Bat outta hel! October 21, 2008

I’m going to write this post quickly because I’m sitting on a cushioned chair. I’m still at my family friend’s place (long story), and they gave me a cushioned dining room chair to use at the computer. With all the hours of emailing, chatting, blogging, and youtubing I do, I got in my head that the cushion is slowly flattening. Surely a cushion meant for at most a couple of hours of dining cannot handle hours of online time wasting, and I didn’t want to ruin their chair set. Last time I was given this chair, I put it to the side and sat diagonally on a nearby bed to type instead. When my mom’s friend, the wife, came in and asked why I wasn’t using the chair, I told her my concern and she laughed… and laughed… I guess it’s pretty ridiculous, but I’m telling you, I can see a burekas-shaped butt imprint. So yes, I have a self-imposed time limit on this chair, and I really need to get back to Jerusalem tonight anyway! THE HOLIDAYS ARE OVER!

 

I finally went out to a club in Tel Aviv on Sunday night. Not exactly my type of place, but I drank gin, so I was happy. It was called Landen, and it’s supposedly a “hip” spot with a VIP list you need to be on to get in. It’s also located in the basement of a mall. I got there with a group of about 7 Israelis and one of them knew someone. A girl with bleached hear and a white sexy-nurse type dress was armed with a clipboard and checked off name after name. In usual Israeli style, there was no line, just a buzzing mass of striped button up shirts, platform sandals, and gelled hair inching its way towards her from every angle. She seemed to turn whichever direction she wanted in order to let in the next group. We waited for about 15 minutes before we could get in. I was ready to go to any other bar, but it wasn’t up to me.

 

Then one of the Israeli friends gave us the OK and flagged us over, bouncers checked our IDS and patted the bottoms of the girls’ handbags, and we walked in. From what I could remember, the bar was 65%, well, bar. Instead of having the bars against the walls, the entire center of a pretty large space was taken up by what looked like an octopus of connecting bar stations … at least that’s what it looked like after three gin tonics. The place itself was dark, the walls were brick, and there was a library of books in the back, which to me did not jive with the velvet rope attitude at the door. Yes, I flipped through the books. The only one I can remember is a an early 20th century German edition of Tom Sawyer. People crammed in around the perimeter of the space, and all there was to look at was the bar, the bartenders, and glittering rows of glasses. I really don’t understand the reasoning behind the set-up. Oh, and there was a bizarre pink bunny (I think) mascot sitting the bar and later dancing with people. Still, I drank, I danced, so overall I was happy, but the crowd there was didn’t seem all that special, even though they obviously were if they got in! As always happens on a good night, I did not have my camera on me.

 

Today, I went to a birthday picnic at an area in the Hulda Forest right next to the Barkan vineyards. It was beautiful there! Again, no camera on me. The picnic was for a 6 year old, so there were lots of kids, but there was also lots of good food, including some quiches my mom’s friend spent literally all night making. The party took an interesting turn when in the middle of everything, a bat flew out of one tree, though the crowd, and landed upside down on a branch of a tree right above the kids’ table. Kids screamed, adults pulled away, and then everyone circled around it to get a good look. It just hung there, with its little mouth twitching. It was the first time I have ever seen a bat in person. It was not pretty, but still fascinating. “It’s Batman! Don’t worry, it’s Batman!” some adults told the kids to placate them. Other adults tried to swing branches near the bat to shoo it away, but it would not move. About 15 minutes passed and the bat did not move an inch. I then walked over to my bag, which was on the ground close to the bat, and as I passed the bat, it flew right past me and nosedove on top of the recycling bag, where it laid twitching. “Is it dying?” I asked someone, but he shrugged. I think the adults knew it was but didn’t want to scare the kids. “It’s sleeping! It’s sleeping!” they kept saying. Now, I’m not sure how much I believe in omens, but having a dying bat sweep by me before it twitched to death did not feel right to me.

 

After that, I left to go use the restroom, so I’m not sure if the bat died, but when I came back the bag it landed on was moved far away, and I didn’t want to ask what happened since it seemed everyone wanted to forget it. I sat down near the picnic table and drank some Turkish coffee with sugar and cardamom (hel in Hebrew, yum). Then I heard a thud after 10 feet away, looked over and discovered that a bat had dropped down from the tree above and was now twitching on the ground. The same bat? Another bat? Why were bats dying around me? I moved away, and about 10 minutes later, I looked over and the bat was gone. I don’t know much about bats, but do they normally drop and twitch?

 

On the car ride home, everyone was tired. The husband has this habit of signalling his return to home by taking off his seatbelt a block before we get to the driveway. He does this every time. Whenever he does, I remind myself of my vague recollection of the statistic about most car accidents occuring near the home. Well, today I knew he was ready for a nap. “Oh, he is going to take off his seatbelt two blocks before the driveway…” and he did.

In the Tel Aviv ‘burbs October 18, 2008

I have my family friends’ apartment to myself this weekend. They went to the Negev for a zimmer weekend, and offered up their place. Although I want to be in Jerusalem, I can’t say no to an offer of a full apartment with a huge flat panel TV, Wii, internet access, and a large balcony.

 

Yesterday, I stepped on the scale for the first time since I arrived in Israel and found that I lost about 5-7 pounds. I can attribute this only to no delicious morning scones, less restaurants (but oh how I miss them!), and of course, little to no booze. Two nights ago, I had half a glass of pomegranate wine, and I had to pace myself because I felt flushed. I’ve been eating quite heartily, so the weight loss is definitely not the result of appetite reduction or healthier eating.

 

I went to the beach in Tel Aviv on Monday for the first time since I came here! I enjoyed it greatly, and the water was really warm. On the way to the bus, I picked up a falafel (again, my first since I got here!) and ate it at the stop.

 

On Wednesday, I went to Tel Aviv for the day and walked around, tried to shop, but finding nothing under $100 that I know I could get in New York for $15. There was a store on Shenkin that sold Free People clothes for hundreds of shekels, but in New York- Marshalls, TJ Maxx- $25-40 maybe, but usually on sale too. For all the designer shops and boutiques in the area, I ended up getting a shirt at the Castro Outlet.

 

I also ate pizza at a popular place on Shenkin, but was disappointed.

 

 

It was made thin crust style, and even though I got the slice just as it came out of the oven, it was cold cardboard by the time I ate it- which is why I don’t enjoy thin crust in general.

 

One of many fruit juice and smoothie stands in the area, where I like to get my fresh pomegranate juice! Yum!

 

I walked around some more, and then I went to a lovely cafe/used bookstore on a tiny street off of King George (when will I remember to look for names?), and drank a cappuccino and looked at their mostly Hebrew book collection.

 

An alley off the tiny street where the cafe is located.

 

As I walked out, a creepy guy standing outside managed to turn “Hag Sameach” into a catcall. I then found another used bookstore, breezed my way through a Doctor Seuss story in Hebrew (yeah, I got skillz, and what?!), and then found my way back to the number 19 bus, which was filled with Russian women of varying shades of bright plumage, as usual.

 

I sat and watched them play on Allenby before I caught my bus.

 

When I returned to Rishon LeZiyyon (LeZion, LeTzion, whichever!), I followed the crowds in anticipation of the annual “wine” festival. The city center was flooded with people of all ages, but strutting teens ruled the crowd. There were multiple stages set up for various types of music. One stage featured Israel Baron, the winner of the 6th season of the Israeli version of American Idol, כוכב נולד, or “A Star is Born,” and the runner-up, Lee Biran, or “Libi.” He sang what I assume are covers, including a song that my Hebrew teacher made my class sing back in New York, while the preteen girls squealed. I’ve been in a few pits in my day, but this was worse, not because of any violence, but because of the constant nudge here, small push there, every time I thought I found a safe zone. 

Baron and Biran at the festival. This photo was not easy to get because every time I stuck my camera up in the air, I saw someone's cell phone in my view finder

 

 

The crowd watching the two. The pre-teens were concentrated in the front.

 

“Libi” left the stage, Baron continued to charm the crowd (he sings with his eyes!), praised the great city of Rishon, and the show was over. The crowd quickly dispersed, and I tried to escape it, but ended up directly in the path of the group of solders rushing Baron through the crowd. I heard squeals, I was pushed around in circles, I tried to take photos, but they were all a big blur.

 

Normal life returned to Rishon, and I continued down a nearby street, and fell upon a smaller, but somehow more jovial crowd, who were perhaps trying to look more fun than the other performances. They did not stop circling and twirling, so I could not get a decent shot.

 

 

 I continued to walk and found what seemed to be the grand entrance to the the festival, and I could almost taste the wine…

 

 

.. but the wine was not there. There were vendors that sold burekas, socks, jewelry, stained glass Simpsons characters, matroshkas, and other non-alcoholic goods. There were so many kids! I kept walking in the hopes of finding some dark, smokey tent with red lights marked “Adults Only,” where the wine would be,  but I didn’t find anything! It may have taken place earlier in the day- but who wants to drink wine outdoors in 80 degree humid heat? Maybe it was in a winery nearby? I should have asked someone, but I figured that if the wine tasting area wasn’t big enough to be very visible, it wasn’t worth it. And anyway, kosher wine doesn’t do much for me. You basically have to pay $40 here to get one that doesn’t burn going down, but I did want the experience. 

 

I found three more stages with free perfomances, but I have no idea who these people are, nor am I inspired to look them up.

 

 

This was the band for the older crowd.

 

 

And this dance boy-band played for a more… trying to be nice… mixed crowd.

 

 

And this group played folkey music while the girl in the top left corner did some broken doll interpretative dance moves, while the guy on the right just looked out the window. I saw one woman hold a glass of wine, and raised my eyebrows hopefully, but she must have brought a bottle with her.

 

People looked at my camera with suspicion. It’s not that big or impressive looking, but maybe because I was alone, they thought I was some sort of photographer, terrorist, I don’t know what! Two guys asked me to take a photo of them, so I did.

 

 

Except as my camera struggled with focusing, they became impatient and yelled, “Nu, come on!” which made me regret being nice! Then I got the ol’ “Why are you studying HERE?” from them. Well meaning, I guess, but really, tact is a virtue yet to be acquired by many here.

 

I left the park area where the perfomances took place and walked down another street, where more teens eyed eachother and more sinful greasy food was sold, and then I made my way home.

 

Back to Jerusalem tomorrow. I didn’t expect to stay out here so long.

 

Next week is my birthday, and then next Saturday, I have a very special friend visiting!

Holidays continue… October 13, 2008

To throw out my garbage in the dorms, I leave the bag in the kitchen. Normally I leave my bags on the floor, but today I had one with rank feta in it, so I threw it in a basket in a closed cabinet under the sink. When I walked into the kitchen later on to toast a pita, I saw the cabinet below the sink close shut and I heard a scuffle. I walked over to the cabinet and opened it, because I was sure my mind was playing tricks on me. Out ran a campus cat, and it flew out the kitchen door and down the hall. Ok, seriously. Are you telling me that these campus cats are so crafty, they know how to open those cabinets and then shut them? Did the cat reach out a paw and shut it from the inside? How did this happen? Anyway….

 

BEZEK! (shaking fist in the air) The free wireless I was able to get in my room is now gone, so I called Bezek, the local phone company (I think?) to get my own line, but they have no idea how to find my phone line in the dorms. You’d think that Hebrew University is big enough that they received such a request before, but I can’t get a straight answer. Firstly, there is no English phone menu- only Hebrew, Russian, and Arabic. I pressed for the Russian one and a) some menu options don’t correspond with the numbers they give you and b) after figuring out how to get to a representative, the voice told me that there are no Russian representatives, so I was forwarded to Hebrew speaking ones anyway. This happened enough times for me to know that there is no such thing as a Russian representative at Bezek. About 65% of the time I got through, I asked for an English speaker and I was told someone would call me back. Well, about four days later, today, someone called me back, but I had already called again and found an English speaker. They said someone would contact me to set up a technician visit, but when I asked when to expect this call, they said they don’t know, “Maybe tomorrow, maybe in two weeks. The holidays, you know.”

 

Today was a blessedly full business day, but tomorrow comes the next holiday wave, the eve of Sukkot. Maybe I should build a sukka (I can’t take that word seriously because of what it means in Russian, even if the stress differs) in this outdoor area that adjoins my dorm building to another. I will make it sound and smell proof to block out obnoxious cell phone ring tones and cheap cologne of male visitors. And then I will call Bezek to see if they can install an internet line there.

 

In order to get online, I’ve been going to Aroma nightly. It’s not so bad because it gets me out of my room. Unfortunately, I get there when they start baking bread and glazing croissants, so I sit at the bar area drooling as I watch them prepare (and sometimes nearly vomit as I watch them cover the croissants in the buttery glaze before they re-bake them!). Today, I sat down just as they brought out still-hot loaves of bread, and I wanted to just reach over and hug all three of them. Then they brought out chocolate croissants, and oh, that chocolate was still gooey alright, and I imagined how good they must taste, but I won’t buy one because of the caloric obligations of my ongoing halvah addiction.

 

I tend to meet people at the café too, although not anybody I can imagine becoming friends with so far. Today, a guy asked me about my IBM Thinkpad because he wants to buy one, so I told him IBM is now Lenovo and supposedly not as good, and we talked about computers (hot!), and then he said, “Thank you, Madame.” Madame?! I’ve never been called Madame before, and by a young Israeli, no less!

 

I do need my own internet though. When Aroma closed yesterday, I was in the middle of an important conversation with a friend. Adjacent to Aroma is the guarded entrance to the dorms, so I walked past the guard, and sat down near him, in this elevated, landscaped area with trees and bushes and layers of stone, in the hopes of getting the café’s wifi there. I was having problems, so the guard suggested I walk up the bushy area to get closer. It worked. A few minutes later, I was done and I climbed down the stones rather noisily as I held on to my laptop. A new security guard walked over to investigate the commotion and found me coming out of the bushes. “Um, did you find what you were looking for?” he asked, suspicious but amused. “I sure did, todah!”

 

Today will be 84 degrees in Tel Aviv. I am going to the beach. No one is going to stop me now. I wait for no rides, no promises that turn into a day at the mall with kids. Also, I can’t f$#%’in believe it’s still in the 80s over there. The store windows are lined with mannequins in turtlenecks, wool coats and boots, but when exactly do people wear these clothes? Two weeks in January?

 

What have I been doing otherwise? Not sure. I feel my sense of time is lost since I stopped working. Well, I spent yesterday at a family friends’ in-laws’ birthday party at Modi’in, a city built within the last 10 years and looks so new, I felt like I was driving through a real estate developer’s model of a city. The area had some gorgeous views, though. One of the older women there bought kites for the kids to play with because she was inspired by having recently read The Kite Runner. My kite had its moments, but I took the tangled, mangled one so the kids had the better ones. Afterwards, we sat around and someone asked me whom I am going to vote for. When I said Obama, I got the looks, and the whys, and the “How is Obama good for the Jews?” Again.

 

In Jerusalem, I keep meaning to walk around and explore more, but my duty to study Hebrew calls. Those sights will still be there in a month, and the weather for daytime strolls will only get better. I bought the audio companion to my Hebrew book, so now I get to hear as well as read incredibly boring passages. I finished reading Rutu Modan’s “Exit Wounds” in Hebrew. I didn’t understand many of the words, but I was happy to be able to read a good portion, too. In English, I’m reading a collection of short stories from Nathan Englander (whom I introduced myself to at a party once), and I picked up Le Testament Francais, by Andrei Mankine. I’m buying books now, no more reading whatever I want from my library without overdue fines. I miss being paid to be around books all day!

Food fight! October 11, 2008

Lebanese Industrialists Association Fadi Abboud to sue Israel for stealing the identity of Lebanese foods, such as falafel and hummus.

Holidays.. October 10, 2008

Spending Yom Kippur here was.. different. In New York, the day came and went. When I was in school, I’d get the day off, and otherwise, I only knew it was some time after Rosh Hashanah, the more fun of the two holidays. As far as I can remember, I fasted once when I was about 12 or so. My father and I went to the synagogue but by the time we got there, they were just asking for money. Then we went to a family friend’s home and I watched TV until sunset, and we ate a feast. I think I even got money for fasting. Russians do Judaism right.

 

Here, the holiday is inescapable, of course. Outside the religious areas, where people apparently swing chickens around their heads during the eve and then pray, the neighborhood streets liven up as residents storm the streets and children take over the empty roads. And that is what I did. I hung around with a bunch of Israeli parents, watched in mixed horror and fascination as kids around me whizzed around on bikes and rollerblades, some crying, but most laughing. I saw a playground in the distance and could hear the loud, jungle-like childish cacophony reverberating off the newly built condos. Frankly, I was a little scared.

 

Some of the adults decided to smoke cigarettes. Since smoking is not allowed on Yom Kippur, they talked about making their way over to a more secluded, bushy area to smoke. The neighborhood I was in was very much secular, but you know, just in case… “You got the cigarettes?” “Yeah, you got a lighter?” “Yeah..” — looking around — “Let’s go.” Feeling badass in that suburban teenager way, we smoked out cigarettes and then went over to one of their homes’ and had a grand meal.

 

For the sinful meal, we ate a delicious salad with pomegranates, a quiche, pasta in a creamy mushroom sauce, and hallah. For dessert, we ate pudding with rosewater, coconut, and nuts. I drank more than I have in all my time here- one month as of yesterday. I had a Gold Star beer, then a glass of red wine, then a shot of mysterious Hungarian liqueur, and then a shot of absinthe, and then more wine. So far, in all the meals I have taken been a part of, never has one bottle of wine been finished off. It’s usually one bottle for 6 people, and by the end of the meal, about half remains. This is not what I’m used to. I find myself sitting and eyeing the bottle, calculating how quickly I am drinking in comparison to others, and trying to decide if it would be rude to pour myself more in front of the present company. One woman said, “Well, I drink until I feel myself getting drunk, then I stop.” I just nodded, not knowing where to go with that collision of world views.

 

Anyway, because of the dangerously low drinking levels of the people I am most often with, my tolerance has gone down. That beer, that wine, the shots, all that mixing- I sat there as they spoke Hebrew, and I realized that either I was understanding everything, or it didn’t matter what language they spoke, because I was drunk and understanding nothing. I felt like I was in one of those dreams where I’m speaking a foreign language- let’s say French- and I’m speaking the language really well, and then I wake up and wonder if I really was fluent in the language in the dream after all. I’m not quite sure if that analogy works well.

 

Another memorable moment- when I was at their place, I needed to use the bathroom. I stepped in, closed the sliding door, and tried to lock it but couldn’t figure it out. Feeling tipsy and rowdy from my half a Gold Star, I thought, “Ah, fuck it, I’m gonna go fast. The kids are playing, the adults are all talking. The light is on in the bathroom and the door is closed. That’s enough of a warning.” The toilet was on the opposite end of a long bathroom. The moment I sat down to pee, the door slid open and the 4 1/2 year old son stood there looking at me and smiling. “Hey!” I yelled, but he just smiled with the door wide open for anyone passing. “SLICHA!” I yelled as I pulled up my pants and ran to the other side and closed the door. I held it in until I got home later on. I walked out a minute later and he walked by me as if he didn’t see me, having forgotten about it already and apparently not as traumatized by the incident as me.

 

After we finished eating, we plopped in The Hulk, but didn’t make it very far before we got tired and went home. I can’t really remember what we did during the Yom Kippur day, although I do remember watching “The Holiday,” the chick-flick Christmas movie with Camerion Diaz and Kate Winslet. I said ok to it because I don’t mind the two actresses, but the movie was filled with so many holiday, relationship and womanly cliches, I found it painful to watch at times, but I did succumb to the happy ending in which the two women find long-distance love.

 

Then we went to another dinner, and there is another one in the works tomorrow. I can’t even remember the reason for this one, but it’s happening in a city near Jerusalem, so I’ll go and then get dropped off at the dorms. At least I am getting a great deal of Hebrew exposure!

My first real pang of “missing New York” came yesterday, when I watched one of the few non-Israeli TV stations broacasting during the holiday, and read a news ticker about a worker was trapped in a manhole. Go figure.

Photos October 7, 2008

Some visuals..

 

  

View from campus: You can even see the Judean Desert and a sliver of the Dead Sea.

 Mount Scopus campus view. You can see the Old City walls and the Dome of the Rock in the center.

 Night time views from the same spot.

Part of the grounds of Hebrew University campus, Mount Scopus.

Campus cat! It was grooming itself and gazing out the window of a dorm’s ground floor kitchen.

View from my window. I like the trees, but Israel has some yappy birds.

Fooled you! It’s the Western Wall of Mini Israel park, which looks much more realistic in the photo than in the park.

The Mini version of the Mount Scopus campus of Hebrew University! For whatever reason, only the tower, the ampitheater, and the faculty of law is represented.

The beach at Hertzliya, a ritzy neighborhood outside Tel Aviv.

 

During an evening walk, I ended up at the Mahane Yehuda, a big outdoor market in central Jerusalem. The place is insane. The vendors are yelling- one holler was so loud, I jumped and turned around to find that the guy  people are yelling at workers trying to make it through the crowds with carts, but then they stop in the middle of everything to talk to friends. I bought almond studded halvah (and demolished the neat block but picking them all out), lemons, thin pitas to replace the near loaves I have now, and two delicious cheeses from this store…

They let you try so many cheeses. No, they nearly force you to! They slice generous bits off the cheese with those knives and you peel them off. I was a bit annoyed because I asked for specific cheeses, and a younger guy (not pictured) kept giving me others and claiming they were what I want! I still bought two cheeses, because I’m feta’ed out. I left the place full.

I would have bought more fresh food, but I’m heading over to Rishon LeZiyyon for Yom Kippur and Shabbat.

Sheruts, daylight savings drama, etc. October 6, 2008

Yesterday, I woke up and looked at my watch. “9am?! I set my phone alarm for 8:15!” I grabbed my cell phone angrily and it read 8:03. I looked up at my clock and it read 9:03 as well, and I came to the most logical conclusion- my cell phone is falling apart. I made a mental note to figure out how to set the right time on it, and started my day.

 

Some of you may know that the master’s program I was accepted into no longer exists as a separate entity, and is now trapped between the linguistics and literature departments in my school. I would explain it better if I could. Not even the staff in both departments knows what to make of the changes. This has made registering for classes even more complicated than everything else I have to do here, but after a few emails with an advisor, I was finally pointed to a professor who helped me greatly. She explained to me what classes I would have to taken, then took me to the secretary and told her to help me fill out the all-Hebrew registration form. I felt like an illiterate moron, but I’m used to it by now. It was nice sitting in that department because every student that passed by spoke English, and the professors spoke English to one another, and that made me feel better because prior to that, I was being sent to the other linguistics department taught in Hebrew, and when I met with the head there, he said, “Um, aren’t you supposed to know some Hebrew?” I told him my situation, and asked, “Aren’t the classes in English?” and he said he didn’t know for sure.

 

Here, you register for both semesters at the same time, so I know my schedule for the spring too. Well, “know.” Since I received my all-Hebrew print-out, I haven’t had time to translate some of the classes, and the schedule doesn’t have class times on it, so I have to wade through the online registration page in Hebrew and find them.

 

What I do know is that I’m taking an introductory course and its advanced counterpart at the same time! I also have to register for 10 or 14 hours of Hebrew a week, depending on which track fits my schedule. This is going to be an intense semester.

 

After I took care of registering, I ran home, ate my cold bread sandwich (I need a toaster!), and hopped on a bus to the central bus station. There, I took a “sherut,” or van that shuttles people between major cities, to meet a friend in Tel Aviv. These sheruts cost about the same as a full-price bus ride, but the drivers drive like maniacs, so you get to your destination faster.

 

I had never taken on by myself before and I wasn’t quite sure how they operate, so I asked one of three gruff guys yelling “Tel Aviv! Tel Aviv!” how much they cost, and he brought me over to the van, and said, “No worries, just wait in here! 10 minutes! There is mazgan, er, air conditioning and everything.” I sat alone in the sherut while he walked back across the street and drank a cup of Coke from a liter bottle the guys were sharing. I sat, and sat, and realized I was sweating because the “mazgan” was blowing hot air into my eye. Fifteen minutes passed, nothing. People started to congregate outside the van, and I couldn’t tell what the holdup was. Did it leave at a specific time? Why didn’t he just say so? I walked out so I could breathe again, and asked another one of the three guys when the sherut would leave. “Five minutes,” he said and walked away. The way he said five minutes sounded a lot like “Whenever we leave, we leave,” so I was about to go catch the nearest bus, when I saw a few people pile into the sherut. After a whole bunch of confusion, I finally understood that the sherut only leaves when it fills to capacity- 10 people. Why the guy could be clear about this, I do not know, but it’s pretty typical. Information sharing is not so streamlined here. So far, I have noticed that if you do not ask direct questions, you do not get direct answers. If I had somehow known to ask, “Excuse me, but does the sherut leave when there are 10 passengers?” well then I would have gotten my answer. There was a bit of commotion as we waited and hoped and prayed for the final three passengers, but soon we were flying down the highway towards Tel Aviv.

 

My friend called to tell me he was on his way. Hearing my speak English, the guy sitting next me asked me where I’m from. He was an Arab, probably in his 50s, grey hair and beard, one googly, droopy eye, and born and raised in Jerusalem. He spoke English well, and I soon found out he got his undergraduate degree in something-engineering in Turkey, then a Master’s in Munich, then a PhD in the Ukraine, and he spoke at least 6 languages. We chatted about my background, and made small talk about the city, and then he said, “You look good, how old are you?” I don’t think there is ever a moment when I talk to an older guy when things don’t get creepy. I told him my age, he said his daughter is the same age, and it was her birthday the day before, and his and his son’s birthday the next day. He then told me a long story about how he predicted his daughter and son’s birthdays despite the doctor’s differing calculations. Then told me to call him if I ever needed any help in Jerusalem, asked me if I wanted his phone number. I politely got my way out of it. Moment of awkwardness. Then the sherut made its way to the Tel Aviv station, he wished me luck, I wished him a happy birthday, and I made my way out and called my friend.

 

We had plans to meet at 4, and it was almost 4. He said he was an hour away. I was a bit annoyed. I walked around the dirty bus station mall, past stores that sold dirty white platform sandals from I think the 70s, past stalls that sold a wide selection of frilly thongs right there in the middle of a big crowd, past two used Russian book stores (I picked up a Russian romance novel, opened to a page and read something along the lines of “He put down the potato on the table and said, ‘If I eat another potato, I will vomit!’”), and other oddities until I was so bored. I walked out and called my friend again. He was still on his way. Impatiently, I decided to take a walk anyway, even though the area around the bus station isn’t great. I found a wide, less intimdating street and what appeared to be a colorful outdoor vendor. I walked closer and saw that it was a big pile of garbage. I continued to walk down the street, which changed from what appeared to be a maybe Eastern European and Central Asian area, to a downright crackhead area with boarded up buildings with curtained entrances and suspicious, large middle-aged women milling around behind them. I continued to walk further, mostly because I just wanted to get out of the area, and sat on a bench. My friend called and said he was at the bus station. I tried to tell him where I was, but couldn’t find street names. He seemed annoyed that I walked didn’t wait, and I was annoyed that he was an hour late! I walked back to the bus station, and soon after we met, one of us commented on the time, and only then did I find out that Daylight Saving had passed and that was why my cell phone was an hour early. That is how much I’m out of it. My friend laughed and said he was wondering why I was calling him wanting to know his every move if he was on time.

 

We walked around an awful lot, as usual, went into some stores. I bought my eggplant and cheese bureka that I’ve been craving since January, we had some delicious ice cream (half yogurt/half banana-pecan-something chocolatey), went to the port, then had a pint of Guinness at the supposedly most authentic Irish pub in Israel, Molly Bloom’s, near the Dan Hotel. The décor was good, but painfully slow bartender, who took a drink order, and came back what felt like 5 full minutes later with a half filled glass of vodka and ice and a bottle of tonic, was not what I’m used to in an Irish pub- neither is a $7 Guinness! Soon, our curfew approached (his last train to Beer Sheva was at 10pm), so we took a cab to the station, and I got onto a sherut. I was number 8 to get on, and very soon after, two more men came on board and we were on our way. The guy next to me smelled like dirty underwear. He couldn’t really fit in the tight space between me and another guy, so he kept trying to push my left shoulder forward so he could rest against the seat, but I nearly glued my shoulder as far back as I could to prevent him from doing it.

 

The sherut sped into Jerusalem. The smelly guy got out of the van. A while later, I smelled something foul, so I smelled my left shoulder and realized smelled! Was it the Tel Aviv humidity? It couldn’t be! I smelled my other shoulder and it was fine. He rubbed his stank on me and it wouldn’t come off! I showered as soon as I came back home.

I’m at Aroma, the Israeli Starbucks, which is only a few hundred feet from my doors and has free wifi (since my room doesn’t!). A cocky looking guy who looks like he knows the staff here just came in and said “Shabbat Shalom!” to a girl worker. She giggled hard. I guess the joke is that it’s Monday.

First things first… October 5, 2008

Saturday night. Another Shabbat in Jerusalem, which is only significant because of how boring it can be!
 
I’ve been in Israel a bit over three weeks, and so much has happened that I don’t know where to begin describing my life here.
 
I spent the frist two weeks here living with my mother’s two retired friends in Rishon LeZiyyon, which is about a half hour away from Tel Aviv by car, but about an hour and half away by bus, thanks to traffic and roundabout routes. Russian Jews abound in this city, and the ones surrounding it. Every other person is Russian, and I mean leopard-print-is-a-girl’s-best-friend Russian. The clothing shops outside the malls are a mix of the ones I remember seeing when I was in Russia, mixed with the neon Brazilian summer styles on Steinway in Astoria, except much more expensive.
 
My mother’s friends fight all the time. The husband is over 70 years old. As a young child, he was in the ghettos during WWII, lost a parent and a sibling, but no one knows if he was in a concentration camp because he won’t talk about it. He is grumpy but kind, white haired, blued eyed, carries a globe of a gut, and refuses to wear his dentures. He has tried to teach me many life lessons, ones about trusting people (or mainly, not trusting Arabs) down to lessons about banks, money, and negotiating salaries during job interviews, and he did so while looking at me dead in the eye and shaking his finger, as if it were a wand that would transport his wisdom on to me. He also liked to tell me what an asshole my father was for what he did to my mom before and during the divorce, over and over again. And then he would gain a certain amount of satisfaction from telling me how he told my father off last time he was in Israel.
 
The wife is in her early 60s. She is short and round, with orange hair, and intense blue eyes. She walks very slowly, but she keeps going. When she visited New York (without the husband), I walked with her. A block stretched out before us without end. I noticed things about buildings in the city I never did as I took one step to her three. We walked from Herald Square to Lincoln Square, and night fell by the time we ended our trip. I don’t remember eating or walking into any stores, but we did grab a cup of coffee. She loves New York and travelling in general, but doesn’t go very often because the husband doesn’t want to. She complained to me about a great package deal to Turkey he doesn’t want to take. She told me she likes to go out to eat, but he tells her, “Why, when we have food at home?”
 
Because the husband has little patience for errands, the two of us took buses to take care of things I needed during those first two weeks. I would walk with her, aggravated, while I tried to breathe through the humid air and felt my skin tan. “You’re tired, aren’t you?” she would ask with genuine, motherly concern. “I’m fine,” I replied although I thought, “I’m just trying to stay awake while walking so slowly!”
 
She took me to get my Israeli ID card, and to Jerusalem so I could start getting things ready for the dorms. Then she took me shopping for bed sheets, toiletries, and food. When the husband came along with the car, they would argue non-stop, setting up each other and egging one another on. If someone would cut him off on the road, he’d exclaim, “Oh, those damn Israelis!” The wife would bark, “It has nothing to do with being Israeli! People all over the world do that!” “Those Israelis…” he would mumble, not ready to give up but unable to argue. I should have counted the number of his “yop tvoi myat”’s from the beginning to the end of every trip.
 
Being with them made me feel like a kid again. Not only was I going through my own little crisis while adjusting to a new life outside of New York, but I think they were secretly happy to have someone to take care of, so they would make me food and call me over for meals, and talk to each other about what’s good for me in front of me. I’m sure they think I’m partially retarded or just stupid, because I didn’t even bother trying to explain myself or give my opinions on some issues because I knew that would just add fuel to the fire. You can’t change the opinions or ways of people their age! I just reminded myself it was all temporary.
 
I’m making my time with them seem rather sad. They’re great people, and helped me so much, and I often watched Israeli and Russian TV with them, and we joked, and a couple of times I drank a passion fruit liqueur with the wife. She poured out two shots, and we cheered. I downed mine, and I looked over and saw she took just a sip of hers and put it down on the table. “Oh, that’s how you drink it.” “No, it’s ok. Do you want more?” “No.. well… ok…” I think the husband drank, because there was a bittle of vodka in the fridge (which drove the wife nuts because of the shelf space it took up), but he didn’t drink around us. I bought him a bottle of vodka from the duty free store during my Vienna layover, and he thanked me, then opened the liquor cabinet to reveal 5 other unopened bottles of vodka. When their daughter came back from a trip to Berlin a few days into my arrival, she gave him three more bottles of vodka.
 
Ok, that still sounds sad. I don’t know. I find most older Russian people to be rather tragicomic, so maybe that’s why. All I know is that my bed in their apartment was comfortable, they fed me well, and they had internet, so I was content overall.
 
However, when it was time to get to Jerusalem, I was ready to be surrounded by people my age. The first dorm room assigned to me at the University was filthy, with huge trees and butterflies drawings and pen scribblings in broken English directly on the wall. Not my age. I asked to change my room, and got a cleaner one. The set-up is 10 singles with a shared bathroom (three toilets), and three showers. There is a common area, although I’ve only seen the campus cats congregate there. Otherwise, the rooms are separated into three clusters of three rooms that branch out form the common area, and one single room closer to the bathroom and kitchen. The rooms come with their own fridge and sink. The girls in my area are mostly Arab, and I think they are all friends. I don’t usually see anyone, not even in the bathroom or kitchen. I do hear them often, though, because they blast music and bring over their boyfriends, who smoke in the common area although it’s not allowed. One girl’s door is covered in pictures of Cinderella and other female Disney characters, which makes me question her sanity.
 
I’ve realized my friends will most likely not be in my dorm hall, which is fine with me. I want to find an apartment sooner than later, anyway. Because the semester begins on November 2nd, the campus is a ghost town. I’ve met people waiting on lines to see advisors, waiting for buses- students waiting at the central bus station often ask other students to share a cab ride to campus- and on the buses. One guy started talking to me on the bus because he said I don’t look Israeli because I was dressed too nicely! Granted, I was coming back from a job interview that didn’t go very well, but it was funny to hear coming from an Israeli.
 
During Rosh Hashanah, I was with my mom’s friend’s daughter’s family. They have two kids and a dog who stays on their terrace and peers in through the glass doors with sad eyes. The kids seem to like me, although I can’t communicate with them very well. The son is 4 1/2 and adorable. He always wants to take my hand, but is too shy to try to talk to me. He just puts his hand out and looks away. The daughter is 6, very talkative, and very much curious about me and my mysterious arrival into their lives. I think I make her feel smart when she teaches me Hebrew words.
 
And ah yes, Israelis. So far, the Israelis I have met have been friendly, helpful, and supportive. Of course some are cocky and crude, and many don’t know how to wait in line, but I’ve been pleasantly suprised overall. My friend just came back from a “Jewish leadership” trip here, and she loved everything but Israelis, whom she found rude beyond belief, but I haven’t seen anything to warrant that yet, nothing that can’t happen anywhere else in the world… however, it has only been three weeks.
 
Ok, well this is my first post, and I’ve washed over much of my first weeks here, but I just need to get something out before I start on my hopefully more regular, more specific, and more interesting posts about my life here. Photos to come, too!