Catching Up

Alright, I haven’t updated this nifty blog in a while now, and a ton has happened in the meantime.

After the trip to Munich, my time in Germany mostly consisted of working on the research papers I was assigned at the end of my Brussels trip, with some study breaks to go biking around Emmandingen. It was hard to finally leave Germany, and not just because I had to wake up at an obscene hour in order to make the three hour drive to Frankfurt airport. Doro and Peter had done more than merely let me stay at their flat, they had truly welcomed me into their family. It was only after lots of hugs, and a promise to keep in touch that they finally saw me through security.

It was an incredibly educational trip, in both the cultural and personal sense. I certainly learned a ton about Germany, its history and its culture, but I also learned some things about myself along the way.

I initially had about a week in the US before the start of my semester in Israel, which I planned to spend frantically finishing my Brussels papers and preparing for my trip to Israel. But that was before hurricane Irene. The storm canceled my flight into Newark, making me miss my flight to Israel, and setting in motion a superbly frustrating rescheduling process that resulted in my staying in the US for another week. On top of that, the travel agent in charge of organizing the student group flights rescheduled our flight for Labor Day, which meant that I would have to fly in to Newark the day before (as the Labor Day flights wouldn’t arrive early enough) and spend Sunday night there. Predictably, my flight to Newark was delayed for almost two hours because of “Presidential activity” (just lost my vote, Obama), rounding out what had become by far the worst week for travel that I’ve ever had. But there was a silver lining to this fiasco: the extra week in the US gave me much-needed time to finish my papers, which I, against all odds, managed to do on time.

I’ve been in Israel for almost two weeks now, and I’ve been having the time of my life. The food is amazing, the weather is perpetually gorgeous, and Jerusalem is (in my opinion, at least) one of the most interesting cities in the world. Officially, the semester at Hebrew University doesn’t start until October 2, but until then we have what’s called a Hebrew Ulpan, which is five hours a day, six days a week of intensive Hebrew instruction. This initially terrified me, but it’s actually been going really well.

All of the international students live in apartments in the Scopus student village (or ikfar studentim in Hebrew), which aren’t bad in terms of student housing. Mine has a great view of the Old City of Jerusalem from the living room area, which I could stare at for hours. Each apartment also comes equipped with its very own bomb shelter, and the entire area is surrounded by walls, gates, and armed guards. This can be either comforting or really unsettling, and is frequently both.

So far my experience here has been immeasurably different from both Brussels and Germany. Israel is the first place I’ve been that’s not in the political, social, and cultural ‘west’, and for the first time in my life, I truly feel like I’m in a foreign country.

Anyways, I have a lot more to say, but I’ve already written more than enough. I’ll leave you with some pictures to tide you over until my next entry!

The view from my apartment window. Nbd.

Walls of the Old City

Jaffa Gate

Inside the Old City

Western Wall

Close up

Letters in the Wall

One of the views from the university

Dome of the Rock

Mount of Olives

I thought this looked spiritual

Cool door

The first wheel ever made. Maybe.