Since the last time I blogged, I have:
Moved to Jerusalem! I now live in Jerusalem! It's so cool! Everyday when I leave my apartment I fall in love with the city all over again. I love my neighborhood, I love being able to walk to my ulpan, I love having friends nearby, and I love the diversity that exists in Jerusalem. I ventured into Mea Sharim (a Haredi neighborhood) to look for mezuzot for my dad, and the differences in ways of life within Jerusalem are striking. I love it.
Traveled to Jordan (Aqaba and Petra by way of Eilat.) I went with Devora, because we'd never been to Jordan and figured that we only had a couple of days of vacation left, so why not? We left from Tel Aviv at midnight on a night bus, and arrived in Eilat before sunrise. We crossed the border right after it opened and arrived in Aqaba. From there we took a bus to Petra, where we spent the next two days. We stayed at a lovely hostel in Wadi Musa, saw Little Petra, saw regular Petra, did some hiking, took hundreds of pictures, ate some of the best falafel I've ever had, and met a lot of really fascinating world travelers. Early Thursday morning we took a bus back to Aqaba from Wadi Musa, spent some time in Aqaba, and then crossed into Eilat to catch our bus back to Jerusalem before Shabbat started. The rocks of Petra are gorgeous, and I'm so glad we went.
Started ulpan! I LOVE it! I'm in a class with such dedicated people who really, really want to learn Hebrew and are very motivated to. My teacher is amazing too- she is very committed to the class and really cares about helping us learn. She has done a bunch of really fun activities (we wrote postcards to each other the other day), she has lots of very useful props, and most importantly, she doesn't just translate words into English. She makes sure we understand the Hebrew, not the English equivalent. This is very important because out of the 17 people in my class, only 4 of us are native English speakers, and only a handful more speak any English at all. We have students from all over in our class- America, Latvia, India, Russia, Estonia, Jerusalem, Israel, France, Columbia... the list goes on. There are actually quite a few native Arabic speakers in my class, which surprised me, but it makes sense. There is also a ton of religious diversity, both in that there are Jews, Christians and Muslims, and in variety of level of observance and practices. I'm learning so much from this ulpan.
Went up North for a Shabbaton with Devora where we went ATVing, rappelling, and spelunking, and stayed in Tzfat for Shabbat. It was through Jeff Seidel's Jewish Student Information Center, and I must say I was not very impressed by the Jeff Seidel part of the weekend. It mostly consisted of him pushing alcohol on 18-22 year old students. Sketchy. It was originally supposed to be a ski trip, but there was no snow! I enjoyed ATVing a lot though, and it was good to finally see Tzfat. After Shabbat, when everyone else went back to Jerusalem, Devora and I went camping by the Kinneret. We asked the bus driver to let us off somewhere where we could camp, and he left us by the side of the highway on the outskirts of Tiberias. We found this nice picnic area right by the side of the Kinneret and set up camp. It was amazing to wake up and look outside the tent and see the beautiful Kinneret on one side, and the lush mountains of the North on the other.
Now I am in the United States. One of my family members has been in the hospital, and I flew back to the U.S. for a couple of weeks to lend and hand and offer support and just be here.
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