Shabbat, 22 April 2017

I got to sleep quite late last night because of a huge wedding that was going on out on the hotel grounds. The music was very Arabic music, which was actually really nice, but it did keep me from going to sleep. Tonight, there are 2 more wedding (or, actually, I've been told that one of them is an engagement party), so I probably won't get to sleep early tonight, either. But it's okay.

After much work organizing information today, I finally got a lot of things in better order. After lunch, I just lay down and relaxed.

I took some more pictures today, including some nice ones of the sunset over the Dead Sea. One of them, taken from my balcony, is today's pic of the day:

Shortly after sunset, we got a bombshell from the Russian office: the trip has been cancelled! They did not say why, and, of course, the reason is none of our business. Those of us working will still get paid, though we might not get the full amount. The hotel gets to keep 75% of the total cost as a late cancellation fee. We expect to return to Israel on Monday. Tomorrow, we'll be finalizing all the billing and any other loose ends that need to be tied up.

This evening, the boss invited the whole team to eat together at one of the restaurants, our choice. The two chefs had no preference, but Vitaly preferred the Italian restaurant, so we went there. It was actually quite nice. We just relaxed.

I think our boss is not very happy about this, but the chefs may be the most disappointed. For them, it's like a musician who practices hard for a concert, and then the concert is cancelled, so he never really gets to enjoy sharing the fruits of all his hard work.

As for me, I'm rather relieved because this work has been a little stressful at times. I'll be a little sorry to leave the hotel early, though, since I've really been enjoying the atmosphere, the grounds, the people, and the food. I'm just very glad that I got to have such a great experience.

I walked a total of 4.3 kilometers today.