end of month two and BFL two...

a little catch up....

Time is flying by. Classes are going pretty well, we had our first hebrew test of the semester last Thursday and I feel confident, good stuff. Haven't had environment in two weeks because my professor has been in the states but he'll be back for this week's class, yayy, i love that class. Last weekend I went out with Abe and co. Thursday night and then Allie came for Shabbat. On our walk on Saturday we got chased by the University undercover security guards or whoever they were. Apparently we were walking on some private property we weren't supposed to be on (ohh, that's why we had to duck under those closed gates to get through there...). After the questioning we got escorted off the property and continued our walk. I'm kind of sad because that was a good short cut, oh well.

Oh yea, I got a bike finally! It's pretty good, actually, and was only 200 shekels, about $50. The guy said I can sell it back to him when I leave, too. I haven't taken a picture of it yet but I'll post that eventually. (Actually, my picture taking is seriously lacking). I made Challah this week for my first time, exciting! It was pretty good I must say.

This weekend was our second BFL conference in Jerusalem. Although I was excited to go, I was also pleasantly surprised at how connected I actually felt to the other participants and how happy I was to be with them again. We had the usual great speakers and discussion groups, and went out in Jerusalem and to the kibbutz pub. Friday morning we worked with an organization called "shachen tov" or good neighbor. This organization does many things, but one of them is collecting food and delivering it to families to have for Shabbat meals/food throughout the week. The 50 or so of us went to the shuk in J'lem to ask the shop owners and shoppers to donate anything they had to help out the less fortunate. At first I was a little skeptical and nervous, mostly because my hebrew isn't all that great yet, but it was amazing!! We all managed to get sooo much food, (most) people were very receptive and generous. After one hour we filled the entire bottom of the coach bus with boxes full of food. After that we went on an "accessibility" tour down one of the streets in J'lem. We were wheelchairs and experienced first hand how difficult it is to get around in this country if you are disabled. Most of the time, actually, things are not difficult, they are simply impossible. Hopefully by 2012 more places will be accessible, since that is a law now, but that doesn't really mean anything here since there is practically no one to enforce it. The weekend was great, although not as intellectually stimulating as last time, I still spent a lot of time thinking. Seeing new friends was awesome, and thinking about how we're 2/3 done with the program was sad. I need to seriously start thinking about my project for the program and really develop it further. I'll tell about my project idea at another time, when I have more figured out.


This week has much in store: momma's birthday Tuesday, Ultimate Peace in the Middle East starts tues/wed!!! And Pesach break starts Friday as well.

-Lauren

P.S. I booked my flight, June 30th at 5am. Hopefully I'll be spending the last month on a Kibbutz, more of that to come as well.