It's been a full week since I landed in Jerusalem and the theme of the week is definitely adventures, or "
הרפתקאות." I'm sitting in a lovely restaurant in Jerusalem on Azza street, which is theoretically only 5 minutes from my apartment but I get lost a lot so it's unclear how far exactly I am. Just finished a great brunch- salad loaded with veggies, eggs, and tuna seasoned with spices and multi-grain bread on the side. God I love this country and their fresh veggies! I'll try to provide you with a little update on my week here without boring you to tears- I promise that there are many anecdotes in the post....
As you all know, after I landed (and passed out for 3 hours on Aunt Shirah and Uncle Menachem's couch) I showered and went to a Henna party for a bride-to-be in the Moshav. The joke is that Jews are always late... well Israelis are later. The party started at 8, so we went at 8:40 (Jews are late) and they didn't open the food buffet until 9:30 and by 10 Shirah and I thought that maybe she should drive me to my apartment in Jerusalem as I was anxious to move in... just as we were getting up to leave at 10:15, the bride's family dressed in what I assume is Kurdish garb started coming out...but still no bride (Israelis are later). So I'm sad to say that there was no Henna for me, but it was still nice to reintroduce myself to the world of smokers, late nights, beer, and Hebrew.
Hebrew Hebrew Hebrew. I'm working on it. My cousins are doing a really great job at speaking with me in Hebrew and when I have the time (on the bus, in my bed, basically when I am not physically moving much) I work on texting in Hebrew. I've also started writing down "words of the day" which are very much based on my experiences- I learned "approximate, משוער" when reading the bus schedule and the like, although it's more just like a laundry list of vocabulary that I've been learning. I'm already indebted to cousin Michal for speaking to me in Hebrew on the phone and pretending not to understand me when I speak English. Lucky for me she has to respond when I text her in English, but she does so in Hebrew so it works out. On the other hand, my roommate, David, speaks to me in English and I speak to him in a mix of Hebrew, English, and words that don't exist.
David is a 26 year old Israeli in school for Engineering and super nice. So far we've only been home on the same nights twice so we're still getting to know each other, but he's great to live with- super clean, super respectful, offers me all of his food, and plays great Israeli tunes when he's cooking. Mostly he's in exams right now so he's been busy studying (hah! Just kidding mom, studying is great) but we're working on getting to know each other- he also has nieces and nephews and I think he may invite him whole family for something- I'd love to meet them! The apartment we live in is really beautiful. I'm sub-letting from someone who is working at Ramah Nyack this summer and her room is a living room converted into a bed room. It's literally the biggest room I've ever lived in and as you can imagine if you know me I'm having some trouble keeping it clean but I'm working on it... I make my bed every day so that's a start! Now that I think about it I don't think I made my bed this morning, but whatever, one step at a time. We have a great garden in the back yard that is just ours and David and I may plant some flowers, fix the fence, and tile a little path together tomorrow, I'll let you know how that goes. Over all, very amazing. Fantastic location- think walking to town is like walking from Columbia to The Abbey, and walking to the market is like walking to the 90s from campus.. but there's no rain and the weather is significantly cooler at night than in NYC. I'm talking like high 80s during the days but a beautiful 60s at night.
Tel Aviv, on the other hand, is much hotter. After my Shabbat plans were canceled late Thursday night, I spontaneously went to Tel Aviv for Shabbat (bye David! See you later!) with good friends from school Ari and Keren. Kevin, a friend from Columbia, had a car so we took it to Tel Aviv with a stop for pita and salatim (assorted delicious salads, which is the specialty of all Mediterranean cuisine) in Abu Gosh, an Arab town outside of Jerusalem. My favorite salat that I had was Pumpkin-Hummus... Josh Warshawsky would definitely love it. Shabbat was wonderful and not very Shabbat-y but a very relaxing first two days in Israel. We mostly went to the beach, and did a little tiyul (translated as trip, but I prefer excursion) to Ramat Gan where there is a Safari... yes a Safari! I REALLY wanted to pet the lions but I was strongly advised not to unless I wanted to make the news. Which actually sounded like fun, so they didn't make such a convincing argument. We saw some really awesome animals, including but not limited to lions (the cutest), hippos, elephants (which just make me think of Lord of the Rings battle scenes), giraffes, zebras, and tons of other animals- those were just the coolest. At the beach I tried to cartwheel like twice and failed miserably. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to accomplish that one, folks.
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| At the Safari in Ramat Gan |
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| Me and Ari on the beach in Tel Aviv |
Back to Jerusalem meant time to unpack and figure some stuff out. It also meant getting home, which was a huge adventure in of itself. The trip from Ari's apartment in Tel Aviv to my apartment in Jerusalem should have taken 1.5 hours tops... it took us four. First we took a sherut instead of the bus which definitely was not bringing us to the bus station, so then we transferred (which is not a thing, more like the guy forced another sherut driver to take us somewhere else) to a different sherut which took us "near the bus station and then we could walk." THANKS guys. Thankfully Keren has 3g on one of her 4 Israel phones (I'm totally serious, she has 4 phone) so we walked the 20 minutes to the bus station and easily found the bus to Jerusalem. Keep in mind that I had about 40 shekel, or $10, left in my wallet from our Tel Aviv weekend so cabs were not an option at this point- we had a bus to Jerusalem and a bus to my apartment to go. Finally in Jerusalem we are waiting for a bus to take us to my apartment where Keren will sleep over so she doesn't have to walk home alone. But did you know that just last week they changed all the bus routes in Jerusalem?! Some stayed the same but some did not... including the one we were waiting for. It was 12:49am, we had been waiting for 30 minutes, and finally we just got on a bus that we thought took us kind of close to my apartment. And then of course we got off and the turn that I insisted was correct was wrong, so another 25 minutes and help from the gps later we arrived at my glorious apartment. Keren passed out within 5 minutes and I stayed up for a little while longer before finally calling it a night...and hey! I still had more than 10 shekel in my wallet by the time we made it home!
I see that this post is getting very long so I'll end with a quick synopsis of classes and write more adventures in new posts. I began classes at Hebrew University in Jerusalem this week- Conflict Resolution and the other is Israel in Public and International Law. They both seem really great and I am absolutely shocked by the number of people who have never been to Israel, never spoken Hebrew, or been raised with an understanding of "The Conflict" that is completely different than mine. For example, granted this is the extreme, one person said in my Conflict Resolution course, "and I'm interested now in how Jews are just realizing all the atrocities that they have been committing." More about that later.... The commute to Rothberg (the international school of Hebrew U) is not bad at all and I'm only in classes 3 days a week, albiet 3 very long days.
I'm sure I'll write more this week as I'm finally settling in... some great stories to tell and some awesome weekend plans including seeing cousin Michal tonight and Soldier Bro Jo as I've become accustomed to calling him tomorrow! And don't worry loyal readers, the quest for the 21 by 21 continues.
Live from Mozi Cafe on Azza Street, I'm off to do some errands and explore some new routes in Jerusalem. And yes, my piece of multigrain bread has become toast in the time that I have taken to write this post....
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