first couple of days in Israel

Right now I'm in Herzliya or Herzlya or Herzlyya, Israel. There may be other spellings for it! There seems to be no consistent way to translate Hebrew into English, so it can get really confusing here. Apparently, the problem is that there are no written vowels in Hebrew? Not sure. In a couple of days I'm going to Haifa, which is also spelled Jafa. I am attending the ICSEM 2007 conference. At the conference, they are running a tour to Acre, which is also Acco, or Akko. yikes! No wonder I had so much trouble finding maps of Israel on the web.

The things that have surprised me the most are: Hebrew is everywhere. Some people speak English, but only as a second language. Most signs are in Hebrew only. It's like walking around China. When you walking into buildings, you are always checked by a security guard. The weather is pretty temperate here. 65 deg. F and dry. Pretty nice. Even thought I saw the forecast, I always imagined it to be extremely hot here.

More later...