Class on Sunday

Sunday, the 27^th of Feb.

Yesterday I emailed Dad because Lydia was home from Auburn for the weekend and he wanted to setup a time for us to video chat with the whole family, minus John, and I told him to just call me whenever the family got done with church.  About ten minutes after I sent the email I realized that it was Saturday and I was the only person in my family headed to church this particular day.

Along those same lines, class on Sunday just messes with my head.  I get all confused about what day it is and where I’m supposed to be since usually a Sunday involves church and laying around.

However, we did have a great moment in class today.  At one point the professor just stops talking and said, “hey you, no, not you, you, sleepy.”  And one of the students who unnoticed by most of us had drifted off to sleep, snapped back to reality.  The professor, who is extremely passive-aggressive said, “I don’t mind at all, I just noticed you slept last class as well so I wondered if I should bring a pillow for you?”

Laundry

Saturday, the 26^th of Feb.

Today I hauled my dirty clothes a couple blocks up the street to do laundry.  I took along a backpack full of snacks and the Feb./Mar. issue of Garden & Gun magazine. 

I had to wait about half an hour for a machine to come open so I just plopped down in one of the chairs and started reading.  It was really a delightful afternoon.  It took me about an hour and a half to get it all done but it was just wonderful.  It was about 68 degrees (F) with a gentle breeze and I sat in the shade and read the entire issue. 

G&G has a unique ability to really make me feel like I’m experiencing the culture of whatever it’s talking about.  You feel like you’re living it when you read.  So it was a surreal experience to be immersed in the world of Mobile Bay or New Orleans while listening to people walking by speaking Arabic and Hebrew with the occasional strains of French or Russian floating by my ears as well.

Oh.  I noticed the locals looking at me funny when I was loading my laundry into the washing machine so I asked what was up.  Turns out that I’ve been doing laundry with fabric softener, not detergent.  Yeah.  Darn those all Hebrew labels!

Shabbat Dinner

Friday, the 25^th of Feb.

Today was another great day in the Holy Land.  I slept in this morning then went a bought a bike from “O Fun!’  Haha.  I paid 550 shekels for it ($148) and they have a policy that allows me to return the bike when I leave the country for 1/3 of the price I paid ($49).   So I’m basically paying $100 to rent a bike for two and a half months. 

Then I went on a long run that afternoon of 10 miles.  It really felt great to get out and just enjoy the country.  You see so many interesting things when you run around.  I’m a slow runner so I move past life slow enough to see the culture and watch the people interact.  It’s great.

Tonight my buddies Brian and Ben invited everyone over for Shabbat dinner.  It was great because Brian fried schnitzel that was unreal.  Gideon and Natalie did the traditional Shabbat blessings and we ate and hung out.  It was really a great evening of food and hanging out.

Every Day An Adventure

Thursday, the 24^th of Feb.

Today on the bus a girl broke her ankle trying to get on the bus.  I noticed a girl sitting down between the bus and the curb, but I didn’t know why. Finally, the old women sitting on the bus started yelling.  Then they started yelling at a guy who was sitting at the front of the bus who was about my age.  He finally says, “I don’t speak Hebrew.”  So I told him that I thought they wanted him to help the girl sitting on the ground.  He gets up and looks, but doesn't do anything.  So I worm my way up through the bus to the girl who’s sitting in the street between the bus and the curb clutching her leg and shaking.  So I get the lady standing nearby to help me and we get her to a bench where we can evaluate her leg.  It looked broken to me because there was movement where there shouldn't be movement.  However, she refused to let us call an ambulance (conveniently the same word in English and Hebrew) so we got back on the bus and went on our way.

Wednesday Welcome Party

Wednesday, the 23^rd of Feb.

The law school threw us a welcome party today.  It was great.  We gathered after class in a building on campus and had a traditional Israeli dinner.  Lot of falafel and shakshuka.  It was outstanding.  I could eat falafel all day.   Then we headed to Hemingway, a local bar, to hang out.  

The best part of the evening was that our Israeli “buddies” came to the dinner and with us to the bar.  It was really great to start getting to know the local students.  It’s great because now when I’m walking through the halls of the school, or the cafeteria, I actually know people.  

And they’re cool people.  My new friends Daniel and Nir taught me the “Have you met Matt?” game from How I Met Your Mother.  Great times.

Websites

Tuesday, the 22^nd of Feb.

Hebrew is written right to left, but website addresses, because the web was invented in the US, are written left to right which means you have this interesting situation:

Notice the period on the left side.

That’s the text going from right to left, until you hit the address where you have to jump to the left and go to the right, until you reach the end of the address at which point you jump back to the end of the address and start moving left again.  Confusing.  Or at least it would be if I read Hebrew. 

Tonight I cooked dinner of rice and grilled chicken.  Then I realized I had no spices in the entire place.  Not even salt. Bland.  I plan to rectify that travesty soon.

Orientation!

Monday, the 21^st of Feb.

So I don’t have classes today, just orientation.  Kinda weird to have orientation after classes have started, but ok, just roll with it.

Daniel and I took the bus together from our neighborhood to the school.  The first thing we saw when we arrived was a big booth serving beer and alcohol at 10am.  This country is something else.  In fact, if you agreed to “like” the Facebook page of the TAU International Buddy System then you got a free beer.  Otherwise it was about a buck a beer.

Once orientation started we were treated like celebrities.  They gave us free shirts and the dean told us, and I quote, “you are special, the rules don’t apply.”  I think I’m going to love this school.

I also realized that a lot of my classmates live really, really close to me and so I will have my bus “commute” with friends, which is great since it’s about 40 minutes each way.