Last thursday after ulpan me, Kira, Amelia, and Erica went to Tel Aviv for the night. It was actually my first time in Tel Aviv so that was pretty cool. We stayed at a hostel that was only mildly sketchy and had a nice time! The first thing we did once we were settled was go down to the beach right in time for sunset. Actually, we missed the sun by like a minute, but it was still beautiful. It was really nice to be in a city by the water, it felt like we could have been anywhere. 
(This is one of my favorites from that night at the beach)
(This is one of my favorites from that night at the beach)Later that night we went out to dinner with a friend of Kira's from Pacific and two of his Israeli Volleyball playing friends. It was actually really nice! It was good to talk to people and be normal teenagers out for the night. Unfortunately, when we tried to actually go out for the night, we found that most Tel Aviv clubs are 22-23+ which we, 18 and 19 year old girls, couldn't pass for (the guys were older, but they still couldn't get us in). On friday we ran some errands, had an absolutely delicious breakfast, went to a craft show, and spent an hour or so on the beach. Then we came back to Jerusalem in time for Shabbat.
We decided to do another home stay shabbat, and it was another interesting experience. We met up with our host, Reb Chaim, at the Kotel. Reb Chaim is quite a character. He's american orginally, and he's actually from Minnesota which was exciting, but immigrated to Israel about 5 years ago. He opens his home for shabbat every week. He had 15-20 guests that night, almost all pretty young people like my age. Half of the group were these girls from a Yeshiva in the south. They were all very sweet, but I couldn't believe some of the things they said. For example, at one point during the meal Reb Chaim made each of us ask a question, any question, as long as it wasn't related to Jewish Law. And one of the girls asked: "Reb Chaim, which do you think is worse: a Black president or a Woman vice president?" all of us on the other side of the table almost choked and died and Amelia muttered to me "How about the racist sexist person sitting across from me". Oy, statements like that really make me miss Carleton.
Reb Chaim also gave each of us a blessing, his blessing for me was that I should always have Peace in my family and that my parents should trust me and stop nagging me (sorry Mom and Dad!) There were many more awkward, outrageous, and interesting moments, which added up to a pretty entertaining evening and a unique way to spend a friday night.
I'm sure that I spent saturday doing what I always do: Sleeping, Cleaning my room, and doing work. I'm not sure what I will do when I go back to carleton without these completely down days, it might be rough.
The school week started pretty normally but I got sick starting sunday night and at it's worse on monday. I skipped class which was a tough decision since missing 5 hours of Hebrew kind of sets you back... I also missed class on Thursday to make my second trip into Tel Aviv to get my Tourist visa for Jordan and to pick up a package.
The mail system here is horrible, basically, any package that contains electronics, DVDs, or other expensive things gets held up in Customs in Tel Aviv, so basically, don't send me those things ever. While in Tel Aviv we also went shopping! That was ok, but a little scary. I find Israelis intimidating to begin with, but they're worse when they're trying to help you in a store. I just like to be left to shop in peace! oy.
On a really good note- I had a semi-light-bulb-aha moment in class on thursday, and I think I might actually be understanding the material! (a really good thing considering I have a 5 or so hour final on thursday...)
This weekend has more or less been boring. We had a very frustrating night out on Thursday, stayed in all day yesterday, and have been home today. Is it bad that I really like weekends like this? Last night we went to another home shabbat. This time it was within the walls of the old city- it was really powerful. For some reason as we walked out of the home where we ate and down towards the Kotel I just had a grin on my face. My roommate claims it was a side effect of the half-shot of whiskey I did with everyone else, but I think there really was something nice about being in the old city on shabbat. The coolest part was walking down to the Kotel at 11:30pm on Shabbat. It was virtually empty and silent. We got to walk right up to the wall, press our hands and our foreheads against the stone and have some time for silent prayer, really cool.
I'm about to start up the most hectic week ever- which will involve lots of cramming and studying for our final and planning the details of our trip to Europe! I really can't wait, it should be a really great time!
Oh my goodness! I almost forgot about the most important part of our weekend last weekend, our apartment flooded! Something under the sink broke and water poured out everywhere. We had standing water in almost every room- and one of my roommates had to run to security to get help. It was absolutely wild. Luckily I don't think anything was destroyed, but we have had many a joke about the "Great Flood" of apartment 151
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