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.