The last couple of weeks have been great, although very busy. I've had a lot of visitors, a few weeks ago my friend louis from home came to visit, which was great. We went to Jerusalem together for a night, toured around the city, then he came and stayed in Haifa for several days. After that he went to Jerusalem to go stay with another friend there. I went with the international school on a nice day trip to akko---a really great arab city that's traded off with Yaffo being the main port in this region for the last few thousand years until the building of Haifa and Ashdod after the founding of the state. There we walked around the "underground city," the old city from Crusader times and before that was buried by the sands of time (and the mamluk armies, who leveled the city) until the last hundred years or so when it was excavated. That night we camped out and then went on a nice hike to the montfort--a cool old fort. After we got back I went back to tel aviv to hang out with Louis some more. We had a nice morning walking around until I went to the airport to go meet Mom Dad and Eliot who came for a visit.

We had a great time. For a few days they came here to hang out in Haifa, they came and saw campus, we went back to akko, then went and stayed in Tsfat for 2 nights in a beautiful hotel. One day we drove around the kinneret (sea of galilee) and visited a bunch of neat sites there. The next day we drove down to Jerusalem and toured around and went to the wall for קבלת שבת (kabbalat shabbat--the recieving of shabbat)---truly an amazing experience. There were hundreds of people there praying and dancing---very cool to be part of. The next day we went to massada and the dead sea, very hot, but definitely worth it. The next day I was supposed to go home but instead I decided to stay and go to yad vashem with my family.

After Yad Vashem returned to Haifa for the evening and classes the next day. The next day I went back and met up with the family again in Tel Aviv for dinner at a phenomenal fish restaurant on the beach and then returned to Haifa and they flew home the next morning.

Taking a walk in the mountains near school.

We all went out to dinner at fatoush, a wonderful restaurant in the german colony in haifa.

Eating a schwarma lunch in akko.
Going on a tram ride around the ein gev kibbutz on the shores of the kinneret.

Eating lunch at the kibbutz.

Spring break ended monday, and I spent the remainder of mine in Jordan with my friends Alex, Mara, Julie, and Lisa. We had a really great time doing a whirlwind tour of the country. In general, the people there were tremendously friendly and welcoming. Every time we said we were from the states, they were very excited to talk to us, and immediately mentioned something American to try to be friendly. People mentioned things from hip hop music to the author Dan Brown, and more than a few times we just got an "Obama!" Jordan's an interesting country---it's a parlimentary monarchy, but unlike England or Norway, in Jordan, real power rests entirely with the king. The Jordanian citizens absolutely love their king and queen. Every little shop, every taxicab, every hotel, has at least one picture of the king and queen in it, everytime a different picture and there's no requirement of any sort for them to have these pictures.

We started our trip in Amman, the capitol of Jordan. We stayed in a nice little hostel there and wandered the city a bunch. We found that there isn't a whole lot to do in Amman. We spent one of our two days in Amman actually in in Jerash, an amazing city of roman ruins about an hour north of Amman, well maintained almost in its entirety. We were originally going to stay 3 days, but after 2 we were ready to leave and do more exciting things.

After Amman we traveled south to Petra, stopping in Tawfil where we met 2 guys from the US State Department who studied at American University in Cairo a few years ago and had just run a marathon in Jordan. Together we got a driver to Petra, a one armed Jordanian man who shoved 8 of us into his pickup truck and frequently drove while smoking and talking on the phone at the same time. Very impressive. We stopped en route at a nice little nature preserve called Dana where we got to walk around for a bit. We proceeded onwards to petra where we stayed in a nice little hostel in Petra with an amazing dinner buffet where they watch the movie Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade (which features petra) every single night.

Petra was one of the most amazing things I've seen in my entire life. It's a city built by the Nabateans starting in about 100 BCE, expanded by the Romans, and then left almost entirely alone for almost 800 years, known only to the local Bedouin tribes until a European, posing as a holy man found it and revealed it to the western world. The truly amazing thing about Petra is that instead of building structures, they just carved right into the sandstone. The structures are mostly religious in nature, and have facades almost 3 stories high in many cases with intricate carvings into the stone. Truly something to behold. Our first day in Petra we just hiked around and looked at many of the important buildings there. Our second day in Petra we took a long (like 12 mile) hike to Aaron's tomb, that Aaron, Moses' brother...kinda crazy... It was a long hike through the desert with a steep climb up the mountain at the end, but it was worth it, views from the top were amazing and we had lunch and a little nap up there, avoiding the hottest part of the day.

The next day we went to Wadi Rum, an amazing desert nature preserve. We spent the night with the Bedouins there. The Bedouins are a traditionally nomadic people that live across much of the middle east including Jordan, Israel, and Egypt. It's interesting how differently they're treated in different countries. In Israel the Bedouin are generally respected, being extremely loyal to the state of Israel, they serve in the army and are highly respected as excellent soldiers and trackers. In Egypt the Bedouin are very much discriminated against and many of the problems with violence and hostility to foreigners there have to do with Bedouins. Very different from Jordan where the Bedouins are practically legendary for their hospitality to foreigners and are given complete control of wadi rum and petra, ensuring that they profit from the tourism in their land. Experiencing their hospitality was wonderful, at every turn the Bedouins offered us tea and coffee. We got to eat the food they cook under the sand---they bury it in special contraptions and put coals on top---it's delicious.

The following day we went to Akaba, the version of Eilat just across the Jordanian border, significantly cheaper than Eilat, and much quieter. While there it became much more noticable that almost every Jordanian women wears either the ha'jab (traditional muslim headscarf) or a full burqua (you know, the head to toe business). The one very notable exception to this is the queen herself, who dresses very much like a westerner in all the photos of her. When we went to the beach the jordanian men were wearing swimsuits, the little kids were running in the water, and the jordanian women were wearing head to toe black robes including headcovering. It made us a little uncomfortable politically, but even more so when mara and lisa got looks from a lot of the people around ranging from looks of strong disaproval to leering stares from some of the guys. I also had rather serious stomach problems while I was there---traveler's stomach issues, but even so, Akaba was beautiful, and after such intense tourism, a few days on the beach was very very relaxing.

Since we've been back in Israel we've had יום הזיקרון לדשואה ולגבורה (Yom HaZikaron L'Shoah V'L'Giburah-Day of Rememberance for the Holocaust and Heroism). At 10 am on yom hashoah (and yom hazikaron, on tuesday) there's a siren that goes off and literally everyone stands still for a full minute or two. We also had several speeches and ceremonies to commemorate the day.

This weekend has been nice and relaxing---did absolutely nothing on friday apart from making lunch, saturday went down to the beach and got work done and relaxed today.

This is us during the drive from Amman to Petra--from left to right--Mara, Me, Julie, Lisa, and Alex. As you can see, Jordan is beautiful, it's interesting how different it is from Israel, even though it's just adjacent, Jordan is much craggier and rough than Israel, I don't know whether this is natural or due to the Israeli efforts to "tame the desert".


The monastery in Petra. It was a nice little hike to get up here but pretty worth it. As you can see, it's rather big---that's Alex, Julie and Mara standing in front and Alex is tall. In fact, from some little kids we met along the trip Alex got the nickname il taweelee which means just the tall one in arabic.
A little past the monastery we got to the end of the world. Alex a little ways ahead is just a dot against these mountains. Israel is dead ahead although you can't really see it because of the haze.


A place in Wadi Rum called Lawrence's spring named after Lawrence of Arabia, he traveled right through here! Apparently he watered his camels here. As you can see the desert is beautiful red sand with these giant rock formations just jutting up everywhere.

Mara and I on top of a really cool natural rock bridge, it's really hard to tell, but we're standing just on the other side of what is open space under the rock. A little scary to cross, but very cool.

Just got back from yet another great adventure last night---ים לים (yam le yam--sea to sea). Israel is only about 40 miles across from the Medieranean sea to the כנרת (kinneret--sea of galilee), making it the perfect distance for a wonderful three day backpacking trip. Definitely one of the harder hikes I've done, every day we started shortly after sunup and finished right around sundown...but I feel great! Sadly, of the 11 international students (plus a guide and medic--friends of ours from the university and the university paid for them, so really it was just like having two more people) who started, only 8 of us finished, old injuries cropped up and some people realized mid-hike that they just weren't up to the pace. Luckily, in Israel, you're never very far from the road, and getting taxis to take them home was easy.

It was an interesting sort of hiking, not like anything I've done before as there's not really backcountry in Israel, you're constantly crossing into and out of towns, crossing roads, and seeing trillions of צופים (tzofim--scouts) that are loud and obnoxious. The nights were very cold and dewy, meaning that sleeping was difficult, but the views during the day were absolutely phenomenal. Tonight, the survivors are meeting up for a dinner to celebrate our accomplishment.

Us at breakfast our first day.


The montfort castle--a fort built on this hill from the middle ages--7 of us decided to basically sprint up the hill and back down to be able to take cool pictures before we had to move on. The entire group was called Team adventure, and the group that went up the hill was the elite squadron.
The red group of the elite squadron atop the montfort. We all just happened to be wearing red.


Us swimming in a freezing cold stream our first day.

Us coming over the hill and finally seeing the kinneret--a great moment.

I know that this wasn't actually posted on the date it says, but I'd rather have the date it should've been posted in the future than the date it actually was posted. Over the weekend we took a trip down to Jerusalem and went to the nature parks nearby. On thursday afternoon my friend Erik and I went down to חוף הכרמל (khof ha'carmel--Shore of the carmel) and checked out the outlet hiking store there in hopes of buying things that might be good for next weekend's ים לים (yam le yam--sea to sea) hiking trip. After a very difficult time finding our way out of the parking lot there, we went to the nearby bus stop to go to Jerusalem for the evening.

After getting to Jerusalem, we walked from the bus stop towards רחוב בן יודה (Rechov Ben Yehuda-Ben Yehuda street), the main tourist drag in Jerusalem. Erik and I went and checked into our favorite hostel in Jerusalem, where we've already spent several nights--the petra hostel--this time staying in the dormitories. If you didn't know, there's no sound like p in arabic, something we've discussed in arabic class--and the petra hostel is owned by arabic speakers. In the lobby, there was a card announcing the "Betra Taxi Service" and when I pointed it out to Erik and laughed. The following dialogue began between the receptionist and erik without the receptionist even looking up-
"We don't have b in arabic."
"You mean you don't have p?
"Yes, we don't have b"

Erik and I decided we wanted to go out to a bar and wandered around. We didn't want to go to Ben Yehuda street because it's loud and full of american tourists. We wandered, seeing more and less sketchy bars off Ben Yehuda until we got to one called Zuni's. Erik and I wandered in and went up the stairs to the actual restaurant where we realized that this was way more classy than we'd realized. We got seated at a lovely table for two, and realized that we'd accidentally walked ourselves into a man date. We ordered some drinks, the best of which being the kiwi frozen margarita. Erik was reading the menu and saw the lamb meatballs with beets in pomegranate sauce, and immediately decided he had to eat them however we weren't eating that night.

Anyway, the next day we met up with the other three members of our group in the main bus stop in Jerusalem--Joanna, Daniella, and Jessa. We got on the bus to מיצוקה דראגות (Mitsoke dragoat), and after about an hour ride, got there. Mitsoke dragoat is the site of these amazing mud pits right on the shore of the dead sea where the little bit of fresh water that flows into the dead sea enters. We swam and played around there for several hours and even met several people from the walk about love--a hike of the entire Israel trail, the trail that goes the full length of Israel, from north to south. All huge hippies from all over the world--it was really fun to talk to them.

Then we went and checked into the בית ספר סדה (beit sefer sadeh-the field school) nearby after a short bus ride. We chilled out in the afternoon, taking the showers we desperately needed after spending so long playing in sulfur-filled mud pits. Erik, Daniella and I just sat around and chatted until dinner while Jessa and Joanna napped. Very quickly dozens of orthodox families showed up while we were waiting for the dinner in the field school's dining room. We went in at 6:30 and were the only ones in there---then somebody from the kitchen came out telling us that we should come back at 8:30, the huge group of orthodox families was 120 people, they didn't want anyone from outside the group to eat with them and they didn't have any room for the 5 of us, plus the one other guy that was trying to eat. He was a canadian who moved to Israel about 25 years ago, lives in one of the settlements near Jerusalem, writes for business magazines, and has a lot of conspiracy theories. He argued and eventually changed things so we could eat right then--delicious and huge.

Jessa had heard of some hot springs nearby from Gal, our guide here in Haifa, and we decided to try go check them out after dinner, but they were about 6 kilometres (2 miles) away and we didn't want to walk. Luckily, we met a guy who is from the states traveling around Israel for 2 weeks--aaron--and he had a car. We all piled into his car and drove just down the road to where the hot springs were where we got out to see a sign saying "Danger, Sinkholes, Do Not Enter." We didn't go that way. Instead we walked down the path towards what we thought were the hot springs---eventually we got to a big ravine we couldn't really cross so we called gal--I talked to him--
"Hi gal, it's alex, we're trying to find those hot springs, but we can't really."
"Oh shit...oh f***, you're where!?!?!"
--Directions on how to get to hot springs---
"But you need to know, there are these things---holes, they just open up in a second"
"Sinkholes gal?"
"Yes, so, like put someone ahead and hold onto them very tightly"

We decided just to go back down the path, go get גלידה (glida-ice cream), and go to bed. In the morning we got up and although we said we'd go for a hard hike, none of us were feeling like it so we had a nice relaxing morning. We checked out, went and sat on the really nice swingset that was there facing the mountain, went down to the nearby gas station/restaurant to supplement the food we'd brought for lunch, and then went for a short hike in אין גדי (ein gedi-a very famous nature preserve with a beautiful waterfall) where we walked and skipped rocks and got annoyed at the thousands of children there.

Then it was time to return to Jerusalem, tried to catch a bus, but waited at the stop for over an hour, and when it didn't come, flagged down a sheirut to take us there. The driver quickly flipped down a little screen and started playing a DVD with the most bizarre russian music videos that have ever existed. We returned to Jerusalem, fulfilled Erik's need to try the lamb meatballs, which were amazing, and went back to petra hostel for bed. The next day we took a quick walk to the temple mount and walked around al-ahksa--the dome of the rock, and returned to Haifa---a great weekend.

Me sitting right in front of our hostel in a really cool tree that worked perfectly as a chair.



Us on the swingset at the Field School. From left to right in the front, Jessa, Me, Daniella, Joanna, and behind us is Erik.Us in front of the dead sea.
The view right over the wall behind us.

Me in front of the dome of the rock.

Since the last time I wrote we've had a super eventful weekend and a not so eventful one, so I guess I'll write about both. Last weekend we took a group trip to Eilat. Eilat is the southernmost city in Israel, nestled between the red sea and the mountains there. Down on the shore there's all kinds of hotels and touristy stuff----which is actually very nice and rather expensive, but going up towards the mountains is the residential section of the city--populated by the employees of the hotels--mostly very poor.

We left at 3 am to arrive in Eilat at about 9 am. We got dropped off about 20 miles from Eilat and wound our way through the mountains towards the city. The first day we hiked a five miles doing a lot of rock scrambling---it was a lot of fun and not too hard as we took (in my opinion) breaks too frequently. Then we had a great night in the desert where we ate a delicious dinner because we had a bus deliver our food, a giant tank of water, and several port-a-potties. Definitely a method of camping I could get used to---we had kababs, grilled chicken wings, fresh made french fries, israeli salad, humus and pita, and soup. Not sure I'll ever want to just carry food on my back ever again.

The next day we hiked another 10 miles and got bussed the rest of the way into Eilat to a really nice hostel. Then we decided to go and eat at the underwater restaurant across the street from our hotel. Although this was an exciting prospect and seeing the fishes swimming outside as we sat down was thrilling, the listed prices and fact that they didn't actually have any of the food on their menu quickly killed our enthusiasm. We then decided to walk down the boardwalk to find somewhere else and ended up at an amazing restaurant---authentically Israeli. My friend morgan wants to be mentioned. He says hey. He wasn't actually in Eilat, but he's sitting here now. Anyway, when you order they put 14 different kinds of סלט (salat--a general term referring to everything from the israeli cucumber and tomato salad to olives to baba ganoush) on the table. My favorite was an awesome eggplant thing in a tomato base. We also ordered many skewers of different kinds of meat---truly phenomenal--and they just keep giving you more and more salat and pita to chow on.

Even though we'd had high hopes for a night out in eilat our lack of sleep suddenly hit after dinner. Obviously we didn't sleep much on the bus and the night before we'd had guard duty--my shift was until midnight and we were up by 6:30 to start hiking--so not so much sleep and the day out in the desert was very draining. By 10 we were in bed--I got a great night of sleep. The next morning we took a nice little hike up to the top of a mountain near Eilat where you can see 4 countries--Israel, Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. Eilat sits on the Red Sea and is the 3rd largest port in Israel after, in order, Ashdod and Haifa (yeah haifa!). In particular Eilat is on the Gulf of Akaba (you know, one of the pointy bits at the tip of the red sea)---Akaba being the mirror image of Eilat on the Jordanian side of the border---Israel extends down the shore a ways, after which point Egypt takes over, and across the gulf is Jordan with Saudi Arabia down a bit on that side, and from the apex of this hike, you can see them all.

After coming down from the hike we went to go see about getting into the underwater coral reef observatory, but it was expensive, and so we just took a walk down the beach and ate lunch at a very nice little vegetarian place on the beach---I definitely want to go back to Eilat and do some of the more touristy things---snorkeling, swimming, jetskiing, etc, but I think I have to prepare myself to spend some serious money before I do. We then took the drive back to Haifa---it was really nice to arrive here, it's funny how much coming back into the city feels like coming home already.

The rest of the week was rather uneventful as was this weekend---yesterday we took the hour-or-so long walk into חורב (horev) and then walked back up before having a really nice Shabbat potluck at my friend Dori's, and today we went to go see my friend Chantal in her crew regatta. We've had a couple of quiet nights in a row, I think everyone is doing some much needed recharging.

The pillars of Amram---a really cool geological formation whose origins aren't really understood. They're named after the father of moses--don't quite remember why---but they're really cool!

The view up into the mountains from our campsite at night---that's the moon peeking over the mountains there.



Chantal and I at the highest point of our hike. Those mountains way in the background are in Jordan--right behind chantal's head is akaba, and Eilat is hidden on the other side of those mountains on the right side of the
Along the route there was a little rock wall that scaled straight up instead of going around---here are the five of us that made it up the wall. If you're looking at the awesome hat on my head and loving it, it's from Gal, the person immediately to my left, our guide. As soon as we got off the bus he shoved it on my head, I immediately fell in love and didn't take it off. Even so, the first day it kept falling off, so the second day I rigged up a highly effective chin strap out of dental floss.

From left to right, my friends Erik, Sarah, Dori, and Eitan at our amazing dinner--those are our salats scattered across the table---the meat hasn't even come yet.

Last week was rather uneventful, but had a great weekend, and let's not forget purim! Here goes the story. On wednesday we had a great time having a bonfire just off campus in the national park (which surprisingly is legal here), we sat around for several hours singing songs and eating גריני חמנייה (garinay chemniah--sunflower seeds, an extremely popular snack food here). On thursday we walked into hebrew class to find a new teacher! A great surprise considering our last one was not so good and the new one is phenomenal!

That evening we went to a concert in Jerusaelm by הפרויקט של עידן רייכל (The Idan Raichel Project). It was a great concert! Idan Raichel is an Israeli with awesome huge dreads, who has musicians from all over the world---people from ethiopia, yemen, uraguay, israel and other countries. They play music in hebrew, arabic, spanish, and amharic. Here everyone knows them, think like Bruce Springsteen in the states. The two women in the band---one from I'm not sure where, but she speaks spanish, and the ethiopian woman happen to be stunningly beautiful--actually he's not a bad looking guy either. I'm not sure how to further describe their music, but I highly recommend them---here's a link to some promos on their site--http://www.idanraichelproject.com/en

After the concert most people stayed in Jerusalem for a night or two. My friend Sarah and I were going to try to couch surf there, but our potential place to stay ended up falling through. Also, the main reason we were going to stay was to go see אל-אקסה (al-aqksa--the dome of the rock), but we found out that it's closed to non-muslims on fridays, so we decided just to come back the same evening. Instead on friday we went and took a hike in a park in נשר (nesher--a nearby neighborhood where my friend Omri lives with his aunt) and visited the hanging bridges there, going right over a beautiful little ravine. Then we went walking down into the ravine where we found a huge cave! Unluckily for us we had no flashlights, so we couldn't explore, so we vowed to come back on sunday. Afterwards we went down to the mall in לב המפץ (heart of the bay) and went and had a delicious dinner at a place called Black n' Burger--a great burger joint where I got a lamb burger, which was phenomenal. Afterwards we went to go see השומרים (the watchmen)--which was sooo great! Just like the graphic novel.

On saturday we went to the beach, had a very relaxing day. Then we returned to campus and realized that we had no food for dinner, and furthermore we were planning on grilling the next day before visiting our cave. We went down to the supermarket, which was lovely and bought amazing sandwich ingredients. Then my friend Omri and I ate sandwiches that were each an entire half of a loaf of bread, but not before we put on the most epic song ever---The Blood of Chu Chulain from Boondock Saints to cue our appetites---not that we needed it at that point. Then we watched When Harry Met Sally--always an excellent experience.

Sunday was great too! After waiting for 2 hours for the bus to come and it not coming we eventually took a taxi back to nesher with a little grill to make food. The night before we had bought 4 pounds of chicken wings and after eating delicious egg salad sandwiches (made with leftovers from the night before) grilled and ate for almost 3 hours in the park. Then we went and explored our cave---it was really really cool! A legit cave, and the wasp nest in the entrance gave it an edge of danger.

Class on monday was uneventful but monday evening was purim! Purim is probably the most joyful of Jewish holidays. Here's the basic story---King Ahashveros replaces his wife with a new (jewish) woman named Ester--the winner of the most beautiful woman in the kingdom competition. Ahashveros doesn't know she's jewish, which will be important later. When Ester's cousin Mordechai refuses to bow down to a government minister--Haman, he decides that all the Jews should die. After being terrified, Ester decides tell the king that she's jewish and that the Jews shouldn't die--Ahashveros agrees and haman is shamed. Like most Jewish holidays we celebrate the fact that we didn't die by eating and drinking. More interestingly, there's absolutely 0 historical evidence to support the story--I figure enough people did try to kill us throughout history that fudging the details in this case isn't too too important.

Here in Israel, purim is kinda like a cross between haloween and mardi gras in the states. People dress up in crazy costumes and drink intense amounts of alcoholic beverages---unlike in the states where people either dress up as something for halloween or not at all--many people just wear random weird things--it's a lot of fun! We went down to Tel Aviv for the evening--we had a odyssey trying to get there--I went straight from volunteering down to the bus station where I waited for 2 hours for the 10 other people I was going with to show up. Then we missed the last train and had to jump through all kinds of hoops to get the money back and eventually took a שירות (sheirut- group taxi) down to tel aviv--about a 40 minute drive. When we finally got to tel aviv it was insane, literally thousands of people in weird costumes clogging the streets so much that you couldn't walk--giant sets of speakers and bands all over the place. Our sheirut driver had to drop us off several blocks away from the main party cause the streets were so full.

After staying on the streets for hours we wandered down to the beach for sunrise. Since we didn't have a place to stay for the night we wandered back to the train station and took the train back to Haifa---arriving back at the University at 8:30 in the morning. After sleeping for just a few hours I got back up to go out to a street festival in מרכז הכרמל (Meerkaz ha'carmel--carmel center), where we went to a really cute little cafe for lunch, and then wandered through the little local park, ending up at the Haifa zoo! We wandered in the zoo for about 2 hours where there were peacocks running free, a tiger that was frighteningly close, and a really cute back of monkeys. A marvelous purim to be sure.

Today after class I went on an adventure with my friend Raya---we went to מושבה גרמנית (moshave germanit--the german colony), a little street here started by the christian german immigrants in the 1800s--it's right next to the baha'i gardens, which go all the way up the mountain. We wandered around the cute street and stopped in a cafe where we had delicious fruit juice (I had mango) and hummus and pita. The most exciting part, however, was the fact that Raya and I spoke almost exclusively in hebrew (and had legitimate conversations) for the entire four hour adventure. It felt great to realize that I could say real things in hebrew, even if it was awkward and slow. Here are some pictures!

My friend Omri, who returned to the states yesterday :(, and I chowing down on our amazing sandwiches.

Omri, Sarah and me in our cave!


The streets of Tel Aviv on Purim---note how they are PACKED. Usually those streets are for cars.


The shore of tel aviv at 4:30 am on purim.

A view across the bay at some pretty building---don't know what it is---sorry.

This weekend has been pretty low key----weather was terrible both yesterday and the day before. On friday we apparently broke the record this winter for amount of rain in a single day. There was also hail for much of the day. Luckily for us, we had other plans. We got up at 8 am to begin watching all extended edition Lord of the Rings movies. It was an epic and long day, and after we finally finished watching at 9:30 pm (including an hour break for me to cook dinner for everyone), we went to a local pub to drink a beer to the destruction of the one ring.

Yesterday was similarly uneventful---in the evening we went to a local bar/concert venue and saw a beatles cover band. They were really great, but every time they started talking between songs and it was in hebrew, I was a little surprised. On the other hand, it was super fun and it was great to rock out to the beatles.

It's been a while since I last wrote---just been very busy. Anyway, went to Jerusalem this last weekend, had such a great time! After the uneventful bus ride down on thursday, we got to our hostel. It was, more or less, exactly what you expect when you hear the word hostel. Four bunk beds in our room, each with enough squeakiness that when I turned over in mine I woke up the person sleeping under me. Bathrooms with no real shower, but an attachment and a hole in the floor, and having to fight for toilet paper from the front desk. That being said, we had an incredible view from out little balcony...see the pictures below. Our hostel was immediately inside the Old City, literally next to the Jaffa gate in the Christian quarter. For those that don't know, the old city of Jerusalem is the ancient walled city that contains all the holy sites, and a lot of really cheap shopping. It's divided into quarters--Jewish, Christian, Arab, and Armenian.



After arriving, we proceeded down to רכוב בן יהודה (Ben Yehuda street), the main drag in the new city of Jerusalem. We wandered the street for a bit and got Felafel and Schwarma from a place Seth knew, he insists it's the best in Israel---I'm not convinced, but it was good. Afterwards we wandered the street a bit more, passing such stores as the Kippah man, who has Kippahs with all kinds of great things on them, from pokemon to the New York Mets and Batman to Big Bird. Then we went to a little bar called Zollis where we got a great deal by dropping the name of the cabbie who'd driven us from the bus terminal to our hostel--then we went to a dance bar where the locals appeared to be about 15. Eventually we went back to the hotel and went to sleep. We were all immediately struck (for the most part rather negatively) by how much english we heard. Because the area is such a heavy tourist destination, all of the signs are in English---some even without any hebrew at all. All of the cashiers in stores start with english, and when you try to speak in hebrew to them, they usually just forge ahead in english. I know we all felt like our hebrew wasn't getting exercised much while we were there.



The next day we went back to Ben Yehuda street for some real shopping--we browsed the Judaica up and down the strip, some people bought shoes, and ended up getting french fries at a little stand where I had a conversation with the cashier in hebrew about how because I am jewish and from America, as soon as I come to Israel it was my country, but not so for arabs who were born here---my hebrew wasn't good enough to understand if this was something he was lamenting or applauding---next time. After that we headed back to the hostel for some nap time, which was neccessary because of Seth's prodigious snoring---very impressive, and because of the acoustics of our room, it sounded like it was coming from everywhere all at once. The additional complication of 9 people sleeping in the same room meant that seemingly every 30 seconds someone was getting up to pee during the night and opening the door to our room. After nap time, Seth, Adina, and I ("the traitors"), went to Seth's friend's house for Shabbat dinner. Andy was Seth's מדריך (guide) on his Taglit Birthright trip last year, and he invited us to come. Andy and his roommate are students at a progressive yeshiva nearby and are שומר שבת (shomer shabbat--keeping the sabbath), meaning that they keep kosher, don't turn on lights during shabbat, don't drive, etc. There were almost 25 people at the dinner who knew Andy and his roommate in all different ways, many were students with them, there was one childhood friend who actually hadn't seen Andy in 10 years, and some didn't know them at all, like Adina and I. It was really neat talking to all the different people with very different levels of observance. Personally, the most gratifying part was meeting some students who were studying at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and having my decision to come to Haifa reaffirmed. While they all seemed to be having a great time, they seemed to be having almost no contact with Israelis---quite different from here. Then we met up with everyone else back at Zollis--they'd gone to the כותל (kotel--the western wall) and dinner in the meantime. By this time the weather had turned quite nasty---cold and rainy, a theme that would continue.



The next morning we woke up very early to try to go to the Kotel for Shabbat morning. As we walked there it switched between hail and rain and although we stood outside at the wall for about five minutes, we quickly found ourselves forced to go somewhere else when water started falling on us and our prayerbooks. We decided to go to the Church of the Holy Sepulchure. After a short lunch break out of the freezing rain, we started trekking in search of the Church---power walking through partially flooded cobbled streets we stopped every few minutes to ask איפה הכניסיה (Where is the church). We eventually got pointed to a church---just on the side of a market we walked into a relatively small church---this we didn't think could possibly be it. We strolled in, and quickly learned that this wasn't the church we were looking for, but instead the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer, a small church of no liturgical significance finished in 1898 that's not even important enough to warrant a wikipedia article, but we ended up staying for 15 minutes or so because of the other people there. Walking in out of the pouring rain, soaked and chilled, we ran smack into a group of people from some African denomination---probably 50 or so, just standing in a corner of the church, singing in some african language and dancing, truly taking advantage of the incredible acoustics that vaulted stone arches afford. As we all remarked---we had no idea what we'd walked in on, but it was pretty darn cool. Later we all agreed that it was probably the most interesting part of our whole Jerusalem adventure.



After forging back out into the rain, we found out that the church of the holy sepulchure was only a three minute walk away---walking into the small courtyard in front of the church, we laughed a little bit at the size difference from the Church we'd just exited. This church had a very different feeling--whereas the smaller church had been just one room, brightly lit, and relatively empty, this church was huge, with looming paintings everywhere, passageways that ran off in all different directions, and people everywhere. Not going to go into a lot of detail about the church---if you're interested, check out wikipedia, but the church houses both the stone where jesus is said to have been crucified, and his tomb, which you can touch. Some interesting observations on my part---



--we found out in our guidebook that because of disagreements among christian factions about how to treat the church, a local muslim family has the keys to the church, and it's been their job for quite a few years to open the church every morning and lock it every evening.

--you can go and touch the tomb of jesus---quite an experience, and the doorway only extends to about 4 feet tall, forcing you to bow as you enter the tomb



Afterwards we returned to our room and hid from the cold for the remainder of the afternoon. We later made a voyage into the arab quarter in search of food, where we found some of the cheapest and best schwarma I've had in Israel. I was struck walking into the arab quarter of just how much more Mediterranean it looks than the rest of Jerusalem. Even given the fact that we were clearly american, and the recent events in Gaza didn't strike the arab population here, people were very respectful and even friendly, and the fact that cars actually stopped for us in crosswalks, something they don't do in the rest of Israel, gives me hope for peace someday. Heading back into the rain, we went back to the hostel, finishing out the night hanging out in our room---although there were plans to go see the dome of the rock early the next morning, they were canned on account of more rain and the fact that we'll be returning to Jerusaelm in just a few weeks for a concert with school. Soon after we returned to Haifa, ready for the beginning of the semester the following morning.



I've had all of my classes once so far---Hebrew, Spoken Arabic, and Peace and Conflict Studies. So far none seem particularly remarkable, but I'll keep the updates going as they meet more.

The view from our hotel balcony--those walls you see with the road going in the middle are the walls of the old city. The jaffa gate is right through the balcony on the right side of the picture.

Us rejoicing on saturday during a momentary cessation of precipitation.

The kotel with the dome of the rock behind----because we went on shabbat, we couldn't take pictures in the actual courtyard of the wall.

Where Jesus was apparently crucified---the rock down to the right in the glass case--real rock...where jesus was crucified.


Crosses carved into the walls of the church of the holy sepulchure by crusaders---yes, like in the 11th century!

היום אני סימתי עם האולפן ולכן, אני אכתונ נעברית היום אז אתרגם זה. אם אתם מדברים עברית ואני לא אכאב נכון, זה לא חשוב, אל תאמר לי. יש לנו מבחן היום, זה לא נורא. אני יודע שהעברית שלי יותר טובה מין ההתחלת הסמסתר כי אני יכול לכתוב הפתק הזה עכשיו כמעט בלי מילון. עכשיו אני רוצה לעבוד על הדיבור שלי--אני אנסה לדבר בעברית עם חברים שלי כאן כל יום. אז אני אוכל לדבר מהיר ונכון כמו ישראליים--או יותר נכון--לא נכון כמו ישראליים. כשמדברים כל כך נכון, ישראליים צחקים אליכם כי כאן אף אחת לא מדברים נכון כל הזמן, ויש הרבה סלנג ללמוד. בהרבה מצבים זה לא נכון לדבר עם דקדוק נחון--למשל כשאני בשוק, אם אני משתמש במספרים זכרי כשנכון, אנשים חושבים שאני מורה עברית וצוחרים אליך כי אף אחד לדבר כמו זה.

היום אנחנו נינסע לירושלים בשביל סוף השבוע הזה. אז יש לי הרבה תמונות לחלוק. קרוב לוודאי אין לי מחשב בירושלים ולכן אני מצטער אם אני לא אהגיל לאי-מיל הסןף שבוע הזה.

Translation:
Today I finished the ulpan, and therefore I'm writing this entry in Hebrew and then translating it. If you speak hebrew and I wrote incorrectly, it's not important, don't tell me. We had a test today, it wasn't bad. I know that my Hebrew is better than the beginning of the semester because I can write this almost without a dictionary. Now I want to work on my speaking--I'm going to try to speak in hebrew with my friends here every day. Then I'll speak quickly and correctly like an Israeli--or to be more correct--incorrectly like an Israeli. If you speak totally correctly, Israelis laugh at you because here no one speaks correctly all the time, and there's a lot of slang to learn. In a lot of situations it's incorrect to speak with correct grammar--for example when you're in the market, if you use masculine numbers when it's correct to, people think that you're a hebrew teacher and laugh at you because no one speaks like that.

Today we're going to Jerusalem for the weekend. Afterwards I'll have lots of pictures to share. Probably won't have a computer in Jerusalem, so sorry if I don't respond to email this weekend.

Happy Valentines day all! Today was one of the best days in a looong time. We went to חוף הכרמל (Hof HaCarmel--shore of the carmel)--our first beach trip in Haifa! 10 of us went---beautiful weather, the deep blue Mediteranean. Mostly we played frisbee on the beach after sleeping in--but we did go in the water for a bit--then we got a late lunch at a little cafe and stayed until sunset. Just got back to campus and we'll be having a little study party in our apartment soon.

The guys posing.


The cluster of people on the lower left is us---pretty, eh?

Yesterday I played frisbee for a little bit with a couple of friends after class and then went to a local foodbank that gives food to needy families on shabbat to help sort food. There really wasn't very much to do, and it ended up being more social time than anything else, but I'd like to go back some other time. Later we went to a bar downtown for someone's birthday here--where there was a 90s dance party--such great music, very reminiscent of all the bnai mitzvah I went to...

Unfortunately we didn't get back until 2:30 am, and we were going on a trip this morning at 7:30---so not so much sleep last night. Today we went to קסריה (Cesarea), זיכרון יעקה (Zichron Yaakov), and נחל תיון (crocodille stream). Ceseara is a port that was built by King Harrod (yep, that same jewish construction king from Tziporri), back in the day it was a huge port, and an immense work of labor. Today it's partially reconstructed ruins that are pretty neat. I didn't like so much how the story of Cesearea we heard skipped from the crusaders (1099) to to 1930s, or how they were clearly highly influenced by the fact that the site was funded by Baron Rothschild (like much of this country), giving him a full 3 minutes out of the 11 minute video on the history of the city. They also played up, in video and multimedia, the size of the enterprize---as in making the site look significantly bigger than it actually is, because it was a jewish enterprise...I think the truth speaks for itself when you see the place.

After Ceserea, we went to Zichron Yaakov (it means memory of Jacob, Jacob being the father of the founder--there was some reason this made sense, but I chatted through the explanation...oops). The exciting thing about Zichron is that it was the first Jewish settlement in Israel (1882) as part of the modern zionist movement. Aside from that it's a nice little town where we ate good schwarma, I finally found a pair of נעות (naot--the israeli birkenstocks that are cheaper) which I bought, and we played on the best playground ever while waiting for the bus! They have playground equipment here never dreamed of in the states--we think it's because the kids here start training for the army at a young age.

After that, we went to Nahal Ta'ion, where we saw a really cool partially rebuilt dam that was used to run flour mills, went on a nature walk, and then had some knowledge dropped on us by Gal. Walking out of the beautiful nature preserve we were confronted by a field full of trash, rubble, sheep, and apartment buildings up a little hill. Gal explained that this was an muslim village, probably the poorest area within the pre-67 borders of Israel (that is Israel not including the west bank and gaza)--these are, at least from what many people I've talked to seem to think here, the proper borders of Israel. Apparently the people here were brought to Israel from Morocco in the 1860s and again in the early 1900s when the zionists were trying to dry the swamps covering the Mediterranean coast of Israel because they're naturally resistant to malaria. Because they have darker skin than many arabs, other arabs and bedouin refuse to intermarry with them, leading to a lot of birth defects, and the area has rampant unemployment and crime. A really eye opening experience--the juxtaposition of the two.

Now, it's nap time, then making a potluck dinner, then most likely having a relatively quiet night with people, maybe going to the Bah'i Gardens tomorrow.

Looking across the port of Ceserea--that debris out to the right is the remains of the man-made breakwater that enclosed the bustling port.

The hippodrome! This is where chariot racing happened, until the far end was separated to turn it into an ampitheater, and then later opened back up.

This was once a palace--and the pool-like thing that takes up most of the picture---a swimming pool from 2000 years ago. This used to be above the water, but the water level has risen 6 feet since then.


Me, and my friends Neri and Mara posing with our new naots! In the background you can see what can only be described as the greatest playground ever created.


The stones are all original, but the wood work is new---a dam system that ran several flour mills.

Ok, so I know this wasn't actually posted when it said it was...but it was written then, I just didn't have time to go upstairs and get internet.

Great couple of days. Yesterday, Tuesday, was the election here--a national holiday, so we didn't have class---there was supposed to be a really cool hike and such, but when we woke up, the weather was gross (as predicted)--so the entire ulpan turned over and went back to bed. After getting up around noon everyone lazed the day away---kinda necessary seeing as we've all been going nonstop and not sleeping so much. Then we were getting towards dinner and were about to go out when I decided I'd rather stay home. My friends left and en route to the bus stop it started hailing---ending the schwarma expedition and changing it to a night in--I made fried rice, which was ok---however seeing as our kitchen lacked spices, it was rather bland---the fresh guacuamole we made went on top and saved it though.

Today we had class and then went to דהר (hadar) the שוק (shuk--open air market) here in Haifa. It was amazing! The food is all amazingly cheap, you get yelled at from all sides in hebrew to buy stuff (I felt really cool for understanding what they were yelling), and the colors of the produce is unlike anything I've ever seen in the states. The eggplants were jet black, the tomatoes and red peppers were so bright--and smell amazing, the strawberries were as big, juicy, and bright as anything you can find in the middle of the season in the states, the scallions are like a foot long and bright green, and the pomegranates---well, they're plentiful. Not to mention the price---I got a week's worth of produce including 2 pounds of ground turkey, 3 beautiful avocadoes, 4 heads of garlic, 5 onions, a pomegranate, and three stunning tomatoes and spent approximately $15 american. Then we went to the spice shop---there were little premade bags and big tubs of spices that the owner would happily scoop bags of for you. For 4 bags of spices---curry, spicy paprika, a meat rub, and something else that smelled wonderful, I spent 19 shekels--less than 5 dollars--by my rough estimation this would've cost $30 in a supermarket in the states. My roommate is sharing with everyone he sees the kilogram (2.2 pounds) of chicken schnitzel he got for 15 nis (new israeli shekel)---$3.75. Even better was my friend Lars (from austria) who got 4 large salmon steaks for 24 shekels--that comes out to about $1.50 a steak. We can't wait to go back next week.

Then we came back here and had a feast! We added spices to the leftover fried rice, multiplying its quality, made more fresh guac, and made an incredible fruit salad with banana, pomegranate, orange, grapes, strawberries, pomello (something sort of like a grapefruit, but less tart). After eating I was so pleased I just had to sit and grin for a bit--can't wait to see what's for dinner tomorrow.

Election results---for those who don't know, the system in Israel is a parlimentary democracy. There are TONS of parties (I think 63 in this last election), and voter turnout is extremely high--the lowest ever was the 2006 election with 63%, it's often up near and above 80% (in the US we rarely break 60%-- here's a neat site with precise numbers for every country!). No single party has ever won the necessary majority of the seats in the כנסת (knesset--the name of the parliment), so in order for any party to be the current ruling party, they have to form coalitions with other parties. The current government dissolved when the current Prime Minister Ehud Olmert from Kadima was brought up on corruption charges and resigned. His replacement, Tzipi Livni, failed to form a coalition within the specified 40 days, requring elections to be held.

Election results---Livni's Kadima party (a centrist) party got 28 seats, and Benjamin Netanyahu's (referred to as BB here) Likud party (center right) got 27. In third with 15 was Yisrael Beitinu (a right-wing zionist party), and finishing an unexpectedly low 4th was Ehud Barak's (center-left) Labor party. Continuing downward in seat counts are shas and United Torah Judaism (a total of 16 between them, both far right religious parties). So the current question is whether the new government will form between Kadima and Likkud plus a few other little ones, making it mostly center-right (61 is the required number of seats), making Livni PM, or whether Likkud will reach to the further right parties, making a strongly right wing government with Netanyahu as PM. President Shimon Peres will choose which scenario will bear out (as he chooses which party will lead the coalition), but he has announced that he won't take any action until the results are official on Feb. 18 anyway--so not much headway can be made until then.

People here have very strong opinions about the politics here and often very personal. Many people percieve Kadima to be highly corrupt, and voted against Tzipi Livni for that reason, etc. Because so many of the politicans return after leaving office, people have very strong opinions on them. One person joked that in Israeli politics, the one thing you can be sure of is that when someone leaves office, you can be sure you haven't seen the last of them.

It's been a really busy few days. Yesterday, thursday, was our ulpan midterm (yes, the month long intensive hebrew is half over!)--so we had a nice quiet night before--took the midterm bright and early--think it went well enough. Yesterday was one of the clearest days we've had yet and from campus you could easily see הר הרמון (har--mount hermon). Eshkol tower--the 29 story tower on campus has one of the best views of all of northern israel, and we went up after class to take pictures, although I forgot my camera. When i can get copies of the pictures taken, I'll post them. Then I did something rather unusual---I went running in the Carmel nature preserve with some friends---it was actually great, even as much as I hate running. The only bad part was when my friend Adina got a bloody nose and we had to stop for a bit and got covered in bugs while we waited. Then we went back to דליה (dalia), the druze village nearby where I bought a really nice rug for my room for 35 shekels (about $8.50)--it makes it look much less barren.

We went to sleep relatively early to get up this morning to go on a trip to ציפורי (tziporri) and נזרת (nazareth). It was really cool---some pictures follow, but first I'll talk a little bit. Tziporri was a city that was at times Jewish, Roman, and Arab. Following Israeli independence in 1948 (or the nakba--the day of catastrophe as it's called by many Palestinians) the much of the old city was excavated and that's how it stands today. The city is mainly notable for the many beautiful mosiacs that line the floors of the sidewalks and indoor areas (likely markets at one time) and even the synagogue there--notable for the fact that it has human and animal figures on it (forbidden according to Jewish law) and even the zodiac.

At the top of the hill stands the citadel---started under the view of the Jewish king Harrod and later expanded by the crusaders when they came. The name tziporri likely comes from the hebrew word ציפור (tzipor--bird) referring to the view from the top of the hill. We started back down the hill and visited the ampitheater there---the acoustics there are really as amazing as they say---our tour guide gal (also one of the מדריחים--madrichim--guides/counselors for the entire ulpan) told us about the most fun thing they did in the ampitheater pointing out a pipe nearby---to tell of great sea victories for the roman empire, they'd flood the ampitheater and would retell the stories of the battles using model boats---they also involved naked ladies somehow. When there were no sea battles to be recounted they got rid of the boats entirely and then there were just naked ladies.

From there we went to נזרת Nazareth---birthplace of Jesus. We got let off at a very nice little open area and quickly went to get שוורמא (schwarma) the most delicious food known to man--I'm sure I'll devote a whole post to it later---it's shaved lamb (although it's usually just turkey with lamb fat for flavor) with חמוס (hummus), סלט (salat--israeli salad of cucumber and tomato), בצל (betzl--spiced onions), and חריף (harif--spicy!). The very best schwarma has צ'פס (chips--french fries) in the wrap. It's either inside a פיטא (pita), לפא (laffa--a flatbread style wrap), or בגטא (baguette). Keep in mind that unless you've visited the middle east, you've never tasted hummus like this, and even the worst (there really is no worst...just not the best) schwarma is on pita, laffa, or baguette equal to the very best you can find in the states. You can also get פלאפל (felafel)the same way---also unparalleled by anything you can find in the states except maybe amsterdam felafel in DC.

Enough about food...nazareth is about 62% muslim and 38% christian---and they have a serious rivalry. As we were eating we simultaneously heard huge bells coming from a church and the muslim call to prayer---then we walked back to where we'd been dropped off---now filled with worshipers at an outdoor mosque--apparently they've been trying to get a building permit for 10 years, but due to various political tension, they've been unable.

After that we went to the church of the annunciation---built in 1952 directly over (I mean directly---they didn't demolish it---the new building encloses the older stone church) the older byzantine church on the same spot, built over an older church there, built over a building believed to be the childhood home of Mary and the site where the annunciation occurred---where the angel Gabriel came down and announced to Mary that she would give birth to Jesus--the son of God.

Soon we'll have a nice shabbat dinner in our apartment with about 15 people---gotta get cooking! And then I think we're planning on going out to a dance club to celebrate two birthdays amongst us.


This is what a sidewalk looks like in excavated tziporri---they just don't make them like they used to. This is a "big" mosaic because the stones are relatively large---about 3/4 of an inch square.


The main street (cardus--like cardiac) in the old roman city of tziporri---it's hard to see in the picture, but there are grooves in the street from chariot wheels wearing down the stone.

The truly impressive mosaic---the festival of the nile. These stones are tiny! Maybe 1/4 of an inch square--apparently it's believed that this mosaic celebrated a particularly high flood of the nile (which means more rich soil deposited on the banks for next year's crops). In the center is the nile river, just above is a column--likely depicting one used to mark off how high the flood is--on the column someone is carving the greek numbers for 17 (guess it was a good flood?) On the left, a rider is lighting the beacon at the castle, also with that number 17. The castle looks like the type the Jewish king harrod liked to build indicating that the mosaic was done around that time. This was probably the floor for a market. See what happens if you take this picture to your local safeway and tell them to step it up with the floor decoration.


Me! Atop the citadel of tziporri--a building started by harrod and extended by crusaders, indicated by the fact that the second story has rounded corners---like the crusaders liked to do. Behind me is...some village...it's pretty.



The main hall of the church of the annunciation. This picture doesn't really convey the stunning size or beauty of the church---the dome above goes up what must be 100 feet and it's hard to see, but there's a hole in the floor below that opens down to the floor that houses the childhood home of mary.

Haven't been too good about updating lately, but nothing too exciting has been going on more than just being here. Hebrew class is going great, and last night we went to a really fun bar called the irish house---stayed there way too late and everyone was more than a bit tired today. Today we went on our first חוג טיול (chug tiyul--a hike) we took a nice long walk, ending with a huge set of stairs--and a tour around a mosque--pictures follow!

Us walking down into the canyon---you can sort of see a building on the ridge behind us--that's where we came from.


A cool little cave in the side of the canyon---right below the cave is a bomb shelter---we climbed up into the cave.

The view from inside the cave--that thing across the way in the mountain is the residence of a local squatter.
The top of the immense set of steps--we had a race to the top---I was the first up, but definitely would've been beaten if the girl behind me hadn't been blocked by another guy running with us. I only managed to run about 2/3 of the way.


Looking to the right in the same spot---this is the coast of haifa and a view of the Mediterranean.