Three Vaccinations and Malaria Pills Still Can't Prevent The Common Cold.

It's been a week since the end of spring break and I still haven't shaken this sneeze/cough/phlem thing I picked up on the last plane ride. You see, while Ethiopian Airlines, "The New Spirit of Africa," offers spacious seating, (when they don't fill the plane and I have a whole row to myself) luxurious accommodations (when your connecting flight is delayed by 15 hours) and an authentic ethnic atmosphere (a greeter dressed in a traditional Ethiopian dress/shawl thingy, second from left) they somehow haven't figured out how properly to seal an emergency exit, and so I sat for six hours in a draft, after forgetting my sweatshirt in my checked baggage. I had lots of legroom, though. And, as the flight was continuing past Rome further into Europe, no one came around to collect my blanket at the end of the ride, and Ethiopian Airlines will be keeping me warm for a long time.

I Found Real Kosher Food!

Italian food usually doesn't carry a hechsher like American food does. The few people who keep kosher here just know what products to use and what to stay away from. The situation makes kosher life seem much less strict than it would be at home, like the bakery in the ghetto that carries assorted pastries and products, but only the bread and pizza are kosher, according to the sign on the door. Needless to say, I was in shock yesterday when, in a normal grocery that I use pretty often, I found Italian jam with a Star-K hechsher! It's the first time I've found kosher jam in this country, (aside from a French product I found in the Kosher Market in Florence) and I was ecstatic. I felt as if I should buy up the entire stock just in case they run out before I make it back to the store.

After calming down, I continued to the pasta aisle and found another surprise: Italian pasta with an Italian hechsher!
If you can't see the hechser, it says siKs, which stands for "Services International Kosher Supervision" (siks.org) and seems entirely legit. Now if I can get them to stock kosher for Pesach food, that would be perfect.