Shana Tovah!

I’m back! Not only have I been really busy with my Hebrew classes, but my laptop charger also died like a week ago, and trying to find a new one has become an epic quest spanning two continents and filled with disappointment and sorrow. But the good news is that I’m able to borrow a friend’s charger until I find a replacement. And my Hebrew ulpan just ended (I got a 93, not a huge deal), so now I have a break for Rosh Hashanah (look for a blog post about Rosh Hashanah soon!) until Sunday. Life is good.

Anyways, Jerusalem is amazing. I may have mentioned that before. On Saturday the 24^th, my roommate (or apartment-mate, technically) and I walked down to the Old City, where we spent hours losing ourselves in the maze-like streets. It’s hard to describe how beautiful the city is, and unfortunately no picture I could ever take can truly compare to the experience of seeing these things first hand. But that hasn’t stopped me from taking hundreds of pictures already, some of which I’ll share with you now:

Before we get to the Old City pictures, this is an IDF (Israeli Defense Force) helicopter that woke me up when it landed outside my window.

This is it taking off. One of dozens that flew by during the week leading up to the expected UN vote on the 23rd.

Cool building we saw on the way to the Old City.

Tower. Still on the way to the city.

The streets of the Old City.

The minaret of a mosque in the Old City.

Old City streets.

Rugs for sale.

Graffiti. I also just noticed how cool of a word 'graffiti' is.

More streets.

Cool rug. If I had some more shkalim (hebrew for shekels), I'd buy this.

The inside of some chapel that we just walked into.

The inside of the church (Lutheran, I think) in the Old City that Jacob (my apartment-mate) is planning on going to. While we were walking around, we discovered the entrance to the church's bell tower, which we climbed to discover an amazing view.

Looking out from the bell tower. By far the coolest view that I've had of the city yet.

Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where I'm studying, as seen from the bell tower.

Same as above, except zoomed out.

The view from another side of the tower.

Dome of the Rock. Still haven't made it up there yet.

More of the city.

City streets.

A shop.

This is the tower that we climbed. Pretty cool.

The Old City is filled with shops like these, some more interesting than others. In fact, one of these shops, run by a man named Omar, will be the focus of an upcoming post, so stay tuned!

Outside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Just inside the Church.

The underside of these arch-like things were beautiful.

Check out this floor!

Another part of the Church. Gold everywhere.

These people are kneeling at some stone which I learned later is the Stone of the Anointing (thanks wikipedia!), where Jesus's body was supposedly prepared for burial. But seeing as the stone itself was only added to the Church in 1810, I see some problems with this theory.

This is the altar to the Rock of Calvary, which is the twelfth station of the cross.

A mosiac, most likely hundreds of years old.

Some of the Church walls were covered in tiny cross carvings like these.

More cool floors.

This, supposedly, is Jesus's tomb, where he was buried. But I guess this is more of a Catholic belief.

I don't know my church architectural terms, but this was right next to Jesus's supposed tomb.

View of the ceiling.

Cool floors AND cool ceilings! But seriously, this dome was awesome. It looks a bit Art Deco-ish to me.

A view of the new city from the walls of the old.

You can't really tell from this picture, but there's sort of like a valley-type thing going here. There's one hill right on the left, another right in the center, and then one more kind of behind the first hill. It's really cool to see in person but you sort of lose the depth with the camera.

Some ruins outside the city walls.

Wow, look at that creatively crafted picture!

This goes with the next picture.

See above.

Walking along the walls.

Looking out along the walls.

Symbolism!

I was going to write a bit more, but those pictures took forever to upload, and now my laptop is almost dead. But keep checking back, because a new post is coming soon, I promise!

As always, thanks for reading.

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.