Into the City

This morning (Friday) I woke up nice and late, and then my housemate took me into Haifa on the bus to a market. Markets are one of the best things about cities. It's so much fun to walk around and see all the different goods, and is by far the fastest way to get a good handle on what is available and how much things cost.

Sorry, I took my camera, but didn't take any pictures... except for one of the McDonalds a few streets over from the market. **edit*** inserted pic

Here's a pretty good map of Haifa: http://www.tour-haifa.co.il/eng/uploads/maps/HaifaEng.pdf
The market is in grid I-7, and the McDonalds is a little northeast of the intersection of Herzl and Balfour Streets, in grid H-7.

So, just as a reminder, a New Israeli Sheqel (NIS) is about a quater, roughly. (3.8 sheqelim to the dollar)
Also, a kilo is 2.2 pounds.

So, meats and fish are around 40-50 NIS/kilo which works out to around 5-7 dollars/ lb
Carrots were almost universally 2.8 or 3 NIS/kilo which works out to around $0.33/lb
Small potatoes could be found for as low as 2 NIS/kilo, but were usually more like 2.5 or 3, and large potatoes are more like 4 or 5 NIS/kilo.

A 5-pack of pita is around 3.5 NIS, and 10 small loaves of bread is about 12 NIS.
A perogi-type thing (potatoes or meat cooked in a bread container) was around 4-5 NIS.
Figs are around 5-7 NIS/kilo.

Also.. don't pick up the weird prickly pear looking things, because you'll have little stingers in your hands for hours. I don't know how people work with those.

The McDonalds prices seemed a little high.

I had some fun wandering around the shops. Sometime next week I plan to go down to the beach. (that's the mediterranean beach...)