March 24

It's been a couple weeks and I've been keeping busy. To start, last Tuesday I aquired a roommate, named Jamie. She's 24, from Minnesota, and it's nice to have some company in my room. She's not new, she's just been in a different room since the begining, and switched to be with me. She got along fine with her last roommate, but they just had different schedules, and her roommate wanted to live alone from the start, where I wanted some company- I guess time will tell if I can handle having a roommate.
A couple weeks ago, we had a couple days off for Purim. One day, 9 friends and I took a taxi to Tel Aviv for the aftrenoon. We started off in the market. It was an open market that old everything from dollarstore type goods, to meats, to grocerys, to movies... everything. It was very busy, you need to stick your elbows out a bit so you don't get pushed around. In tel Aviv we all bought ourselves cotumes for Purim, I got a bee costume. We then had some falafel, and proceeded to mall. I don't understand why, but anytime I go into a city with friends, we ewnd up at malls, which I don't enjoy. I did, however, randomly find a Toronto MapleLeafs sweatshirt meant for a ten year boy, with everything written in Hebrew, so I decided to show some Toronto pride, and buy it. It was crazy being in Tel Aviv for Purim because almost everybody walking down the streets were in costumes. I even saw people with business suits on, with a costume on top.
The next day, we went into Rehovot, and got some sushi. It's not like oging for sushi in Toronto. It took forever to come, and the wasabi, was barely wasabi. I could take half a chunk, and eat it on it's own.
In terms of a Purim celebration, on Friday the 13th, they turned the dining room into a club, I guess. On one side there was a DJ, and loud music, and all of the young people dancing. On the other side was where the older people were dancing. There was free cheese and crackers, as well as an open bar, since Purim is a holiday where you're supposed to get drunk enugh that you don't know good from bad... doens't the saying go something like that? There was a lot of beer spilled on me, it was very sweaty, and there were various levels of drama going on, but all in all it was a very fun night. The day after was Shabbat, also good however, and barely anyone was too be seen, since people were sleeping, and relaxing. However, that night, I cam down with a fever, and my throat was really hurtings me, so I didn't go to work or clss the next day. I had slept from 10pm, to 8, and went to the doctor. They gave me throat lozenges, even though I know it was beyond that, in fact the worst my throat has ever felt (and I've had my fair share of Broncitis, Laryngitis, strep throat, etc.) I then slept more, ate lunch, slept some more, and finally got out of my bed at 6. I've never slept so much in my life.
The next day I pushed myself to wake up for 6am for the day trip with the whole Ulpan. We started off at Atzlit(?) which was an illegal immigrent camp for the Jews when they started arriving into israel around the time that Israel became a state. They were stressing the point that Jews were coming from Europe, from the camps, and ghettos of the Holocaust, and when they came to Israel, expecting to be free, many were put into these camps. In all honesty, I still felt extremly sick, and I was very tired, so I don't remember most of what was being told to us in the tour, and I actually fell asleep for the 10 minute video they showed us.
Next we went on a hike on Mount Carmel. It was quite beautiful, I'll try and post photos in the next couple of days. From the mountain we had a view of the sea, and of other mountains, and caves, and green. In israel, the scenery is all green and brownish-orange. We even got to take our flashlights deeps into a cave, ot explore a bit. It was so loud and busy because there were also groups of high school kids touring around, and I ended up leading a whole bunch of people out of the cave since many people didn't have lunch.
Next we went to a Druze village. Druze is a belief that originated I think in Egypt. It started I think as a fusion of Jewish, and Ilslamic beliefs, but now it is its own thing. Druze people live in villages only of Druze people, and they can only marry inside of the religion, or they are kicked out of the community. Things I remember about the religion it they had 5 profits, and they belive that humans reincarnate, but they remain human, and of the same sex in each reincarnation. Our Druze guide. who was a secular man, says he is one of a small group of Druze people who remembers his former life. Apparently they all have 73 lives, and all of their 73 lives end together. The village was very hilly, it reminded me of the steep hills in San Fransisco, and the houses were some the most beautiful houses I've ever seen. After we got to walk around their small market, where I bought a backgammon, or sheshbesh board. Nothing is priced, you have to ask the price and bargain. And the woman was aying, :this is a spcial price, only for you", but of course they say that to everyone.
For the rest of that week, I still felt sick. When my throat got a bit better, I started noticing a pain in my ear, that tylenol was not healing. I went back to the doctor to complain about my EAR, and they look in my THROAT, give me a look as if I was lying about the pain, and just told me to continue taking the throat lozenges. This was all comign from the nurse, who are Israeli, so of course their natural reactionis to tell you to suck up the pain.. For last week when I was sick, everybody was getting sick. You started to be able to recognize that people were coming somewhere becuase you could tell who each individual cough was coming from. We all were sleeping a lot, watched a lot of movies, and went to pick oranges. One day when we were at our place in the orange fields, under the big trees, we heard and saw a swarm of bees, and ran away. We also spotted some avacados in the trees we were sitting under, so we started throwing sticks 20-30 feet in the air to knock them down.
The past Friday, I went to Jerusalem to visit my relatives, Varda and Shlomo. On the way to Jerusalem, waiting for the bus, I was with someone on the Ulpan Raphael. He speaks Hungarian, and knew no Hebrew or English before coming here, so it was one of the first times I was able to hold conversations with him. While we were waitin for the bus, a crazy man with a kippah sat down right beside us (most chairs were empty, but he sat RIGHT beside us) and started rattling on in Hebrew. The hwole time Raphael and I were trying so hard not to laugh, and jsut nodded and agreed.
In Jerusalem, we visited the Western Wall since I didn't really get much out of the 5 minute visit we had to the wall on my frist tour. I got to put a note into the wall. We also toured around parts of the old city that I didn't see before, including a painting of a street in the old city in the time of the Romans, as well as a recriation of the Menora from the time of the Temple. Unfortuntely, it was a friday evening, so everything was closed, otherwise we would have gone to the market. We then drove past the house that my Grandfather lived in when he lived in Israel. I was then cooked a great dinner, with a bit of everything. All the home cooked meals I'm going to recieve in Israel are going to be a luxury. After dinner, I sat and read for a while, which was the most relaxation I've had since I've arrived.
Next morning, I had the best breakfast: a few pieces of toast, a few kinds of cheeses, jam, olives, and tomatoes. Varda, Shlomo and I then drove to Jaffa, to go on a tour, with their group of 30 friends or so, all over the age of 65. It wasn't so much a walking tour, more like a an informative tour, so I was listening to stories about when Napoleon conquered Jaffa, and such. It was all in Hebrew, so anytime I zoned out, then zoned back in, it was hard to understand. We were walking along the water, and it was a clear sunny day, so it was nice. We then drove over to Tel Aviv- although I think it's Tel Aviv-Jaffa, kind of the same city, and went to the pier/market place. Before we were able to drive over to the pier though, the group was arguing for 20 minutes about where we'd park, and what route we'd take. Of course, everone thought they were right, so it just didn't end. The cities were beautiful, and the stories we were told on the tour were interesting, so in all it was a very nice trip. The whole time I was being spoken to in Hebrew, and probably 90-95% of the time I was talking back in Hebrew. I was impressed with myself, but by the end of the weekend my head was hurting.
Yesterday was also a very nice day, so we bought food for lunch, and went to have a picnic, instead of eating in the dining room. There, people were climbing trees, playing chess, and I played some seshbesh.
Thats all of the evenful things that have happened in the past few weeks. Tomorrow in class we are cooking, so we can learn kitchen words. We'll be making israeli salads, fruit salads, dips, and shaksuhka, which I know involves eggs, but I'm ont sure what else. I hope its successful, and I guess I'll be able to add it to my list of things I can make. A very small list. I'll try to write again sooner than 2 weeks. Hope everybosy is well, and I miss you all.

March 7

Day's here all kind of blend together, so I'm not sure if anything I will type on this post is in any sort of order. During the days I'm still working cleaning the toilets. For one ady I had a friend doing it with me since he didn't ahev a job yet. Herky, frmo New York, jsut came to the Ulpan last friay, a few weeks into the Ulpan, but he's settling in alright. He's rooming with the crazy Russian Anton. I don't think I've written about Anton yet. Basically for the first week he was evry quiet, kept to himself, and avoided being social. We all assumed he didn't know any English and then one night he got drunk, and just went crazy. It turns out he understands english very wello, but he just have a sorted past. He said he was in the navy when he was 14, and was in it for 8 years. We think he may have been addicted to drugs for a while, and now he's here. He's a nice guys, but when he drinks, he goes crazy, and runs around ni his boxers, with his covers on his head yelling random things. He'll probably be kicked out soon since he's never been to class, and he hasn't been assigned a job/done anything sine he's gotten here. Even though he's crazy, we're all such a family here that when he leaves it will be sad.

It's now been about a month sine I've been here, which is really crazy. I think everybody is starting to feel a little too cooped inside. We are close to Rehovot, which is a good sized town, but it costs money to get in and out of there most of the time. Yesterday though no one had class or work in the afternoon so everyone tried to get on the one free bus gonig into Rehovot. The bus maybe fits 20 people at most. Probably 20 people from the ulpan were waiting for the bus, and kibbutz teenagers, and adults, and the kibbutzniks told some of us ulpanists to get off the bus so they could fit. They don't really see us as equal sine we don't live here all year round, which I can understrand. But at the same time we work, we pay to be here, and we put in our share, so it can get kind of obnoxious.

Sometimes fun things will come up. The other night a few friends and I went to a birthady BBQ of a friend of ours on the kibbutz, and they fed us meat, beer and hummus, and this dip that was kind of like hummus but a lot better. Usually most nights/free time in general, we like to hang around in people's rooms and listen to music, and sometimes dance. One night me and my Montreal friend, Blake were left alone in a room with speakers, and we both just started dancing. We were dancing in the halls, where we realized the video cameras probably saw everything. A girl in the Ulpan's sister was in town and she saw us doing this and probably thought we were crazy. There might be some truth to her thinking we're crazy though, since we probably are all a bit crazy as a result of being cooped up on our isolated community.

It is finally warm again, and after 3 weeks of cold, I think I heard we're having a bit of a heat wave. Yesterday after work, me, 3 of my ulpan friends were driven to a beach just 20 minutes away by our kibbutz friend Offer. We got to swim and lay down on the beach and relax. The beach was quite the sight, there were cars parked on it, people driving around on 4 wheelers, and when we first arrived there was a car stuck in the water being pushed out. Offer told us this is common to see at a beach, people like showing off there cars. What was also different about the beach was the fact that it was pretty much all young people, and you didn't see old men with their big bellies hanging over their speedos like you normally see at a beach.

Last night I got to have a nice home cooked shabbat meal with a family on the kibbutz... family of Dina's old friend Avidan. It was very nice. She was born in Canada, and moved to Israel after she did the same Ulpan I did, many years ago. I took it easy after that, and didn't go to the club since I've been a bit sick for a few days. It was nice to have a relaxing night.