Warm bath

I'm living in a real nice home. The family has been generous by opening their upstairs apartment, and welcoming me with meals in their home, plus providing all the amenities I need in the apartment to feel comfortable. Yet the one thing I cannot figure out is how to have a hot shower... 

I flip on the water pressure gauge in the fuse box thinking that might help; I try running the water for a few minutes (which I feel bad about, but am anxious for some hot water to arrive); I try turning on multiple faucets to see if it draws the hot water (this used to work growing up in Atlanta some). None of that is working, so I'm improvising.

So instead of showering every single morning and after every single workout or practice, I'm waiting a little longer. No shame, that's just how it is when the weather is cold and so would be the shower. Also, twice in the last two weeks I took an extra set of clothes when I visited a friend in Herzeliya. 

And though it occurred to me to do this earlier, I didn't have the patience until last night... one of the nicer things I have in my apartment is a water boiler. So what I decided to draw most of a bath of water at whatever temperature the faucet will give me, which is cold, then add a few full water boiler waters thinking it will balance out. Here's the beautiful water boiler:

The water boiler is fast, but still it takes a couple minutes to boil. So I start to enjoy the time between boils...it feels old-timey to draw a bath and wait for hot water. I get to spend a few minutes reading Harry Potter (in Arabic) in the other room. 

Unfortunately, because most of the bath water is cold and the boiling is not instant, much of the heat is lost inside the tub. In all, I spent about 25-30 minutes for the bath...a really patient race-against-time. At the end I had a lukewarm bath that I dipped my whole body into at most three times for getting wet, washing off soap, and a final rinse. That's all :-)