I didn't even think about it until someone mentioned it on the way to class today. I've been here almost a month and I should be on my way home in almost exactly 4 months. 5 months seemed unbearable, but 4 will be 3 before I know it- especially with travel plans at the end of the month. And 3 will be 2 super fast since our semester will have been about 10 days long by the time October is over- then is will be 2 months which seems like a small amount of time, weird. Follow that train of thought?
This weekend was pretty chill and relaxing- exactly what I always feel like I need at the end of a week of Ulpan. On Thursday night we decided to be social and go to the Jerusalem Beer Festival. It was pretty fun- we mostly just hung out with other Ulpan people and I got to meet some new people including a girl from Canada who had a whole conversation with me about accents and weird American phrases- for example: She asked us what 'quarter of seven' meant. We told her it meant 6:45 and she said she didn't think that made sense- a quarter of an hour is 15 minutes so a quarter of 7 should be 7 and a quarter- 7:15. She may have had a point there. I also met a guy from Emory and we talked about how it's changed since my parents were there.
(this is me and Kira at the beer festival, the one picture that I actually like from the night)A couple highlights from the Beer Festival:
- Erica was looking for a particular beer and saw a man with it. He happened to be a huge tattooed man but she asked anyways. Once she got what she wanted she went back to him to say thanks. She asked where he was from and he said Holland, when he asked back she said Tokyo to which he replied "you don't look very Tokyo-an" and she said "yeah, you don't look very Dutch" and he answered "touche" and they clinked glasses. It was great.
- Peach Beer! It is so good and kind of tastes like ginger ale (or maybe was a really expensive peach flavored ginger ale? hm)
- Lo mein! They had a stand there selling lo mein and egg rolls and it was delicious.
- While me and Erica were eating our lo mein sitting to the side on the ground a photographer came up and started photographing us- I wonder if our picture is on the website.
- At the bus stop on our way back I met a guy who lives one street up from us (in Baltimore) and went to my lower/middle school. Craziness!
On friday we almost did an outdoor tourist activity but then we realized it was 95 degrees outside so we went and bought a toaster over instead. Of course, the one day we were lugging around a toaster oven was the day there was an outdoor concert on Ben Yehudah Street... we wondered around for a bit and then went home to chill. That night we caught a taxi to the western wall to meet up with the family we were set up with for Shabbat dinner. It's a shabbat hospitality program and we thought we'd give it a try. We met at the wall and 3 of us along with 4 other people we didn't know were sent to follow a semi-orthodox looking man. He was really nice and spoke English (I think he was originally from the US) but walked really fast. We walked from the kotel through part of the arab quarter of the old city including the arab marked and into downtown Jerusalem and beyond. We walked for about 45 minutes, it was intense. When we arrived we were greeted by a giant dining room table with room for 25 or more. There were children everywhere and adults from all over the world too. We talked to some other Americans who made aliyah (immigrating to Israel) about 10 years ago. They talked a lot about how it's really difficult to make a life in Israel- and I find that so interesting. One man runs 3 bussinesses to survive. I find it really inspiring that people put themselves through so much hardship to live in Israel- and they do it because they believe so strongly that they should be here. It's neat. There were also some people from the neighborhood and some random Australians, I'm not really sure where they fit in.
It was a really great dinner- and the food kept coming! If you recall the drunken rabbi story, there was only one food course in that shabbat dinner- but in this one we had a salad/fish/hummus course then soup then meats and vegetables then dessert. But, surprisingly (to me at least) they did the shot thing at this dinner too! I really need to do some research about the drinking during shabbat dinner. It's interesting because it's not like an adult glass of wine thing, it's honestly shots of scotch or vodka in between courses. This family even had a giant bottle of smirnoff with a pump at the top (like a soap despenser). Really different. I will research and let you know.
Saturday, as usual, we hung out, watched movies, did homework, and cleaned. It's a nice routine, but I think we're going to try to go to Tel Aviv or Hertzlya this weekend. We'll see.
Another weekend over!
For the next post: Judaism's veiw on Reincarnation
1 comment:
I totes told you it would get better and start going faster and you'd be fine. Not that I would ever say I told you so...
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