culture shock sets in early...

if it wasnt enough seeing hundreds of americans in north face jackets with the 'leading up north' missions up in haifa, the airport is a one-way ticket to culture shock.

 

specifically, the duty free store, aka my personal hell. stuck behind two women who were litreally spending thousands of shekel so i could buy some last minute chocolate... turns out i realize, AFTER having spent all my remaining shekel, that the prices i was so impressed with were actually in dollars, not shekel...meaning everything was about 4 times as much as i thought i was paying. good thing im so tired and disoriented and spent $28 on stuff i didnt need, and didnt realize i was spending that much. also good thing i didnt take shit from the salesgirl who was so frustrating i literally turned down a free chocoalte bar just so i wouldnt have to spend another second in that perfume infested hell hole. check your socialist values with your suitcases, james richardson is king of the block. woof.

 

um, also, when on non-haifa wireless, my computer automatically signs me onto aol instant messager. i havent used instant messager in six months, and it is REALLY overwhelming to have a buddy list pop up when you havent seen it in half a year. not prepared for that. let the culture shock begin!

 

uh oh...heathrow has starbucks.... help meeeeeeeeeeeee

 

-am

 

 

a post in pictures...

ive recently acquired a whole bunch more pictures (thanks to facebook, micah, eran, tamar, nils, etc) and have decided to tell and retell some more adventures via pictures... clearly im doing relaly well writing my papers. here goes...

chanukkah/shabbat/tamar's visit:
i described this in the last post and now have more pictures to rememebr the fun... the first night of chanukkah was a friday night, and tamar came up from beer sheva to play in haifa. we made a huge dinner, went out in the k'ryaot with austen, tomer, and pals, and then went to chag shel chagim, the big holiday festival the next day. take a look...

apparently making latkes is actually as simple as the song says... grate potatoes, grate potatoes, grate potatoes and an onion too (we omitted the onion... but did add some eggs, and some flour, fry on one side and the other too...) this is the first stage. 2 gw girls grating potatoes like champs. not that big a deal for me, but tamar is from long island. be proud of her.

this is the "fry on one side and the other too" phase, an overhead view. impressed??

tamar and rafi and an amazing bowl of fruit salad. the fruit salad was really the only reason i posted this picture here. itw as incredible. look at it. strawberries, bananas, apples, clementines, pomegranates... mmm. rafi and tamar are friends from home (great neck...so we had to hear a lot about the wonders of long island, woof) and rafi is on my program/is 25% of my arabic class.

this is at the festival the next day. most of the "coexistance eating" resulted well, with delicious forays into arab, druzi, and other cuisines...this was our least successful endeavor...it was called "malabi" (i think) and, well, look at our faces to see the response. im just laughing because i had already tasted it. so much for "if you dont like it, you dont have to pay!"

tel avivian adventures w/ emily... resulted in an intense food coma, and later, the ebay purchasing of what can only be referred to as a "hollandish pancake maker" (as opposed to, say, dutch). anyway, we're not consistantly picture takers, but when ridiculous things happen, which is often, one of us is usually there with the camera. after a delicious dinner at a hot cafe in tel aviv, we went to max brenner, the chocolate restuarant we so love (which APPARENTLY they now have in new york...which is both great and totally irritating... argh).

the dessert we got was super good, obviously, and it seemed a shame to waste all the extra delicious sauces (chocolate, strawberry, and somethign else) but we had nothing left to dip, and no spoons... so i may have had to drink chocolate sauce with a straw...

nils' birthday/chag shel chagim version 2.o

my friend nils turned the big 2-4 on dec 22nd, and we went out to a beloved hookah bar on the beach. it was a great weekend which i spent acutally hanging out with a lot of the people on my program. who woudl have thought??

me and micah. im pensive, he's goofy, it works.

i don't really remember what inspired this picture, but it's a whole bunch of us looking out at the water, and grabbing each others asses. left to right is me, rafi, zach, micah, eran, and juliane (she's german and about 9 feet tall)

i have no explanation for these faces, we were waiting for something, i dont remember what. but that prettymuch sums things up...by not summing anything up at all. ha.

the next day, back at chag shel chagim, this time with nils, eran, micah, pablo (who i dont actually know...at all) and elissa, from my program. please note that elissa should be in commercials for neutrogena/clean and clear. just look at that fresh face!

a million adorable mini santas in wadi nisnas (the area where the festival was held)

um, you know that christmas song "chestnuts roasting on an open fire...." well none of us had ever actually had chestnuts before...nils warned us they would be gross, but we didn't believe him. they smell so good...and bing crosby loves them...and so do arabs...so we tried them. this was the reaction... (eran, micah, and me...grossed out)

christmas eve in nazareth: church of the annunciation, christmas parade and arab hospitality

this was our greeting into nazareth. mmmm lunch. oh wait, wait, im a vegetarian and a bunch of pig carcasses hanging in the street didnt really cut it for me...

outside of the church of the annunciation. this is where the angel gabriel came and told mary that she was going to have a baby, and that it would be the son of god. or something. i was here on study tour as well, but it is still one of the most beautiful churches ive ever seen. it was built in like 1969, so its super contemporary, and includes art and mosaics from different christian communities all over the world.

this is inside the church, a nun and priest (or something) are getting ready for the mass. they aren't always standing there, haha. this church was built over archaeological ruins beleived to be the home of the virgin mary. this is the way down to those excavations...needless to say i had to restrain myself from singing bruce springstein's "meet me at mary's place" (awkward)

inside the church. i stole this from facebook. i dont remember who took it, or if they really took it just to peg micah as one of our token christians, but its a pretty cool picutre, i think. plus you can see some of the mosaics around the side from different countries. check out the japanese version of mary and baby jesus on the left.

nothing says christmas like a parade! this was one of the floats (ok, the only actual float). the parade got progressively weirder from there...

ok, people in silly costumes...fine...still parade-y

um, arab youth in scouting uniforms playing jingle bells on the bagpipes? merry christmas indeed! this was the first of about 9 different groups of arab scouts playing bagpipes... so surreral. no words.

apparently scouting is more common in the arab world than we thought... no instruments, but please girls, contain your enthusiasm.

um... i could handle scouts playing bagpipes. i could handle suicidal looking girlscouts. but these men were next in line in the parade procession. what happened to giant elmo balloons? do you think macy's could get these guys for next year? they really livened things up. thugggg

me and joelle at the parade. thank you cyprus, for the 50 cent santa hat. (and by 50 cents, i mean cents of cypriot pound, which meant the hat cost somewhere around 79 US dollars)

after the parade we went back to the home of a friend of ayelet, our madricha (staff). it was SO nice. the family was wonderful, they were so so so sweet and hospitable (and even had a closeted gay son, which amy o picked up on! i was SO proud of her. in just a few short months her gay-dar went from worse than non-existant to almost fully fucntional! so proud.) this is amy o, me, rafi, and joelle on their couch, smiling politely and revelling in the christmas warmth and delicious homemade free food. mmmm.

overseas christmas party!

longing for a real christmas, some of the students in the overseas program put together an adorable christmas party, complete with gingerbread house making (ok, wheat dietary cracker house making...), caroling around the room, mistletoe, paper stockings, a christmas tree, gift exchange, and pictures with our very own santa. aka micah in a beard sitting on a pile of cotton balls. but whatever, merry christmas!

santa in an amy sandwich... please note the AWESOME necktie i got in the grab-bag gift exchange. me, micah claus, and amy o.

well that's all for now in pictures... we'll see what comes from the last few weeks since christmas...

since then, things have been continuing to be great slash overwhelming. went out to tomer's kibbutz in tiberias, met up with random friends visiting over their winter break, had a fantastic 3 day visit w/ my friend aaron, ate a lot (of course) and am trying to get things wrapped up b efore leaving on THURSDAY. eesh! meanwhile, ive clearly been doing really well at writing my paper.... im going to get back to that, but thanks for reading/looking/etc. once the paper is done, ill be able to focus perhaps on some final thoughts before leaving, but until then, happy viewing!

-am

as a desperate plea to get me to stay, haifa has built a "roll bar" called sanchos...the logo has a donkey in a sombrero... this is as close to a mexican restaurant as haifa has, and it sprung up in the last 2 weeks. apparently 5 months of bitching and someone actually listened... however. as i said to my friend aaron laurito "i dont trust israelis making anything that rhymes with your last name"... mainly burritos. or fritos. or cheetos. or doritos. tostitos. taquitos. fajit...os. you get the point. actually, after a really fun dinner with my friend aviad at a non-specific asian place across the street from "sanchos," he made me go in and look at the menu before casting it off (as a native haifa-n, he is doing anything he can to get me to stay, i think he may have had to do with the building of sanchos come to think of it...). there was one vegetarian thing on the menu, and it was some sort of 'chimichanga.' i dont think so. for those of you who are familiar with hebrew, and those who arent, there is no hebrew letter for the sound "ch" so they use the letter tzadik, which usually makes a "tz" or "ts" sound, and put an apostrophe by it. there were far too many tzadik's in the spelling of "chimichanga" for me to be willing to put my appetite on the line... plus ill be home in 2 weeks for REAL mexican food (and byt hat i mean chipotle...and perhaps proper mexican food too), if ive held out for 5 1/2 months, i think i can make it...nice try haifa. trying to open a mexican restaurant really was one of the sweetest things anyone has ever done for me. but alas, america awaits.

i do love it here. a lot. things are great. you havent heard from me in a while because ive been busy dammit! and because most of my time spent on computers is spent translating documents for work at the shelter, responding to emails, straigtening out things for the end of the semester, and working on my thesissssss....which, already, i get the feeling will be the end of me. and its still december.

some highlights since last i wrote (with pictures! though i must say there are about 8billion more that im still trying to track down from people. in europe adam and i took a combined 1200 pictures, or something absurd like that. since arriving in israel on august 5th, i think ive taken a grand total of 4 pictures of my own... 3 of which were of my friend liz on study tour in a ridiculous grandma bathing suit (leopard print AND paisley [or amoeba, drew]) that she bought at the gift shop so she could go into the dead sea. and i think the other one was of my tan line at its most stark. clearly thats how i want to remember my 5 months in israel. anyway, here are some picutres and updates, hopefully more will happen at some point.

chanukkah! chanukkah in israel involved approximately 219823 sufganiot, which are delicioussss jelly donuts dusted with powdered sugar. they are everywhere, and were often free...including the free one i took on my way into the gym... you know you're in good shape when you find yourself licking powdered sugar off your fingers are you open the door to the gym... (my 2nd time there, ha). it was worth it. do you know how many times i passed the free sufganiot tables and didnt take one?? 8. 8 times i gave up free sufganiot. only taking one showed a lot of restraint. they are so delicious. instead of making potato latkes, israel makes donuts for chanukkah, as the whole religious/traditional significance relates back to the oil that lasted for 8 days...so the point is to use a lot of oil. gross huh? i love being a jew. (and repeating myself, because i feel like i already wrote that somewhere. oh well). anyway, chanukkah started out with my friend tamar from gw (who is at ben gurion university in beer sheva for the semester) coming up to haifa for shabbat. we made a big shabbat dinner, which included austen and some of my roommates. i made latkes from scratch...it was pretty baller. austen and tamar worked on decorations while i cooked, and made a menorah (actually, a chanukkiah... menorah is the generic term for 7-branched candelabra, whereas chanukkiah is the 9 branched one used on chanukkah) out of a sweet potato. we're scrappy. TAMAR still has the pictures of the latke/sweet potato menorah making processes. bother her until she sends them to me. tamar@gwu.edu. haha.

after dinner we went out to kiryat chaim, an area outside of haifa where tomer lives and went out with some of his friends, and appreciated the tasteful decor and music selection of one of the jillions of smoky, painfully loud, trying-too-hard-to-be-trendy bars in israel. a really tasteful trend in many israeli bars is to have tv screens in random corners that play fashion channels...but they are not american fashion channels, so a) the clothes are awful, if present at all and b) more often than not its just 1/2 to 3/4 naked women posing or strutting. it makes things super awkward when you're at a table of 8 and there's only one straight male present, and he tries so hard to not look at the screens when everyone else is shamelessly drawn to them.

in the chanukkah spirit, i got an email from my major/thesis advisor in which we talked about allt he stuff i shoudl be doing, bla bla bla, i had a lot of meetings with professors, bla bla bla...he gave me a recommendation for a restaurant in tel aviv that makes legendary sweet potato latkes. true to fatkid form, emily and i met up in tel aviv one night during chanukkah to try said sweet potato latkes, and clearly got the large order. they were indeed delicious, and that was probably the best restaurant ive been to in israel. leave it to yaron. of COURSE it was delicious and cute and trendy and populated with attractive gay men. obviouslly. clearly emily and i followed this dinner with a trip to max brenner, the chocolate restaurant a few blocks away in tel aviv... it was one of the more impressive food comas we've ever induced. mmmm.

speaking of chanukkah and embracing new cultures (which we werent really speaking of...) last week i went to an indian chanukkah party, at the community center for jews from india. it was AWESOME. the people were so friendly and so welcoming (and forcefed us SO many free sufganiot). i didnt know very much about the jewish community in india, and i actually still dont, but i do know that they know how to throw an awkwardly long chanukkah party/performance. the performers included the von trapp family of the indian jewish world (a family of like 4 hot daughters, a mom, a dad, a little 11 year old daughter, and 12 year old son who only danced in one number but was dressed to match the dad so was thus adorable). they were GREAT and so fun. they even pulled some of my friends up on stage to dance with them (more pictures of that to follow). there was also some singer girl who looked sedated/suicidal the whole time she was up there, her stage presence was overwhelming. and an older man who we thought was getting up to give a speech or soemthing, and instead sang about 17 hindi folk songs, to the delight of the audience. it was great. and followed by a trip to the sandwich place with which i am obsessed. mmm.

the father, far left, was dressed like a sparkly pimp. some wife and daughters in between, and the awkward man on the right was called up and given a cake for his birthday. he stood uncomfortably while people snapped pictures. all in all a great moment.

yair (far left) and micah (awkward white kid in the middle) rockin out w/ the family. micah is from oregon and within the last week-2 weeks i discovered that he is great. he signs emails "cowabunga." im a big fan.

the next day i went to the shuk in the morning, just because i love cheap produce. i took a different bus number, because it was there...and got to see a whole different part of the city and totally different views of the bay. it was lovely. when the bus dropped me off, however, i appear to have staye don too long, becuase im pretty sure i got off in moscow. or st. petersburg. or any other russian city. haifa has a large russian ghetto, basically, and it is right by the shuk, near where i work, and really overhwhelming for non-russian speakers, even if you do speak hebrew, english, and a little arabic... apparently that matters not. woof. anyway, i love the shuk here because i recently discovered a whole underground part! its awesome. AND i bought three avocados, 2 carrots, 5 cucumbers, and 6 clementines for a dollar. ok the clementines the guy gave me for free because he thought i was cute (meaning that i had all my own original teeth and did not smell like beets or dried saliva). but the rest was for a dollar. amazing.

that night, a bunch of us went out for my friend nils' birthday. there are some amusing pictures from that, but i only have like 2. so ill just show you nils and the pyrotechnical birthday dessert... but there were like 8 of us at the hookah bar by the beach, it was loverly.

i really need to get better pictures.

this was the start of last weekend. the next day nils, micah (oregon, in my arabic class, wonderful), eran (also in my arabic class, from missouri) and i went to chag shel chagim - the holiday/coexistance festival i mentioned before. i only got to go for a little bit the week before, so this time we headed out earlier in the day, to maximize the time we'd be there...aka so i could eat as much street food as possible (mmmm...so much multicultural deliciousness). it was SO much fun. ill let the picutres speak for themselves...

israel's klezmer version of the village people. (ps, wtf is the guy on the right playing?)

adorable little arab girls in the street eating corn on the street. i love haifa.

um...these were hot pink pointy pleather boots...that were 30 shekel (like 7 dollars). normally in a group, i can point out something funny and make another girl try them on, but i was the only girl, so i was forced to take one for the team in the name of comedy and try them on... i a) felt bad for the guy selling them and b) have no shame when it comes to comedy, so i bought them... (ps, note my santa hat, its from cyprus)

shortly thereafter, nils ducked into an open stairway and tried them on... they fit him, which is disturbing in and of itself... i think the scarf was the result of some sort of hijaab joke... oops

ok. this post is already super long...but there is more to be reported. next time, look out for christmas parade in nazareth, overseas christmas party, a hipped out bar/"dance space" in the forest, free food, pizza hut jokes, an israeli fashion haircut, thesis adventures, a few more israeli gay guys, and more food.

im off to do some actual work and then head to tiberias for the night to visit my friend aaron! he is on one of the "leading up north" trips, and will be staying after to play with me next week, but im super excited to see him for the first time since early july! yay! and tomorrow may involve another parade (youd be even more excited if i had gotten the chance to tell you about the first one...) in my friend basheer's village. basheer is a pocketsized arab kid who lives in the dorms and shuffles around pocketly...he is adorable, and is the reason i learned to say "come live in my pocket!" in arabic. i also signed in his boytoy last night, but thats neither here nor there. anyway, basheer is apparently going to be in the parade drumming or something, and invited me and some others to come to his vilalge to see it. i hope i get to go! after that its apparently new years eve, which is weird and hard to beleive and not that big of a deal here and called "silvester" for some reason. not sure what will happen there... but theres lots going on, clearly. ill write more and post more pictures soon, and guess what? ill be home in like 2 weeks. crazy. if youre going to be in dc for the weekend of the 13-15, you are invited to my official repatriation party! and how are we celebrating my triumphant return to america? helping me move! oh, and beer. and pizza and/or mexican food,t hough i will have already eaten at least three burritos within 24 hrs of landing.

ok. its freezing. im hungry. enjoy.

-am

lost in translation

its 1am and i should be in bed, i have class at 8 tomorrow and have obviously not yet done the reading or homework. thats neither here nor there. 

 

this weekend was great, cooked a really fun shabbat/chanukkah dinner on friday night for some of my friends and roommates, and enjoyed the greatness of haifa. the festival on saturday was AWESOME, i hope to go back this weekend too, if im in haifa. and sunday (christmas eve) im planning to go to nazareth for a christmas parade and mass!

 

speaking of which, christmas in israel is great. for so long we were missing tacky lights and santa hats, and then we started hanging out in the arab christian neighborhoods and felt right at home again...except that the loud christmas music ocming out of all the stores is in arabic...but its still the same tunes... jingle bells, silent night, the whole shot...rewritten in arabic. sort of bizarre, but i really want those cds. i like christmas music, and i like arabic...so really, its a win-win.

 

the other weird translated song i encountered was today, during the chanukkah party at the shelter.  our shelter hosted the women and children from another shelter in haifa for a big chanukkah party which included lots of sufganiot and snacks, presents for the kids, and a goofy song-leader who really captured all the kids attention and was great. i mean, a total doof, but they loved it.  before he started playing all kinds of hanukkah songs, the cd he turned on to get the crowd warmed up sounded strangely familiar...in fact, it was bonnie tylers "holding out for a hero" from the footloose (and shrek 2) soundtrack... well while i was amused at recognizng the opening bars of the song and thinking it was a strange choice for a kids chanukkah party, i was astounded when the singer began...because it was in herew.  mexican food they dont have, but a hebrew translation of "holding out for a hero" is easily accessible to any average joe. amazing. i love israel.

 

the other odd translation semi-related instance was when carmella, one of the house mothers at the shelter, gave me a lift part of my way back to the university today (they call hitch-hiking and giving people rides "tremps"... i dont know why. but if she wanted to drive me 3/4 of the way back instead of waiting forever for a bus, ill take it). anyway, i was in the car with carmella, her husband, and her adorable 2 year old grandson, shlomi, whose hebrew is completely unintelligible.  shlomi started singing chanukkah songs, but didnt know any of the words, so carmella sang loudly with him, to teach him the words. one of the songs, the way i have always known it gorwing up, has a part wher eit says "bla bla bla bla bla ness gadol haya sham" and carries on. ness gadol haya sham means "a great miracle happened there" and that is what is written on dreidels in america/everywhere but israel. (well, the initials for that phrase are on the dreidel). anyway, thats how ive always known it. carmella was singing to her grandson and had a whole differnt set of "bla bla bla"s before she got to the "ness gadol haya PO" - a great miracle happened HERE. the dreidels in israel have a differnt last letter than everywhere else in the world...the great miracle happened HERE. while i was here last year over chanukkah, and even own a dreidel that has the PO (here) on it, it didnt really click until this little 2 year old was learning the song.... and they had no idea that everywhere else in the world we sing "ness gadol haya sham"... one of those "israel moments"

 

oh and i got 4 avocados for 7 shekel...which is about $1.70

 

i love israel. but dont worry, im still excited to come back :-)

 

happy chanukkah everyone!!!

-am

 

ps- many pictures were taken this weekend. MANY. austen and tamar made a menorah (well, a chanukkiah) out of a sweet potato. i made latkes from scratch. there are pictures. i dotn have them yet, but when i do... you will see them.

i had to listen to my brother DRIVE to pancheros and order 2 burritos while i was on the phone with him. not cute.

hello all

 

i've been sick for the lasst 2-3 weeks, and have been cracking lots of jokes about sars/bird flu/sids/other pandemics, but actually most of that is untrue. im getting better (mostly  by will and foce), and am heading back to classes and my internship, after way too much time watching will & grace dvd's and being super bored.

 

i come home in a month. exactly. i leave israel one month from now (well, yesterday technically) on january 11th, overnight in london, and will be back in detroit on firday, january 12th. ill be heaidng back to dc some time that weekend, to move into my new apartment and start my semester by tuesday, january 16th. this is kind of crazy but exciting. im not going to get sentimental about leaving, im more focused on the exciting things like BURRITOS and friends and family!

 

ok. i should go, i have more work to do, and am hoping to head back to my internship tomorrow.

 

sweet burrito-ful dreams,

-amy

 

ps- sorry this was useless. im hungry. and just getting back into the swing of being a functional human being. baby steps.

hello friends (and stalkers)

im still sniffly. and still kind of sick. it's been on and off since the cruise, which at this point, i just find funny. i caved and bought a celsius thermometer. sratch that, my mom bought it for me. i don't know what a fever is in celsius, but i think the idea of a thermometer might scare my immune/inflammatory system back into proper functionality. i hope.

speaking of my mom SHE WAS HERE! she arrived on thanksgiving evening and was here for 10 days, she is currently on the plane back to the states. it was wonderful having her here, but her trip was definitely not what we expected. the first weekend she was here was spent with me in haifa. unfortunately, this was at the peek of my illness's resurgence, and the whole weekend was spent on campus as i was basically on my deathbed. good times. she insisted she didn't care and was here to see me and not as much israel. mom's are good for bs like that. anyway, the first saturday night i sent her off to tel aviv to meet up with her group tour, who would be returning to haifa the following day. she did, and after her first day of touring, we met up for dinner after my internship. while dinner and dessert were lovely, and i was glad to be seeing the world outside the confines of my room, it was at this point that my mom told me a bit more about her trip. while we were anticipating a bus full of 30-40 jewish geriatrics, kvetching their way through the holyland, what she ended up with was a bit different. 8 people on her tour. among them, one catholic pakistani man from new york, and 6 people from the phillipines. allow me to elaborate a bit more about her filipino tour buddies... 2 priests, 2 nuns (in full gear), and 2 enthusiastic women, all from the same parish back in the phillipines. and my mom. i hope she took a group picture.

after her week-long church fest with most of south-east asia, i met up with my mom in jerusalem for the weekend, which was spent pretending neither of us were sick, and carrying lots of toilet paper (she contracted the cold to end all colds as well. i think the nuns are ok though). we went to the shuk and pretended to run errands for relatives with awkward requests of things to bring back, and had a lovely shabbat with emily and drew (she had never met drew, after my having been friends with him for 5 1/2 years). saturday was spent enjoying hotel breakfast, sleeping a lot, and being super sick...but it was then that i BOOKED MY FLIGHT HOME!!! due to a series of convoluted unused return tickets and one WONDERFUL woman at the northwest elite frequent flyer line, i am coming home and it's costing me less than $200. amazing. im leaving israel on january 11th, spending the night in london playing w/ my friend joel, and then returning to detroit on friday, january 12th. it has yet to be determined how much time i will be in detroit before returning to dc before the semester starts on january 16th, but i do know that detroit metro airport has approximately 5 weeks to get a chipotle...mmm

anyway, weekend in jerusalem was lovely, returned to haifa last night, my mom joined in on my "social inequalities in israeli education" class today, hoping that it would be interesting and relevatnt to her, as an educator. instead, she immmmmediately understood why i spend those 3 hours each week playing on gmail... it's a class that's dreadful in its own right, but made even MORE dreadful because of the fact that it has such potential (camp nowhere, anyone? vw?) after sending a bunch of stuff back with her, risha headed out this evening, and im so glad she was able to come.

looking forward, im here for like 5 more weeks. still have lots of classes and lots of grants to translate at my internship... AND lots of friends coming over winter break! (and by winter break, i mean when all of you have winter break and i have... more class) im really excited to see people, and find it really funny that i'll be seeing some of you less than a week before i head back to america, after 6 months wandering the globe. fitting.

speaking of globetrotting, im trying to figure out some last-minute trips to jam into the last few weekends i have here. im ignoring the fact that i prettymuch have SARS, and am hoping for one last trip with austen (cairo?), and one with em (prague?). we shall see. clearly i'll keep you posted.

finally, here are a couple of pictures from the last few relevant events that were photographed... first, a picture from the pride parade austen and i went to in jerusalem a few weeks ago, because it's just so cute...

also, here are a couple of pictures from when our friend ian was in town a couple weeks ago... i guess i havent updated since then. the first is ian, me, em, and drew at the kotel before shabbat.

please note drew's "unattended bag" in the bottom right corner... we were about 20 seconds away from a bomb squad running in to blow it up. awkward.

the next three are a really amusing series, taken on our various nights out in j-lem... we opted against overpriced bars and in favor of 5 shekel beers (about $1.23 for 1/2 a liter) in a cooler outside a conveneince store, and taking advantage of israel's lack of laws prohibiting open bottles...aka we walked around, people watched, made fun of packs of high school religious kids poised for west side story-style dance off's, and in general laughed a lot and really enjoyed the fact that all of us got to play together in israel (ian is one of drew's bests friend from home and a good friend of emily's and mine, thus the 4 of us is a group that works well, but doesn't get to play together that often, let alone in the holyland. pretty cool, eh?)

proud? that's me and ian, emily, and drew, respectively. creative, i know. whatever, it was cheap and we were having fun. i hope my uncles are proud of me, as they are the ones who have commented on the abundant photographic documentation of my (even more abundant) beer drinking. enjoy.

ok. i thought i had more, but that was a lie. ian owes us pictures. and video of the dancing hassids on top of the na-nach-nachman van, wigging out to a techno remix re-written to praise rav nachman me'uman, in the middle of downtown jerusalem. only in israel. i will miss things like that... but the close proximity to to burritos makes it a little easier... mmmm

ok. be in touch friends. and if any more of you are coming to israel before january 11th, let me know!!!

much love (and sars) from the holyland,
-am

hello friends

i have failed miserably at updating as much as i promised, you'll forgive me for not having any real excuse, save for being super busy and exhausted. all is well with me in the holy land.. here's a bit of an update on major events in the last few weeks, as well as a general picture of what an average week looks like. fun!

things have been good for the most part. that's a pretty blanket observation, but classes and internship have been keeping me pretty busy. as well as the cold to end all colds, followed by its remission, currently followed by its relapse... its been a long couple of weeks since last i wrote. after the cruise to turkey and cyprus came the onset of one of the worst colds ever. this meant carrying toilet paper around with me wherever i went for a good week or 2, becuase im too poor for kleenex.

the first weekend back from the cruise was the gay pride festival in jerusalem, which was cause for austen and me to spend the weekend in j-lem with emily and company. i dont know what makes international headlines and what doesnt, but there was a LOT of resistance to this demonstration in the weeks preceeding it... ultra-orthodox jews were burning trash, rioting in the streets, and issuing some pretty intense threats to have the parade cancelled. after a lot of debate, and calculating the number of police that would have been necessary to guard the parade (which became an even bigger problem with the events in gaza, thus needing to split the police forces in several different locations in israel), the parade was re-located to the stadium at hebrew u's givat ram campus...and was not so much a parade as a festive assembly. either way, it was a beautiful day and a peaceful and colorful assembly, celebrating equal rights and diversity. plus it was hosted by the drag queens from jerusalem's one and only gay bar, and they are fabulous. hadag nachash performed (israel's most popular hip hop group) and there were energizing speeches from all kinds of dignitaries (my favorite was the random european consulate member, a, clearly from italia, who, eh, in additiona to-a, supporting the-a, gays-a, also might as well have been offering a special on-a spicy meat-a balls... he was basically a mario brothers cartoon... but with better hair).

after the pride festival, austen and i returned to hebrew u to debrief and get ready for the rest of our weekend. as we got up to emily's apartment, austen got a phone call from his friend nick, back in the states. nick indicated that he was watching good morning america, live, and that diane sawyer was currently in the old city in jersualem. now, austen is a broadcast journalism person, so diane sawyer is basically like a godess to him. this meant that we immediately threw on shabbat clothes and cabbed to the old city, with nick on the phone indicating where diane was at every moment. basically we spent an hour running aroudn the old city following directions like "she's in a market looking place... there's a man selling bread...and some kids int he background" thakn you nick. that was really helpful. austen, who has no shame, went up to random security guards and asked if they had seen diane sawyer. while she is a relatively well-known figure in the US, she doesn't have the same international notoriety as, say, madonna. or god (as, at the time, we were running past the western wall). i certianly hope there was a camera crew following us, because we must have looke dlike a scene out of an orthodox verison of saved by the bell... long skirt for me, kippah for austen, and following a really half-baked scheme to track down a "celebrity" over the phone...from someone who has never been to israel and knows basically nothing about jerusalem. "she's in like an alley... it looks old. are there any old-looking alleys in jerusalem?" yes nick. there are.

after our unsucessful hunt for diane, it was about time to head to the new city for shabbat. as part of the pride festival (which was originally supposed to be a week-long world pride event in august, but was cancelled/postponed due to the war with lebanon), there was a kabbalat shabbat service (friday night) at the Jerusalem Open House, the organization which organized the pride events. after some tedious stair climbing, austen and i arrived at the JOH for services, which were wonderful. about 50-60 people showed up when clearly they were expecting like 30, max. services were led traditionally, but with an occasional addition of something more pertinent to the target audience (like in one prayer, lecha dodi, where it says "kimsos chatan al kallah" -as a groom spreads joy [?] to his bride" they said "kimsos chatan al chatan!"... groom spreads his joy to his groom). i was really impressed with the facility and the services and activities they provide to GLBT's in the jerusalem area, making the process of coming out and being openly gay easier in such a tense location. after services there was free dinner, which i always love, and some great conversation with new friends.

i say that, but really i mean that i was legitimately the only straight person in the room. which is fine, and not something im totally unfamiliar with (though usually even at gay bars, there are some other "allies"/straight friends that get dragged along). apparently it is relatively unusual for straight girls to partake in the events there, and while i was welcomed with open arms, the isaeli upfrontness had its way of coming out...in the form of several people mid-conversation flat out asking "wait, are you homo?" no. no i am not. im sorry. this really upset one of my new friends, who had just previously started a conversation in the following way (all in herbew, remember).

lesbian in sweatervest: "can i ask you a question?"
me: "sure"
lesbian in sweatervest: "he and i were having a debate, and we were hoping you could answer us"
me: "ok, what's the debate?"
lesbian in sweatervest: "well, we were trying to decide whether you were a girl or a guy."
austen: -uncontrollable laughter-
me: "hm. ok. well what do you think?"
gay guy with large cubic zirconia earring: "well, i definitely think you're a girl"
me: "ok, and what do you think?"
lesbian in sweatervest: "well, im not sure. i mean, maybe i think so too...but i thought maybe you were a guy... which is it?"
me: "he's right. i hate to disappoint, but im a girl"
gay guy with large cubic zirconia earring: "i knew it!"
lesbian in sweatervest: "i hope you're not...how you say... offended"
austen: -uncontrollable laughter-
me: "no, not at all. im...flattered?"

this is my life. wtf.

we ended up running into lesbian in sweatervest, gay guy with large cubic zirconia earring, and a lot of the rest of the cast of characters from the day when we ended our night at shushan, the aforementioned jerusalem gay bar. only after, however, wandering around the new city in search of decent coffee shops, since neither of us were interested in drinking heavily (we learned our lesson last time we went there after yom kippur), and were more interested in hot cider/cocoa. we eventually gave up on coffeeshop in favor of anywhere warm and open, which ended up being a GREAT place with excellent hot chocolate, lots of open space, good prices, colorful atmosphere...ok it was mcdonalds. but whatever. it did the trick.

saturday in jerusalem was relaxing and involved one pancake and a lot of beads. that makes it sound more interesting than it was, but i have no real problem with relaxing saturdays. austen and i returned to haifa that evening and met up with amy o, yair, and tomer to go to irish house, one of our favorite pubs in haifa, and home of things like churros and deep fried mars bars. gross. slash delicious. being the 5th wheel on a gay-straight double date is one of my favorite activities, because it means that i get to out-eat everyone, as well as be the only one to order a proper beer...at an irish bar. pansies. just kidding, they're good people. but they drink like girls.

that was last weekend. this past weekend was also spent in jerusalem, actually, as one of my good friends from dc, ian, was in town visiting. wednesday night i actually met up with him in tel aviv for a record 3 consecutive dinners. that is the basis of my friendship with ian, food and funny. 1) sushi, 2) falafel, and 3) max brenner (the chocolate restaurant). thats the way to rationalize going all the way to tel aviv for one evening. three dinners. glorious. ian went to gw and has been working for bbyo for the last couple of years, so he is a dc friend, as well as being drew's best friend from home...thus emily-drew-ian-amy is a logical and delightful combination, but not one we ever anticiapted would happen in the holy land. it was pretty great. so yes, a bit more jerusalem, but all in the name of good friends, good food, and good fun. this weekend involved a change of pace from hitting the bars as we often do, and instead involved hitting the cooler outside of one of the 24-hour convenience stores, that boasts 5 shekel beers. 5 shekel for 1/2 a liter of beer is about $1.23. this is an excellent price, as you can pay 4-5 times that in any given bar. and israel does not have any laws prohibiting the carrying of open bottles or public consumption of alcohol, so we took to the streets and did some active and engaging people watching on thursday and saturday nights. there are pictures. a lot of them. i have none. drew and ian, please send me them. we witnessed a west side story-esque gang fight of orthodox teenagers, during which they posed and repositioned themselves at least 25 times, and only one person got slapped...once...ever. we also saw hassids dancing on top of what can best be described as the "na-nach-nachman mobile," which is a uniquely jerusalemite experience. rav nachman is a famous hassidic rabbi, and his followers are a devout and jubilant bunch, distinct from most other hassids. and apparently, they can often be found dancing on top of large vans in the middle of pedestrian malls to re-written techno songs praising said rabbi.

friday morning was spent at the shuk (market) with emily, buying provisions for dinner and the rest of the weekend, and the afternoon was spent buying ugly shabbat boots, so we can look like all the other orthodox girls (and because flip flops and naot clogs can only take you so far...), and going to the kotel (western wall), the four of us all together, to take pictures and do some independent shabbat prayer. that is something i will never take for granted, and is really cool to be able to do... seriously iak/drew- i want those pictures! from the kotel we retired to ian's friend tali's apartment, which she had bequeathed to us for the night. at this point, we got into a time machine and travelled back to 1957, wherein ian and drew sat on the couch and watched tv while emily and i cooked dinner, set the table, and even brought them drinks. kind of a change of pace from the previous friday night, when i was asked if i was acutally a man, and spent my night at a gay bar, trying to figure out from where i knew the song the drag queen was performing. anyway, drew's old roommate erik (aka shimon peres) joined us for dinner and it was delightful, delicious, and followed by an intense food coma on tali's couches, which was chased with enough baked goods to stun an elephant. that is what shabbat means to me.

this week, so far, has been pretty "normal" but is about to be drastically differnt from all previous weeks becuase my MOM arrives today!!! she is coming to visit for a week and a half, and im really excited! i haven't seen her in over 4 months, and it should be a grand time. this means touristy sites, and going out to restaurants i cant afford (aka anything other than pizza hut). i am really excited to show her around haifa and the north this weekend. then during the week she is taking part in a group tour, and i will meet up with her again next weekend in jerusalem (shocking). im really excited to see her. especially since it is thanksgiving (apparently). somehow pilgrims and plymouth rock didnt seem to make it onto the calendar in israel.

other exciting news, my friend aaron just announced that he is coming over winter break as part of a hillel trip. i am SUPER excited about this, and hope to be hearing similar news from many of you (ya titlebaum!) if you will be in israel at any point between now and january...10-15ish, PLEASE let me know.

i promised i would write about what an average week is like here...but ive been writing for a long time, rambling about these specific events (and i promise, ill get pcitures from ian/drew/austen asap...i take 0 pictures of my own... ive literally taken like 8 since being in israel...oops). cliff note version: i have 4 classes and an internship that is about 20 hrs a week. classes are: social inequalities in israeli education (taught in english in the overseas dept, sociological perspective, really diverse students in class- from us, germany, czech republic, denmark, south africa, arab schools in israel), spoken arabic (also taught in english -transliteration- in the overseas dept...which is just laughable. its me and 3 guys, none of whom know any arabic, so i really shouldnt be in the class after 3 years of standard arabic, but it was the only class in any dept in the university that i could take), applied linguistics (taught in englsih, in the regular univeristy, so im the only native english speaker -other than the british professor- and is about language acquisition, 2nd language development, etc. relatively interesting, but not so much so at 8am twice a week), and intro to islam (taught in hebrew in the regular university, with a 250+ person lecture section that is miserably boring and a 25-30 person discussion section that moves unbelievably fast...and 2 weekly reading check tests online that i thankfully do with the other amy, but take forever and are difficult when you have 30 page readings in hebrew).

moral of that story, classes are pretty good. the other HUGE occupier of my time is my internship, at at battered women's shelter. ive probably mentioned it before, but it is wonderful. unbelievably time consuming (15 hrs a week, an hour+ commute each way, three days a week... about 20 hrs) and exhausting, but great. i really feel the effects of what im doing there, and see how helpful my presence is there. i work part of the time with the little kids in the nursery, but i dont even really get to do that, because i work most of the time in the office, working on grant applications and translating documents. this has been the bulk of my work the last few weeks, as i am the only native english speaker anywhere in sight, and most of the staff there dont actually speak much english at all. translating is really hard work, and i dont know exactly how they intended to submit these proposals to american philanthropists without me there (ha, the one im working on now is literally going to the schustermann family fund, aka funders of bbyo, hillel, birthright, aipac, aepi...basically the entire jewish world). at any rate, its hard, but wonderful. and they are so great to me. and bring me coffee/chocolate/cake/candy/make me eat dinner there... and we know i love free food.

speaking of food, i still havent had real mexican food. im dying. and no, i will not be having turkey today, but thats because im a vegetarian, not because of any kind of thanksgiving protest. i have a lot to be thankful for, clearly, and i will do my best to remember that every day, but especially today.

with that, im going to apologize for the length of this post and go pass out for a few hours, as the remission of my cold is leaving me less than coherent... then arabic class, and then my mom gets here! exciting!

please be in touch, and know that i come home in about a month and a half (though i STILL dont know exactly when). crazy.

happy thanksgiving!!!
-am

ps- im currently reading "east of eden" by john steinbeck (who also wrote "of mice and men," "the pearl," et al). it is 720some pages. and is probably the best book ive ever read. ive never voluntarily (or otherwise) read a book this long, and im only about 1/2 way through, but it is incredible. you should read it.