Arabic Immersion

This semester, instead of doing what I did in the fall and take regular Hebrew University classes, I decided to enroll in the first ever Arabic Immersion Program here at Hebrew U. Basically what this means is that I no longer have any free time during the week. At all. Classes go from Sunday to Thursday (the week starts on Sunday in Israel and ends on Friday, because of Shabbat), from 10:30 to 6:30, with a couple half hour breaks thrown in. That’s eight hours a day, five days a week, which is a very, very long time to be in class. Especially when that time is spent struggling to understand a language that makes learning Hebrew look simple by comparison.

Most of our classes are Arabic, but we also have an hour and a half devoted to an introduction to Islam on Sundays and Thursdays, as well as different cultural workshops on Mondays (belly dancing), Tuesdays (art), and Wednesdays (movies and stories).  On top of the classes and workshops, we have field trips every Tuesday, where we visit local sites related to our studies, such as the Islamic Art Museum in Jerusalem, or nearby Arab villages.

As I hinted at earlier, Arabic is a difficult language to study. It has a 28 letter alphabet, which is made far more complicated by the fact that the letters are written differently depending on where they appear in a word. So even though Arabic has only 28 letters, you have to learn four different ways to write each of them (independent, initial, medial, and final). And on top of that, some letters aren’t allowed to connect with any other letters that may follow them. For example, the letter alif can be connected to a letter preceding it, but not to a letter following it. The letters are also divided evenly into two categories, sun and moon letters, and the sun letters can sometimes overpower a following moon letter, robbing it of its pronunciation. This means that though you continue to spell the word with the moon letter in question, you don’t pronounce it when you say the word. Confused? I am.

To make things even more difficult, we’re kind of learning two languages at once. Modern Standard Arabic, or MSA, is a recent invention, used almost exclusively for writing, and never spoken. Meanwhile there are a ton of regional Arabic dialects, all of them different from MSA, (Egyptian, Palestinian, etc), which are spoken but never written (there’s also literary Arabic, which differs a bit from MSA, but I’m not going to get into that). The differences among the dialects are so great that someone from Tunisia or Morocco would find it nearly impossible to understand anything someone from Syria or Lebanon is saying. Our program is teaching us both MSA and the Palestinian dialect (called shaami), which is overly confusing right now, but should be better once we become more familiar with the language.

Alright, enough about Arabic. Here are some pictures from our first field trip, where we went to an Arab village just outside of Jerusalem, called Abu Ghosh. 

The Islamic Art Museum, which we visited before going to Abu Ghosh.

Abu Ghosh

Enjoying some of Abu Ghosh's famous hummus!

A minaret, as seen from the garden of a church built by the Crusaders.

Olive tree

View from a hill in Abu Ghosh

A church in Abu Ghosh that we visited.

We visited a centuries-old Crusader church in Abu Ghosh, and were fortunate enough to have one of the monks there sing for us. The church had amazing acoustics; amplifying and echoing the monk's already beautiful voice. I could have sat and listened to him all day. I took a quick video, which I posted below. If you listen closely, you can hear the Islamic call to prayer in the background towards the end of the video.

Eurotrip 2012

To kick off our obnoxiously long semester break, my friends Leo, Jessica and I headed to Europe for a seventeen day tour through six European cities. Starting in Rome and ending in Amsterdam, we saw a lot, and slept very little. Despite spending a little more time than planned in the Tel Aviv airport (due mainly to my last name and the Egyptian visa in my passport), the trip was a smashing success. We had a limited budget, but thankfully we were able to save a good amount of money cutting down on the less important aspects of the trip, like transportation and accommodation. Thanks to couchsurfing and budget airlines, we were able to devote more money to seeing the sights and sampling the local foods. And the local beers. Anyways, I’m going to try and fit our entire trip into one blog post, so be prepared for that.

Rome (Jan 8-11)

We stayed with a couchsurfer in Rome, a guy named Ido who was actually an Israeli originally from Haifa. He lived about a fifteen minute bus ride from the center of the city in a one-room apartment, which, though small, was pretty nice. Jessica had a friend, Thomas (who turned out to be from Grosse Pointe, and had gone to North, small world), studying at Loyola’s Rome center, and he was able to show us around the city; taking us to all of the main tourist attractions, as well as a ton of cool churches. I had visited Rome this past July (see my previous blog entries), but I was glad to be back, and I was able to see some of the stuff that I missed the first time around, including the inside of St. Peter’s Basilica. We also got a tour of Loyola’s Rome campus, which was amazing. I nearly went to Loyola, so seeing that campus gave me a great opportunity to second-guess my entire college experience thus far. I eventually decided that I had made the right choice, but it took a while. We were in Rome for two days and three nights, before we headed off to Paris.

The street where Ido lived.

Legionaries out in front of the Colosseum.

Colosseum.

Arch of Constantine.

Senatus Populusque Romanus.

Menorah.

Roman Forum.

Pillar in the forum.

Monument to Victor Emmanuel II, which the locals apparently hate.

The town hall in Rome. I think.

Pantheon.

Tomb of Raphael.

Delicious.

We stopped for gelato at every possible opportunity. Which, in Rome, is pretty much every street.

Obelisk. Fun fact: this was in the Da Vinci Code. 

Castel Sant'Angelo.

Obelisk and Christmas tree in front of St. Peter's.

Swiss Guard.

Inside St. Peter's Basilica; something I didn't have a chance to do back in July. Without a doubt the largest building that I've ever been in. 

Ceiling of the Basilica.

More of the ceiling.

Just an absurdly large building. Seriously. 

Thomas, Jessica's friend from Loyola, told us a story about these columns, but I can't remember any of it. Though I think they may have been designed to replicate the columns from the Temple of Solomon. 

Dome of the basilica.

The facade of the Great Synagogue in Rome.

The Great Synagogue.

Inside one of the churches that Thomas took us too.

Ceiling of either the above church or a completely different one.

Loyola!

Roman sunset.

The hated monument at night.

Italian patriotism.

Trevi Fountain. I threw in a coin, because last time it worked and I'd like to come back. Here's a fun fact that I just read on Wikipedia: an estimated 3,000 euros are thrown into the fountain each day. 

More gelato. 

Paris (Jan 11-13)

We stayed in a hostel in Paris, and met up with two of Leo’s friends who were studying in Madrid, Leah and Hannah. Because I had been there last July too, I didn’t feel any pressure to take pictures of everything, which gave me the chance to just stroll through the city and really see things. And we did a lot of strolling. Paris is much bigger than Rome, and we quickly discovered that the distances between things on the map can be much, much longer than they seem. We saw a ton, made some friends at our hostel, ate some good food, went on half of a free tour before leaving due to the incredibly annoying Australian tour guide, nearly got stuck in the doors of the metro, and then headed off to Budapest. All in all, a great second Parisian experience.

The stairs of our hostel.

Walking on what is known as the Love Locks bridge, where people put padlocks on the fence of the bridge to symbolize their love. Awwww.

View from the bridge.

Padlocks.

True love.

More locks.

Pyramid at the Louvre.

Some sort of modern art exhibit, probably.

Walking through the Tuileries Gardens.

Modern art.

We walked past this impressive looking gate, wondering what sort of palace or museum it led to, only to discover...

...that it was an Abercrombie and Fitch store. 

Eiffel Tower.

Nutella and banana crepes. Absurdly delicious.

Inside Notre Dame.

Notre Dame.

Sacre-Coeur.

We couldn't resist buying this postcard. 

Budapest (Jan 13-15)

Budapest was my first Eastern European experience, and it was almost exactly as I imagined it to be: cheap and cold. We stayed with a couchsurfer in Budapest, a guy named Eric from America, who studies nationalism at the central European university. He knew a ton about Budapest, hungary, eastern europe, and American folk music, and we were lucky to have him as our guide in the city. Our first full day was spent walking all around the city while eric entertained us with Hungarian history, and tales of his travels through the rest of eastern europe, which he was able to afford by literally sleeping on the streets. On our last night he hosted a party for some of the other grad students at the university, and I ended up drinking copious amounts of wine and getting into a two and a half hour conversation on Hungarian politics with one of the grad students, whose name was Vladin or something like that.

Starting off our Budapest experience right. These cost the equivalent of like two dollars, by the way. Really cheap country.

The hallway of Eric's apartment. He lived with two other girls, and the rooms all opened up into this hallway.

A closet at Eric's. After seeing this, we knew staying with him was the right choice.

The Liberty Bridge at night. Spooky.

On our first full day in the city, Eric took us to this covered market for a traditional Hungarian breakfast, as well as to search for a cheap pair of gloves, as Budapest is absolutely freezing this time of year.

The market was apparently designed by Gustave Eiffel.

Candle.

This is apparently one of the last Soviet-era statues in the city.

Cool building.

Castle Hill.

Central European University, where Eric studies Nationalism, which is something I wasn't aware you could major in until we met him.

Skylight in the CEU building.

Walking towards Saint Stephen's Basilica, which was just down the road from CEU. It's hard to tell in this picture, but it's snowing!

Statue.

Saint Stephen's Basilica.

The last explicitly Soviet monument in the city, which, coincidentally, is only a few feet from...

...the man himself, Ronald Reagan. And my friend Leo.

Parliament building.

The Soviets put a coat of arms on the Hungarian flag, so during the anti-Soviet uprising in 1956, the revolutionaries cut out the coat of arms, and this flag, with the gaping hole in the middle, became a symbol of the revolution. Which, of course, was brutally repressed by the Soviet Army and wasn't in the least bit successful.

Moody Hungarian skies.

Walking in the streets of Buda. Budapest used to be two cities, Buda and Pest, divided by the Danube river. 

This statue marks the tomb of Gul Baba, an Ottoman poet and holy man who died during the fighting to take the city in the 1500s. 

Read up.

The tomb of Gul Baba.

View of Budapest from Gul Baba's tomb.

Parliament building.

Matthias Church, on Castle Hill.

View of the city from Castle Hill.

Dry humor in Eric's apartment.

Hungarian sunset.

Vienna (Jan 15-17)

We stayed with couchsurfers in Vienna as well; three girls, one from turkey, one from Germany, and one from Austria, and I don’t remember any of their names. But they had a great apartment, and were extremely nice; even cooking us dinner one night. Vienna was beautiful, but expensive and bitterly cold. I have to admit that, because I sort of had this image of a very different Vienna in my head (mainly due to reading a lot of Cold War era spy novels, and the Billy Joel song, of course), I was a bit disappointed with what the city actually was. But we had a great time nonetheless, and saw some pretty cool stuff.

The streets of Vienna.

Cool building. I have absolutely no idea what it is.

More cool buildings. Probably a museum or palace or something.

Statue.

We originally thought this was the parliament building, but it turned out to be the Rathaus, or town hall.

Austrian architecture.

Statue of Maria Theresa.

Elephant.

Parliament building.

Cool building.

The ancient cathedral really takes away from that advertisement.

Another cool building.

We randomly stumbled across a memorial for the Jewish victims of the Holocaust.

Schonbrunn Palace.

Monument known as the gloriette, located in the gardens behind the Schonbrunn Palace.

The streets of Vienna all lit up.

We stopped for hot chocolate, and ended up gorging ourselves on ice cream.

Some sort of museum, I think. And more snow!

Prague (Jan 17-20)

Prague was easily one of my favorite cities of the trip. We stayed in a hostel within walking distance of the city center, and because literally nobody else was staying at our hostel, we had our room upgraded for free. We visited the Prague castle, the old Jewish quarter, and one of Prague’s famous jazz clubs.

View from the train to Prague.

Wenceslas Square, which saw mass demonstrations during the Velvet Revolution of 1989.

National Museum.

The red candles, we later learned, were placed as a memorial to Vaclav Havel, one of the leaders of the Velvet Revolution and later the first President of the Czech Republic. He died on December 18, 2011, just a few weeks before we visited Prague.

More of the memorial.

Looking down Wenceslas Square.

Another shot of the national museum building.

Reminded me of the lady from Mary Poppins. Feed the birds, tuppence a bag...

Hotel Europa.

The Prague Astronomical Clock, the oldest working clock in the world.

The Old Town Square.

Church.

Statue in the square.

This is the Old New Synagogue of Prague. According to legend, the golem of Prague, a sort of zombie/robot-type creature said to have been created by a Rabbi, resides in the attic. Fun fact: in his fantastic book The Amazing Adventures of Cavalier and Clay, Michael Chabon uses the story of the Prague golem as a source of inspiration to his characters. Read that book. 

The ladder leading to the attic of the Old New Synagogue. The bottom three rungs have been removed, and the attic is not open to the public. According to the legend, a Nazi agent entered the attic during WWII, but was never heard from again. 

Art installation.

We did a double take when we saw this. Hebrew letters surrounding a crucified Jesus? Awkward.

See if you can spot the pigeon!

The Charles Bridge.

View of the Prague Castle.

On the banks of the Vltava River.

Street person playing a flute with his nose.

View of Prague from the castle.

Entering the castle area. Note the statues of the warriors about to savagely beat those poor men.

Changing of the guard.

St. Vitus Cathedral.

We found these baby statues while searching for the John Lennon wall. What we originally thought to be cute...

...turned out to be quite creepy instead.

John Lennon wall.

The artist. 

Another bridge with love locks on it. While looking at this, I couldn't help but wonder how many of those relationships ended in break-ups or divorce.

Amsterdam (Jan 20-24)

The final city of the trip, we were in Amsterdam for several days, mainly because the cheapest flight back to Tel Aviv wasn’t until the 24^th. We split our stay into two hostels to save money, one at the edge of the red light district (which was interesting), and one a bit further away. As we had so much time there, Amsterdam was a much needed opportunity to relax and enjoy ourselves, and not feel as though we had to rush to see everything we wanted to see. I took far less pictures in Amsterdam than I did on the rest of the trip, mainly because I had already visited (see previous blog posts), and because at that point I was getting sick of taking pictures of things. We left for Tel Aviv on the 24^th, and following a brief layover in Latvia, arrived back in Israel at one in the morning the next day.

Some cool iguana statues.

More iguana statues. They look so real!

Amsterdam sign, something I don't think I saw the last time around.

Cool Dutch building.

Amsterdam dawn.

Eurotrip 2012 was an incredible experience, but although we were able to do a ton of stuff in a relatively short amount of time, there's still so much more to see.

I have about a week of break left before my classes start, but after that, look for another new blog post as I begin my immersion into the Arabic language.