Adventures Galore!

And as the adventures continue, so does my blog. Ok, not so exciting, but here are a few interesting things that have happened/observations that have been observed :) Cats...for those of you who are cat lovers, this is the wrong place to be. I say that only because there are a bajillion (yes that is the official Talia count) stray, fuzzy, fluffy, cute, kitties running around the city! Israel doesn't really seem to have squirrels here, instead, they have Fluffy. And all of his friends. The interesting thing is that the cats here don't look like scruffy scrangy messes of a cat, they actually look fluffy and cute and all you want to do is feed them and take care of them. But alas, as I'm sure they're carrying more diseases than you'd ever want to know, petting them is probably not a good idea. But just so you know...I believe there are 6-8 living right outside my building, and the willpower to resist playing with them has been far greater than that of willpower resisting Magnum bars (incredible Israeli ice cream bars). Buses...so I have only begun to conquer Jerusalem buses, but like I said, it's only the beginning. I had a summer job interview in an obscure part of Jerusalem (I say obscure because no one could show me on a map where it was) and I had to get back on my own, on buses. Contrary to what you all see in the media, not all buses blow up, they're safe, I'm alive, yippee skippee. However, the funniest thing on my travels stemmed from people watching and observing the stereotypical aggressiveness of Israelis: not youngsters, but old ladies! I was sitting near the front of the bus for fear of missing my stop when I was literally SHOVED over by a little Israeli woman, probably around 75 years old, and probably less than 1/2 my size. I was amazed at her aggression in getting on the bus and moving my butt over, without giving me the chance to get up and offer her a seat. And the lesson learned (well, in reality, dealing with all Israelis) is that you have to get aggressive back, but how do you get mean with grandma?? Movie theater...I saw my first Israeli movie in an Israeli movie theater 2 nights ago! I went with a few friends to see the Academy-nominated movie called Waltz With Bashir. It was pretty good, and it gave me a good Hebrew practice. The movie theater was very cute. You walked into a cafe type thing and then through the back, and voila! There's the movie theater! Prices were comparable to most movie theaters there (about $9)...expensive compared to Vero, but what can you do? The movie didn't shed the greatest light on Israel (towards the end) but it was still pretty powerful. Paintball...yes, I said Paintball. I went and played paintball for the first time ever, in a city called Herzliya, 1.5 hrs away from Jerusalem. There were about 30+ kids who got to go (you had to register) and approximately <10 girls there. We played at night which made the adrenaline rush even more intense because you couldn't see at all. I got hit three times, once in the leg and twice in the head. My team lost, but it was still really fun to play. Anyways, I've made this one long enough too. I don't have any pictures of the activities mentioned in this email, but I will include a picture of my closest friends here. From left to right, they are Carly, Julia, Me, and Alyza. I haven't figured out how to caption photos like Amit and Dena, so you'll have to deal with this. Love, Talia

Starting Week Two...

My Israel journey continues, although it's really just begun. I'm beginning week 2, where hopefully the overwhelmingness, confusing, state of constant being-lost-ness, and most other new things start to become slightly more familiar. Ulpan, my Hebrew class continues quite smoothly. I'm definitely a little more advanced than this class, but I am learning new words. My voice is slowly returning, so now I should be able to participate more in class and use the Hebrew I'm learning. My Ulpan schedule varies each day, but as of right now, I'm spending anywhere from 2-6 hours a day in Ulpan, usually beginning at 8:15 am. I'm not a fan at all of these early starts, but it does leave the rest of the day to figure out what to do. I'm also slightly swamped with homework right now because I'm making up the stuff the class did before I switched into it. So far, living in Israel has been one big experiment with the most common answer to ANY question from anyone being "I don't know?" Included in that experiment has been eating. Happily, almost everything here is KOSHER!!! So I don't have to go to a restaurant or grocery store and look at what's in the package to see if I can eat it. And I'm not the only one like that anymore...what a nice feeling not to be in the minority anymore. As for cooking at home, that's been an adventure too because our kitchen is missing several items most Americans are used to: an oven, a microwave, dishwasher, disposal. But I'm making many yummy dishes, and occasionally going out to try food in Israel. Speaking of food, I definitely have to tell you about my experience in the Shuk (market). First of all, the Shuk is way cheaper than the grocery store close to me (which ironically is called Mister Zol, which means Mister Cheap). Second of all, as you'll see in the pictures which actually don't do them justice, the vegetables and fruit in the shuk are absolutely gorgeous looking. Brightly colored, big and healthy looking, and cheap!! And there's hundreds of them. In fact there are about 10-15 stands selling the same things! The Shuk is essentially a long hallway with these stands on both sides, so there's only one road to walk in. Now imagine packing that in with thousands of people. This may not be the case every day, but I went on a Friday from 12-2, which is right before Shabbat (the Sabbath), which is when most Jews go in order to get their food before Shabbat. I happily got my Rugalach from Marzipan (an amazing desert in a chocolate flavor for me, that I was introduced to by my sister 5 years ago) and some yummy fruits in addition. My Friday ended with me and my roommates making a wonderful Shabbat dinner, where the female roomies said the blessing over Shabbat candles and our Israeli roomie leading the longer version of the wine blessing in very rapid Hebrew. I'm on the tail end of my cold, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, so I'm going to spend the rest of my Shabbat doing just that, resting. Until next time... Shabbat shalom to my Jewish readers and have a nice weekend to the rest! -Talia

One Week Gone

I have now been in Jerusalem for one entire week, and a few other exciting things have gone down. I've begun Ulpan, Level Bet 1 (translation: all foreign students to Hebrew University are required to enroll in an intensive Hebrew course for one month prior to classes. I'm in the intermediate level, a little below where I came from with my Hebrew in Michigan, but my last semester of Hebrew at Michigan was a little too hard for me; so this is a pretty good level for me.) However, it took a little while to get me placed right, as the administration had me in the wrong level, so I did a lot of switching and saying things like "Shmi Talia ve ani m'Florida" (translation: My name is Talia and I'm from Florida). I've been doing mostly review, but I am definitely learning new words. The hardest thing is still mustering up the confidence to use what I learn.

I would have to say the most exciting thing this week was last night, where I went to Beh Yehuda street area to a couple different bars to watch and celebrate the inauguration of President Obama! Through connections, there was a bar that was essentially closed off to a bunch of us Americans from Rothberg to watch the inauguration, and after which, we went to a couple different places. I went with my roommate Julia and her friend Abram to another pub, which was essentially an American Pub in Jerusalem. They had decorations up everywhere to celebrate Prez. Obama and it was pretty exciting. An interesting thing about some of the pubs that I've been to. Whenever you sit down to order, they bring out a large basket of yummy popcorn, for free, for you to munch on while drinking. Can't get better than that! And somehow, the one drink that I ordered from this pub was red, white, and blue (as you'll see in the attached picture). I did not intend to do that and nothing in the name of the drink indicated it would come out as such, but it was pretty fun to have that. Then our little trio joined up with about 15 more, which then collected more people, so all in all, about 20+ Americans celebrated loudly in a bar called Zolli's, in Jerusalem. I can't imagine what life will be like here when elections happen, all the Israelis maybe celebrating?

Unfortunately, I'm still a bit sick from my travels. I have almost no voice and I'm not feeling completely healthy, but I'll get there. It's pretty amazing to be here though, regardless of being sick or not. And it gets even better when I start seeing friends here. I went with a friend named Lital to her house for dinner, which was very nice (Lital was actually originally Ali's friend, but since she moved back here, I have swooped her up as a great friend and connection). I have also continued to make contact and hang out with my Israeli friends from summer camp.

Will continue to update you as things happen. Enjoy living in a new era back home (hopefully!)

I leave you with: עם ישראל חי! (The nation of Israel lives!)

-טליה (Talia, if you couldn't figure it out) :)

First Week in Israel!!!

Wow, so I barely even know where to start in telling you about my adventures. Since not all of you reading this have been to Israel before, I'm going to be writing all of my blog posts as if you have never been to Israel or experienced that which is Israel. Excuse this first very long post, but so much has happened in very little time, so here goes...

My flight over here was rather uneventful. It was extremely cramped and long (about a 10 hour flight from Newark to Tel Aviv). I flew over on the group flight so I began to make friends immediately with the people around me going to Rothberg (the Hebrew University's school for foreigners). Interestingly enough, I quickly made friends with a girl named Julia from Connecticut. We really didn't have anyone to come over with, so we connected pretty well. Later on the bus ride from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, as we were receiving our apartment numbers, we discovered that we were actually roommates!! So that began my Israel adventure quite nicely.

I'm skipping over a few minor details of the how and how long it took me to get to Jerusalem with the group after landing to tell you about the campus. Well actually, only the Student Village, where I live. The Student Village (or in transliterated Hebrew "K'far HaStudentim") is the newest built "dorm" setting for students at Hebrew University. For those of you who don't know, Hebrew University has 2 campuses: one called Givat Ra'am and one called Mount Scopus. I go to the one called Mount Scopus...it's on a mountain overlooking Jerusalem, which makes for a stunning view from my dorm and my room. As for my dorm/room, I live in an apartment with 4 other people. This apt has a small kitchen (which only consists of a fridge, stovetop, sink, and cabinets), a small kitchen table, 2 small loveseat type couches with a small coffee table. Each room in this apartment is labeled with a number, and I am in room 3. We have one shower, 2 toilets, and 4 sinks!! My room is pretty standard, with a bed, desk, chair, and closet. As for my roommates, in addition to the aforementioned Julia, I live with 1 other American named Mitchell (who actually was in my Hebrew 102 class at Michigan) and 2 Israelis named Arad and Daniel. They are fairly young for Israeli undergrads (22 and 23...for those who don't know, Israelis are required to enter the army right out of high school for 3 years, and then some stay on longer). We haven't spoken to them much yet (or vice versa) but they seem pretty nice.

Moving onwards towards the rest of my time so far... We have 4 madrichim (which are technically counselors, although they don't want to be called that). We haven't met one of them yet because he was called away to the Gaza operations, but hopefully he will return safely and we can meet him. We were given a tour of the campus by our madricha (the female version) named Rotem, who is very nice. Unfortunately, as I had to get up at 3 am on Tuesday and was still running on whatever energy I had left, I could barely stay awake and was extremely tired during the tour, so I mostly just shuffled along. However, the best part of the tour came towards the end. I was walking towards the back of the tour when all of a sudden my Israeli friend from camp, Nir, ran into me! I haven't seen him in 1.5 years! We exchanged numbers and he told me that my co-counselor Tamar, who stayed with me after camp, was also hanging around the University. In addition, my friend Sara Geboff (from my youth group and from camp) is on the Rothberg program with me, her boyfriend Jacob (who I went to camp with for many years), and my Israeli friend Meodi (from camp as well) got to meet up and have a small camp reunion. I found out Meodi lives in the dorms right next to mine, and is about a 2 minute walk from here. How exciting!

Other adventures include Israeli grocery store shopping, and ordering a taxi in Hebrew! Julia and I went grocery shopping to have some basics here, and the phrase of the day became "I don't know!" If you think grocery shopping is hard at home, with all the choices, try doing it in another country where you can't read half the labels! Between Julia and I, we stumbled around and got basically what we needed. Then last night, 2 friends and I decided to go to Ben Yehuda Street (which is pretty popular with Americans) for dinner and exploration. It was too dark to walk it, so we had to take a taxi. Julia called for one, but the driver couldn't speak any English, and her Hebrew wasn't good enough, so she passed the phone off to me and I order a taxi from where I live to where we were going, and giving all the proper details to the driver, in Hebrew!! I felt very proud of my accomplishment, however small it is.

Alright, this has gone on long enough. I'm sorry about the such long post, but I just got internet in my room, and even then, the internet is extremely slow! I hope you enjoy my future blog posts, and I will try to keep you all updated as soon as I can.

B'ahava Me Yerushalayim (with love from Jerusalem),
Talia