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