weekend in Jerusalem

Thursday we didn't have Ulpan because we went on a tiyul to Jerusalem. The trip was actually much better than I expected it to be. I figured we were going to have a "Birthright tours the old city, again," but it wasn't like this. By this i mean seeing and learning about mostly only the Jewish aspects of the Old City (the Old City is what Jerusalem consisted of a long time ago), but we learned and toured places that are holy and important to all the three major religions there. We went to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, walked through the Muslim quarters, and learned about all 4 religious people living there, the Jews, Muslims, Christians, and Armenians.
A bunch of us decided to spend the night/weekend in Jerusalem instead of going back with the group. Once we found our hostel, which was quite the expedition as it was in some back alley way in the Old City, we were pleasantly surprised at the condition of our room. If we had spent more time there or had it been warmer we would have enjoyed our own private terrace and we were nicely secluded from the rest of the guests. We went out in Jerusalem Thursday night to a pretty cool bar and then a really fun dance bar with sweet 70's music. It was really interesting to see a bunch of religious Jews hanging out drinking in the streets, as Tel Aviv is quite secular and this doesn't happen. Friday we bummed around the old city shopping in the markets of the different quarters. A few of us got lost in the Muslim quarter for an hour. I didn't think the old city was even big enough to get lost but once you start turning corners everything looks the same and eventually you find yourself being denied enterance to the Dome of the Rock, twice. Only Muslims can enter and we were clearly lost tourists, not muslims. After finding our was back to Jaffa gate I went to meet allie in the center of Jerusalem. Allie, Darya, and I ate at an amazing little restaurant just before shabbas started. It was super cheap, the service was unbelievable for Israel (kind, considerate, friendly, etc) and there was great live music. Anyway, later on Allie and I walked about an hour and a half to eat Shabbas dinner with a woman that I met here and her family. Dinner was delicious and the company was great, her husband was really funny and so nice and they have a 7 month old baby who is adorable, of course. The only downside was we had to walk back and it started raining quite heavily towards the end. ze b'seder, it's alright, Israel needs all the rain it can get. Saturday Allie and I ate Shabbas lunch at her and Abe's friend Alana's place. Again, great food, met new people, good times. This time, however, we took a cab as it was downpouring, still.
So today we submitted our form for our classes and started our last week of Ulpan. Tonight I'm going to Rivky's class again for more religious discussion and free dinner. (side note: this is who's house we ate at for Shabbas dinner). I'm going to try not to stuff my face just because the food is free...I'm having a hard time with that concept.

-Lauren

sad news...

Before the sad news, some catch up...this weekend was a lot of fun, the usual, went out, explored Ramat Aviv on Shabbat (found a lot of open restaurants within walking distance) rested, etc. Sunday after Ulpan I went to an exhibition with Darya and Maresa called “Postcards from Gaza.” The exhibit was interesting, but not what I expected. It wasn’t very big and didn’t have much of an explanation. It was really tough to look at the postcards, which were mostly just pictures not so much art, of war stricken areas of Gaza. The exhibit was put on by a humanitarian aid group wanting to get word out of the situation. I would have been interested to see photographs from other cities that were affected as well like Sderot and Ashkelon. It’s frustrating that this group isn’t concerned with aid for everyone who needs it, Israeli’s and Palestinians, why does everything have to be one or the other, can’t we see the similarities of everyone affected? Yes, of course, some areas and people are worse off than others but does that make it okay to only focus on them? I’m not sure, it’s a tough topic. Anyway, Sunday night I went to my first (probably will go weekly or bi-weekly) discussion group through this program with a religious woman. They give you food and 20 sheks ($5) per class you go to, yea incentive, and you just listen and learn about various topics relating to religious Judaism. Some of the things seem a bit ridiculous to me and I just dont agree, but alas, I enjoy learning none the less. Afterwards we went to a dance bar for an “OSP party.” It was cool because that many people from the program never go out together since we have our own circles of friends and everyone ends up splitting up going to different bars. I am going to another discussion group tonight with a Rabbi (again, sucker for these things) entitled “Judaism, Israel, the 21’th Century and I” and yes, that’s what the flyer says. I'm excited for tonight because I think it is going to be more appealing to my way of thinking. One of the topics on the flyer is "why in modern ages are people preventing couples in love to get married only due to differences in religion." We shall see what this Rabbi has to say about that. Oh, and there is free food, again. Before the sad news I will conclude with...I need to get back to eating healthier (but so much delicious and sometimes free pastries and chocolate!), I need to run more, and I will buy my bike tomorrow (hopefully).

So unfortunately it's true, although I'm not sure I believe it yet. Mom and D aren't going to be able to come. Medtronic global assignments sucks and took too long figuring things out for my mom and now it's too late, she can't come. It seemed unreal that we would all (Allie, me, mom and dani) in Israel together anyway, and I guess it was. Too good to be true. I'm sad that we can't all experience this country together, but I'm more sad that right now Dani and mom don't get to experience it at all. This just means that something else will come along for them, another great opportunity, exciting, new, adventurous, something will come. And also, of course, that they will have to come to Israel at another time.

-a very sad Lauren

Haifa v'bechirot

Monday night I went up with Haifa to attend a journalism coverage night with some other OSP (overseas students program) students. The panel consisted of a reporter from CNN, a journalist from Haaretz (Israeli local left-wing newspaper), and an editor from IBA (Israel's only local english news station). The discussions were informative about the many challenges of news coverage both within and about Israel. The woman from CNN got heated at times, it was actually kind of awkward but interesting none the less. Darya and I decided to stay with Abe in Haifa for the night since we had Tuesday off from Ulpan due to the bechirot, elections. Abe took us to Barbarossa, a nice bar in Haifa. Tuesday we went to Abu Shakar, an AMAZINGG Arab (of course, they make it best!) hummus place. Abe is pretty much best friends with the woman who works there and ordered for us in Arabic although he wasn't all that sure which types we were getting, haha. Anyway, after eating an absurd amount of hummus and other delicious dishes, we took the Carmelit, Israeli's only "subway" to a cafe to study.

The Carmelit is the smallest subway system in the world as it only had 6 stops. A portion of Haifa is built on Mt. Carmel and the Carmelit goes from the top to the bottom. The seats on the train are actually slanted to seem more level since the train travels on a slope. This makes for an interesting feeling at the point on the route where the track is more level, since you can't really figure out if you're level or the floor or the ground at the station. I'm not sure you can really tell, but here's a picture...

After the cafe we got some gleeda before heading back to Abe's. That's an important word morah Gil taught us last semester...ice cream :). It was actually gelato and it was delicious. After waiting for a bus that wasn't running for far too long Darya and I finally made it to the train back home.

So the elections...I'm not going to pretend I know enough about Israeli politics because they are so complicated that would be just be a lie, but I have learned some things. So currently it looks like Tzipi "won" with the Kadima left-of-center party and their 28 of the 120 seats in the Kinesset, Israeli Parliament. Israel, however, has a multi-party system and the 120 seats are going to be split between 12 parties (it depends on how many votes each of the 30-something parties gets in the election). Netanyahu and his right-of-center Likud party most probably have 27 seats, and here is where one begins to understand the complexity. Basically, if the majority of the newly-elected seats agree to have Tzipi lead the government, then they form the coalition. If not, it will be Natanyahu. We shall see in the next few days.

-Lauren

ATV Chabad trip

Yesterday morning I woke up at 4:40, far too early since we didn't leave until 6:50, for a trip up north. Although I should, I don't remember the exact name of the town we were in but we went ATVing and zip lining somewhere near the Kinneret (sea of Gallilee) which was great. We stopped at a restaurant for our first of 4 free meals with excellent humus before heading to the hotel. We had a wonderful Shabbas complete with services, dinner, lunch, and dinner again with inspirational and slightly brainwashing speeches from the Chabad crew. Chabad is one of the biggest Hasidic movements in Orthodox Judaism. My first experience with Chabad was at the Brandeis Chabad house and I must say they were great times. This Shabbas I was fortunate enough to learn much more about the lifestyle and set of beliefs from the inspirational speeches and through talking with the religious women and men. Although it is not the way I choose to lead my life, there is no doubt that the speeches and conversations throughout our Shabbas were very eye opening and sparked many conversations among friends. There were many ideas such as "everyone has a story," the five levels of pleasure, and "people are like trees" (seems weird at first but think about it, roots, trunk, branches, always growing, etc.) that were of course, easy to understand and relate to. There were also many things I had a hard time accepting, hence, I am not an Orthodox Jew. It was interesting to talk to Dani and Yomi who were both 23 and have only been religious (note, in Israel "religious" is pretty synonymous to "Orthodox," different than America) for two years. They told us about growing up and their typical American college experience and how they got from there to where they are now, religious, shomer negiah, and living in Israel. Someone who is Shomer Negiah or, "observant of Negiah," does not have physical contact with the the opposite sex with a few exceptions (spouse, children, parents and a few others). Clearly talking with them influenced many conversations back in the hotel room.

I learned a lot, had more stimulating conversation, took a real shower, slept in an actual bed, and saw the beautiful yet severely low Kinneret. Speaking of the beauty...the Kinneret looked so beautiful when we were on the beach I actually was speechless. The bright sun hitting the silver water that came to a white line where it ran into the foggy outline of the mountains which met the subtle blue sky was unbelievable. Of course, although breaking Shabbas, I tried and failed miserably to capture this in a picture but there are a few good ones when the sun was lower in the sky.
All the pictures from this weekend: http://picasaweb.google.com/SpivackL/ATVTrip?feat=directlink


Bed time for now, good adventures to come this week. As well as a new title for my blog, my mind is racing and I'm too indecisive right now. Also, I passed a Medtronic logo on the side of a building in Hertzliyah, I think that's a sign for mom!

-Lauren

stimulating conversation..

Shalom,
I'm sensing stream of consciousness...
Anndd, we have internet. We called to order the internet and then it started working for free so we called to cancel our order. I hope these people don't lock their wireless. This week has been wonderful, the weather was great, high 60's to mid 70's and sunny. Some highlights: I bought Aladdin and Goldilocks and the Three Bears at the book store to read in Hebrew. I would have bought a Disney movie in Hebrew but the selection was poor, I will buy one soon. I went to the beach today with friends. You couldn't swim at the part of the beach we were at, I'm not sure why but there were a lot of people fishing, maybe that has something to do with it. I found lots of pretty shells and sea glass and one of the fishermen gave me two awesome shells. I plan on finding a way to jazz up the apartment with my collecton. I finally found people to play fris with on our breaks at Ulpan and Darya and I tossed a bunch at the beach today :). Ulpan is pretty challenging but it's okay, I'd rather it be that way. Fortunately, I think I did really well on my exam today I knew everything. Tonight we had a potluck dinner with people from my program. I made a cold pasta salad with veggies, lemon juice, garlic, etc. I'd say it was pretty good for coming up with the idea and making it in about 45 minutes using only food I already had.
At the pot luck I finallyy had an intellectually stimulating conversation with an Israeli (yay! first of many). I talked to Liran about a lot of things but mainly politics, the army, and the Gaza war. He was very open and while we didn't agree on everything, of course, it was refreshing to be able to talk to him about his experiences as a commander in the army and as someone who is from Ashkelon, a city just north of Gaza which has been under constant rocket attacks from Gaza for a year now. If you've heard of Sderot, it is kind of like the new Sderot. Liran made sure to explain to us that the situation in his home city is not as dramatic as people make it seem. He said it was "not a big deal" when the rockets come. The sirens go off, everyone goes to the shelters, and then they come out. I was interested to hear this point of view, although the fact that it is daily routine is upsetting, no one should have to live like that, Jews or Arabs. He said he would introduce us to his Arab friends here which is awesome, I can't wait to have a similar yet completely different conversation with them.
Since I am waking up in 4 hours to attempt to go on an ATV-ing trip up north (we didn't sign up but we're going to still try and go) it is time for bed. I really hope we can go on this trip, it seems like a lot of fun.

Oh yea, mom got a "no" today but some people who are pulling for her were furious so the negotiating is back on, as well as the waiting game. We're still crossing our fingers.

-Lauren

a bike would be nice..

Ulpan is awesome. It goes by pretty fast, we have two breaks, yet I get out for the day and I feel like I have learned sooo much. Of course I learn so much that I can't remember it all, but such is life. Getting out at 1 and having the afternoons free is awesome, too. Last night I was going to go into the city with friends to watch the superbowl at an American-ish bar but since the game was on at 130 AM our time I figured getting back at 4 or 5 was probably not the best idea while I'm getting used to waking up early for Ulpan. Alas, I wussed out. Today after Ulpan and 8 shekel falafel (2$) I went to the park to meet Shirley and the little boy she was babysitting so I could listen to all the kids speak Hebrew. I think I will make this a regular event. Those 3 year olds speak much more simple and they sing songs that I think could really help me, haha. I finally went for my first Israeli run. This also meant spending too long trying to get my lack of hair in a pony, only decently successful. I decided to run to find the beach, and I was successful this time! Unfortunately, because of the air force base on the shore, it is (im guessing due to running time) about a mile and three quarters to make it to the waters edge. Kind of a bummer since the actual water is closer. I was there as the sun was setting over the sea and it was beautiful though, so my only complaint is that I had to turn around and run back before it was too dark.
My Hebrew is improving constantly, and I am trying my hardest to say my sentences in Hebrew whenver I can. I labeled many things in my apartment today so I can learn the words for the rooms and the object easier. Well, time to head back to the apartment for a study party with (shout out) Darya, the coolest girl everrrrr!! Yea, I know you'll read this girl.

I would realllly like to find a bike soon. Cross your fingers that Israel is not too cheap to let my mom come and stay in a nice apartment (because her company won't let her stay in anything less).


-"Looren" (vowel sounds just aren't the same in Hebrew)