2 Weeks left!

Wow, it appears that I've started failing at this blog thing. I guess I've been here so long that the blog has gotten less exciting for me.

Scary as it is, I have less than 15 days here! So I will try to recap what I've been up to since my last post:

- Thanksgiving: Thanksgiving here was an all around disappointing experience. I guess that's OK though. Thanksgiving is a home and family thing and Israel for me is really neither. That sounds sad, but it's not. I think it's important to realize where home is and can be, and where it can't. My idea of home has expanded since high school, but Israel has not become a part of it.

- Haifa! A few weekends ago Samantha and I decided to go up to Haifa for a night. It was really great! We got there friday night and shortly after checking into our hostel we met a new friend from Germany. She ended up spending the whole weekend with us, which was fun. We had a great dinner on friday night and some good views of the Baha'i gardens lit up at night. The next morning we got up and took a cab up to the top of the gardens. We put our name on a list for an English tour and wandered. The view was beautiful! The hilltop was so lively- there were families talking walks and couples drinking coffee, it was really lovely. Our tour was also really great. Going on a tour is the only way to actually go into the gardens, so it was definitely worth it. The Baha'i faith is really interesting. The was it was described to me makes it seem like the Unitarian Universalism of the Middle East. It's biggest tenant is Equality between all people. I should probably research more on this topic. Anyways, we spent the rest of the day exploring- we went to a sculpture garden, a zoo, and out for lunch. Then we decided to make our way to the beach for sunset which was really really great.

- Soccer game. I went to my first professional soccer game 2 mondays ago. It was a cool cultural stufy- I don't think i ended up paying much attention to the game itself. There were very few women at the game- in fact, we got our own ticket with a cheaper price for children, women, and soldiers. Also, when our group of girls went to the women's security check (because we were patted down, so men and women were separated) the guy overseeing it said: "too many girls! what are you doing here? go home!" weird. It was also interesting because the teams playing were the Jerusalem team and the Israeli Arab team. Beitar, the Jerusalem team, has a long history. Originally Beitar was a pre-state Zionist youth group- we learned about the group in Israeli History. The soccer team, Beitar's supporters still chant a lot of the pro-zionist chants of the early 1900s. It was kind of awkward when their team song included likes like "we hate all of the Arabs", though.

The last two week are basically a blur of work and roommate drama. We all really need a break- and it seems like things are only getting worse. I am so excited to go back to the dorms, even if it is musser, where there are other people in charge and in general everyone is more respectful.

There is more to update, but this post is long enough.

More soon! Or at least before I go home, I promise.