Thursday: Took an insanely hard test in Hebrew, and it didn't exactly go too well. But then in the Jerusalem class, we talked about the Christian/Roman/Greek periods of Jerusalem, and we then took a trip to the Christian quarter of the Old City. We saw King David's tomb, the room of the Last Supper, the place where Jesus was crucified and burried, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. It was actually pretty cool. I also decided that I have a goal of taking a "creeper" picture of everyone on Nativ, as in I take a picture of someone and they have no idea it is happening. O yea.
Friday: NO ULPAN!!!!! It was fantastic. I was able to sleep in. I even slept til 1, it would have been later if I hadn't been given a heart attack from one of my friends trying to break down my door to wake me up just for fun, and no other reason. Good restful day though which was nice. I did a lot of relaxing. For Shabbat I was planning on going to a shul in the Old City which had been destroyed and was reopened last year. When me and my friends showed up, turns out it was full of black hats, and we thought it would just be better to go to the Kotel. When we get there, somehow out of the 3 of us, we lost one at one point, so me and my friend literally search the entire area until we find the lone conservative minyan going on in an obscure area of the praying area. There was sooooo much spirit there, especially in our minyan, it was wonderful. Afterwards, the three of us end up getting set up for this dinner. The whole scheme starts out kind of sketchy just based on the set up process, but we all want stories and adventures, so this seemed like a great idea. We end up going to this guy's house with 2 other people from London on a 3 week program through AISH, 2 yeshiva boys, 1 woman from Argentina, a woman from Colombia, his three friends, his three daughters, and of course his wife. It was a very full dining experience. While very full and odd at first, it turned out to be a wonderful meal and evening. The food (and really good scotch) was delicious, including wonderful schnitzel, but more than anything, the host(who was originally from Cherry Hill, New Jersey) had wonder stories, and I was having great conversation all night regardless of who I was talking to. After we left at about 11:30, we figured since we were still in the old city, we mind as well go to the Kotel. At 11:30 at night, we went there and just sat at the wall, all the while there must have been atleast 50 people there for one reason or another. It was such a powerful feeling being able to sit up at the wall at that time, but also knowing that we can just do that on a whym whenever we so choose.
Saturday: Sleep in until about 10:45 where I then wake up and get ready to go to my friend's Brazilian friend's house. While it was a very long hour walk, it was so worth it. It was a real homecooked meat meal which is so good compared to the food that I generally have. Plus, just talking about the differences in culture was super interesting. And, they also had very different food (while still having very very good scotch). I then came back to Beit Nativ and slept until about 8 o'clock which was such a wonderful feeling. I then went out and got really good and cheap shwarma at this stand we found, and just hung out at Ben Yehuda for the night with some friends.
Sunday: Yay ulpan...again. Although I didn't have the Jerusalem class, so I was able to get in a really good nap when I got back to Beit Nativ. For some reason, I can't actually remember what happened on Sunday other than that, which makes me seem to think that nothing too interesting happened then. I mean I did study Hebrew, but nothing too big happened then.
Monday: Yay more ulpan. Again I did not have my Jerusalem class, however I did have to stay at Hebrew U to register for my classes for the regular semester. I will be taking "The Emergence of Biblical Israel", "Antisemitism from the 19th Century to the Present", and "Evolutionary Psychology." I also bonded really well with some people that I haven't yet talked much to.
Tuesday: Ulpan test. I think it might have actually gone pretty well. In the Jerusalem class, we talked about the Islam Period. We went to the Tower of David which actually has nothing to do with King David, but when people came to the city, and saw this huge tower, they assumed it was him because he essentially founded Jerusalem as the capital city. It was however built by the Muslims. We also went to a museum right by there that has a lot of the history of the Mosques and the Dome of the Rock. It was pretty interesting, but we were not able to do a lot because of timing.
Tonight we had our second Erev Nativ, and tonight we had the leadership development director of AIPAC talk to us. He obviously talked to us some about Turkey kicking out the Israeli Ambassador, all the stuff with Palestine and the UN, but mostly talking to us about how we can get seriously involved, or just involved on a minor level. And then we had at least an hour of Q&A about basically any topic. It was super interesting, and in the morning (because after I finish this, I'll be going to sleep) I fully plan on e-mailing both senators and representative, and possibly starting a correspondence. Supposedly if we were to do what this guy said, we could actually have a real correspondence with our congressmen which would be very cool.
On a fun note, one of my best friends from home who is now at Georgetown had his first radio show today (11 o'clock my time) and it was a great show. It is called Politricks for anyone interested. I was able to call in and we talked about everything going on with Israel. It was a lot of fun to be on there, and to be on his show.
We have already started talking about Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and I am getting super excited for that.
Still loving it here, and I am not sure when the "novelty effect" will wear off, but I hope it doesn't because I am loving this.
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