A little over a month has passed since I first stepped off the plane in Tel Aviv. I literally can not believe I have only been here for a month. I feel like Israel is home and I know this city. The friends I have met feel like my family. It is hard to believe in one month I could feel so at home in a place so far away.
I took my Ulpan final on Thursday. I have finally finished a month of intensive Hebrew! I AM SO HAPPY FOR IT TO BE OVER! I had never even seen the Hebrew alphabet a month ago and a few days ago I read aloud a paragraph in class. Although I am no where near a fluent speaker I have made so much progress. I can speak a little (written in Hebrew is קטן and pronounced "kisat") Hebrew, enough to survive. I am really astonished by how much I have learned. I can actually listen to conversations and understand parts of it. Sometimes I can even chime in! But I am so HAPPY for Ulpan to finally be over! I will continue to take Hebrew once I start my real classes, but the best way to get better is to speak, speak and speak!
I managed to not have Sunday classes so I will have a 3 day weekend. I am taking Foreign Policy of Israel, Negotiating Middle East Peace and Roman-Byzantine Archaeology. The Archaeology class consists of field trips every week. I've heard from past students that classes here are really interesting but not very hard. But my Middle East Peace class has a 25 page term paper, luckily there is a lot to write on the subject!
Friday night Marissa and I went to another families home for Shabbat dinner. It is becoming quite the tradition. The father was a Rabbi and was very unconventional. The apartment was decorated in bright colors with a disco ball and streamers hanging from the ceiling. The Rabbi said he decorated his home this way because it reflects his lifestyle and personality, he also added his wife did not object and so he could. It was a really fun and long dinner. We arrived before sunset about 5:30 and did not leave his house until after midnight. It was very different than the other homes we had been to because he was almost a hippie Orthodox man. When we did Kiddish (a blessing before the meal where you drink wine, it is all in Hebrew so I'm not actually sure what is going on) he went around and gave us all these weird almost fortune teller blessings. He was really fun and his stories kept us laughing all night. Of course another group of Rabbi's in training also attended dinner. It is like the Orthodox blind date. The Rabbi was entertaining and so dinner was an experience and a lot of fun.
Saturday morning I went with Jacki to a Bat Mitvah. Jacki works at a camp and one of her campers was having her Bat Mitvah and invited her. It was at a reformed synagogue so it was very laid back compared to the Orthodox dinner. It was all in Hebrew but the songs were beautiful. Jacki clued me in on what was going throughout the service so I kept up pretty well. It was a joyous occasion though and everyone was very excited! I met a man whose wife was from Winston-Salem and she went to UNC, it is always nice to meet someone with connections to North Carolina. The service was followed by a brunch with bagels of course.
Late Friday night and all day Saturday it hailed in Jerusalem! I never thought it would hail in the Middle East, the sandbox of the world! But as we were walking home from Shabbat Dinner hail started coming down. Israeli's are worse than Southerners with snow. Just like in North Carolina everyone rushes to get the essentials, here it is hummus and pita. Not even an inch of freezing rain/hail/snow fell in the city but everyone was so excited. Snow does not happen often here so when it does it is a big deal.
I have been astonished by the generosity of the Israeli people. I have been taken in to peoples homes. They have fed me and loved me for no reason what so ever, simply out of the kindness of their hearts. I hope to take that back with me to the US. We should all share a meal with strangers every once in awhile.
xoxo
Katy Ann
ps. I posted more pictures on shutter fly
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