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