the day...), Yaron remembered my name, Maya lent me her beautiful room, and Ohad told me about his love for tennis.  The weekend's off to a wonderful, zen start so far, though sometime tomorrow I will have to be somewhat productive.  מה שבא בא.  Sababa.

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