First Couple of Weeks

I’ve now been Israel for a couple of weeks, and let me just say, I don’t seem to have the best of luck right when I move somewhere new. When I arrived in Israel, I stayed with Ken for a few days. The first couple of days, I was deliriously tired. While it took me a whole almost 24 hours to arrive, I hadn’t slept in closer to 36 when I got here. And I didn’t manage to sleep well the first day. I therefore spent the second day sleeping. And then I got sick. It took me a week before I learned this, but it ended up being bronchitis (or some other fun infection in my chest). And, of course, the weather turned cold, but I’ll get to that.

The first few days I spent in a moshav near Tel Aviv. I was having a hard time understanding the concept of a moshav, but it made sense when I got there. It’s basically a neighborhood where people have fields and do agriculture. Different from a kibbutz in that everyone owns their own house/ land… After a few days, I headed to Jerusalem to stay with Sarah. A friend that I had met in Italy, and lived with in San Diego. We did a little bit of sight sighing at the shook, and Ben Yehuda street. And then it started to rain. And Jerusalem gets COLD. It was actually supposed to snow a couple of day (thankful no snow). I say thankfully because I was sick and cold and didn’t have the clothes for snow. It could have be interesting to see Jerusalem in snow.

My program started, and it was a little bit like being on birthright again. We’re about 90 people and it was slightly intense. The people, as a whole are nice, though. So, I won’t go into detail on everything we did during orientation, but the highlight, for me, was the Kotel (Western Wall) Tunnel Tour. I never realized what a small portion of the entire wall we actually see. The tour took us through tunnels along some of the underground part of the wall. You could see the way the stones were originally carved. There were models that showed exactly how the temple looked, and what we now see as the Kotel. You also get to a spot that is the closest you can get to the Dome of the Rock (which was once the holiest spot in Jerusalem for the Jews), and there are even columns along the road that used to run along the wall. Way interesting. I TOTALLY recommend it.

The rain stopped on Saturday, although Jerusalem was still quite cold. We returned to Tel Aviv on Sunday, and the temperature went up and up. The first night, I went out to dinner with four people, and it was so nice to not be part of a giant group.

I've gotten into a fun cycle of Ulpan (Hebrew classes) and lectures. We got out to bars in the area sometimes. The location of my apartment is AMAZING, the room is nice, but there have been problems. The biggest of which are the heater was broken (it finally got fixed yesterday). Our wall was leaking (hopefully fixed this morning), and our bathroom light still doesn't work. It's not that the light is just burnt out. We've tried changing bulbs. It's the wiring. We've been taking showers with the door open. The other day my roommate set off the smoke detector with the steam from the shower. I bought a candle, so it's not pitch black. Where is Craig when you need him?

Pics to come soon...