As soon as everyone was re-nourished after fasting on Yom Kippur, the sukkah building began. Everyone builds a sukkah, and just about everyone uses the same generic sukkah tablecloth-looking material. I saw a sukkah outside a pizzeria.
Hebrew lessons (Ulpan) are going well. I can now count to 100 and tell time. I am also pretty good at ordering food and telling the taxi where to go. It’s a slow process, but I’m doing pretty well. Hebrew is Tov Me’od (very good). It’s like kindergarten all over again, except they are probably better than we are.
So apparently shipping stuff to Israel is a nightmare; I don’t recommend it. I am now on a first-name basis with the FedEx guy, but I think I’ll have my camera by the end of the week/next holiday and then there will be lots of pretty pictures!
It was 90 degrees outside today. It’s almost October…not a fan.
I got stung by a jellyfish for the first time every the other day. Not as bad as I thought it would be. It’s on my boob.
We discovered something amazing that happens on Fridays. There is a food festival type thingy at the big mall in downtown Tel Aviv every Friday afternoon. Guess where we will be spending most Fridays….Lots of different kinds of food everywhere!
Our orientation month is coming to a close so there will be less aimless wanderings to share and more meaningful experiences.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Hebrew for Beginners/ Yom Kippur
First full week of being in Tel Aviv has come to an end. I spent the week doing a lot of exploring and walking. I think I have walked the entire city.
I also started Hebrew lessons this week (Ulpan), which is much needed. It's really strange to be functionally illiterate in the city where you live. I may be able to read everything but I have no idea what it means and I can't have a conversation with people.
We started visiting volunteer placements this week. We get to visit everything before we make a decision. There are some pretty great options for my year of volunteering.
Yom Kippur just ended too. Normally 20% of the population is observant and 80 is not. On Yom Kippur it flips. The entire country stops for a whole day. All the shops close and there are no cars on the street. We walked around the city last night, and it was like one giant block party. Everyone was out and about and there were kids on bikes everywhere. It was pretty awesome. Everyone walks in the middle of the road 'cause they can. It was pretty great to walk in the middle of the road. It was like that all day today too. I have never seen anything like it. Other than that it's pretty much the same. Everyone fasts, then everyone eats a lot.
Great first week
I also started Hebrew lessons this week (Ulpan), which is much needed. It's really strange to be functionally illiterate in the city where you live. I may be able to read everything but I have no idea what it means and I can't have a conversation with people.
We started visiting volunteer placements this week. We get to visit everything before we make a decision. There are some pretty great options for my year of volunteering.
Yom Kippur just ended too. Normally 20% of the population is observant and 80 is not. On Yom Kippur it flips. The entire country stops for a whole day. All the shops close and there are no cars on the street. We walked around the city last night, and it was like one giant block party. Everyone was out and about and there were kids on bikes everywhere. It was pretty awesome. Everyone walks in the middle of the road 'cause they can. It was pretty great to walk in the middle of the road. It was like that all day today too. I have never seen anything like it. Other than that it's pretty much the same. Everyone fasts, then everyone eats a lot.
Great first week
Friday, September 10, 2010
New Year, New Country
My first of many holidays in Israel has come to an end. I was really excited to experience a year's worth of holidays in a foreign country; especially Israel. They always say next year in Israel and here I am!
I guess technically Rosh Hashana was my second holiday in Israel....we celebrated Shabbat at the Kibbutz. However, Shabbat happens every week, so it doesn't count for the purposes of this post.
In the states most people are aware of the fact that 6,489,000 people (I looked it up) are celebrating the new year. In New York public schools have the day off and in many places it is accepted that people are not going to go to class or work. In a country where religious freedom is a privilege, Jews can celebrate/observe (can't decide which word is appropriate) the holiday without prejudice.
Israel is a whole different can of worms.
The whole country comes to a screeching halt. For someone who has lived in New York her whole life, the prospect of everything stopping and shutting down is a new and strange phenomenon. Almost all stores are closed, no one goes to work, school is closed, and public transportation stops running. For the most part this is true of Christmas in America too, but public transportation in New York NEVER stops.
Wednesday afternoon people began closing up shop and taking off to be with their families for erev Rosh Hashana. The entire state of Israel seems to be closed for business.
I was always told that while we in America celebrate 2 days of Rosh Hashana, in Israel it is only observed for one day. If that is true they have a funny way of showing it. Today, the second day, everything was still closed....maybe even more so than yesterday.
It is very strange to walk down a street that is normally crazy with life and movement, and see absolutely nothing moving. There are people out and about, but mostly just out for leisurely walks or because they are going to family to celebrate the holiday. Tourists who end up in Israel for the High Holidays, who are not religious tourists, must get kinda bored.
And on top of all of this, it's Shabbat. Every Friday evening businesses close and people leave work early for Shabbat, and Saturday most things are closed too. So this week no one went to work all week. It's intense....like a week long siesta.
From what I have been told and what I have seen, most Israelis are not very observant. So it is interesting that the whole city, maybe even the country, observes holidays so....strictly (that really isn't the right word, I just couldn't find a better one). I have also been told that Yom Kippur is even more intense. The air port shuts down for 26 hours, and there are no cars on the road..I guess we will see next week.
I do not mean any of this as a criticism. I am merely fascinated at the way things come to a grinding halt for the Jewish holidays. This happens nowhere else in the world. Seeing this for the first time was fascinating....I can't wait to see what the other holidays are like here.
I guess technically Rosh Hashana was my second holiday in Israel....we celebrated Shabbat at the Kibbutz. However, Shabbat happens every week, so it doesn't count for the purposes of this post.
In the states most people are aware of the fact that 6,489,000 people (I looked it up) are celebrating the new year. In New York public schools have the day off and in many places it is accepted that people are not going to go to class or work. In a country where religious freedom is a privilege, Jews can celebrate/observe (can't decide which word is appropriate) the holiday without prejudice.
Israel is a whole different can of worms.
The whole country comes to a screeching halt. For someone who has lived in New York her whole life, the prospect of everything stopping and shutting down is a new and strange phenomenon. Almost all stores are closed, no one goes to work, school is closed, and public transportation stops running. For the most part this is true of Christmas in America too, but public transportation in New York NEVER stops.
Wednesday afternoon people began closing up shop and taking off to be with their families for erev Rosh Hashana. The entire state of Israel seems to be closed for business.
I was always told that while we in America celebrate 2 days of Rosh Hashana, in Israel it is only observed for one day. If that is true they have a funny way of showing it. Today, the second day, everything was still closed....maybe even more so than yesterday.
It is very strange to walk down a street that is normally crazy with life and movement, and see absolutely nothing moving. There are people out and about, but mostly just out for leisurely walks or because they are going to family to celebrate the holiday. Tourists who end up in Israel for the High Holidays, who are not religious tourists, must get kinda bored.
And on top of all of this, it's Shabbat. Every Friday evening businesses close and people leave work early for Shabbat, and Saturday most things are closed too. So this week no one went to work all week. It's intense....like a week long siesta.
From what I have been told and what I have seen, most Israelis are not very observant. So it is interesting that the whole city, maybe even the country, observes holidays so....strictly (that really isn't the right word, I just couldn't find a better one). I have also been told that Yom Kippur is even more intense. The air port shuts down for 26 hours, and there are no cars on the road..I guess we will see next week.
I do not mean any of this as a criticism. I am merely fascinated at the way things come to a grinding halt for the Jewish holidays. This happens nowhere else in the world. Seeing this for the first time was fascinating....I can't wait to see what the other holidays are like here.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Home Sweet Home
It's official...I now live in Tel Aviv; in the neighborhood of Kiryat Shalom to be specific.
Tuesday morning we said goodbye to Kibbutz Ketura and headed north to Tel Aviv, our home for the next ten months. We moved into our humungous apartment and spent the day getting settled and getting to know the neighborhood. We live in a low income neighborhood a little east from the beach and Jaffa. It is also a pretty conservative and religious community. We are really close to a lot of essentials, like a bank, grocery, and clinic. It is also really easy to get to public transportation to get to the rest of Tel Aviv. There are still a few quirks to work out in our new home, but I am sure it will feel like home sweet home in no time.
Yesterday was the start of Rosh Hashana. It's weird to be in a place where the whole city, the whole country even, closes down for a Jewish holiday. Stores close, public transportation stops running, it's intense. For those of us who do not have family here, we were invited to have dinner with host families in Tel Aviv. My friend Katie and I went to dinner in North Tel Aviv with a woman named Phyllis. She is very interesting, when she came to Israel in the '70s she basically introduced health food to Israel and wrote the first vegetarian cook book here. We had a great time. Her family was really really kind and fun to be with. It was nice to have a home to go to since I am so far from home.
Today was beach day. Since nothing else was open we trekked to the beach. The beach in Jaffa is about an hour walk from our apartment. I'm gonna get a great exercise walking around Tel Aviv this year. The beach was beautiful. Old Jaffa was in the background and the Mediterranean was very blue. We swam and vegged, and watched a boy dog continually get shut down by his female companion. She wanted nothing to do with him but he refused to give up. It was like watching a doggy soap opera..."These are the dogs of our lives"...we had a really good time watching this dog continue to chase his friend. Poor guy.
At the end of the day we watched the sun set over the Mediterranean....absolutely gorgeous! It was such a nice and relaxing day...perfect way to bring in the new year.
Tuesday morning we said goodbye to Kibbutz Ketura and headed north to Tel Aviv, our home for the next ten months. We moved into our humungous apartment and spent the day getting settled and getting to know the neighborhood. We live in a low income neighborhood a little east from the beach and Jaffa. It is also a pretty conservative and religious community. We are really close to a lot of essentials, like a bank, grocery, and clinic. It is also really easy to get to public transportation to get to the rest of Tel Aviv. There are still a few quirks to work out in our new home, but I am sure it will feel like home sweet home in no time.
Yesterday was the start of Rosh Hashana. It's weird to be in a place where the whole city, the whole country even, closes down for a Jewish holiday. Stores close, public transportation stops running, it's intense. For those of us who do not have family here, we were invited to have dinner with host families in Tel Aviv. My friend Katie and I went to dinner in North Tel Aviv with a woman named Phyllis. She is very interesting, when she came to Israel in the '70s she basically introduced health food to Israel and wrote the first vegetarian cook book here. We had a great time. Her family was really really kind and fun to be with. It was nice to have a home to go to since I am so far from home.
Today was beach day. Since nothing else was open we trekked to the beach. The beach in Jaffa is about an hour walk from our apartment. I'm gonna get a great exercise walking around Tel Aviv this year. The beach was beautiful. Old Jaffa was in the background and the Mediterranean was very blue. We swam and vegged, and watched a boy dog continually get shut down by his female companion. She wanted nothing to do with him but he refused to give up. It was like watching a doggy soap opera..."These are the dogs of our lives"...we had a really good time watching this dog continue to chase his friend. Poor guy.
At the end of the day we watched the sun set over the Mediterranean....absolutely gorgeous! It was such a nice and relaxing day...perfect way to bring in the new year.
Monday, September 6, 2010
Magic Carpet Ride
Today was our last full day at Kibbutz Ketura. We leave the desert tomorrow for the bustling streets of Tel Aviv, the City that Never Stops. I moved from the City that Never Sleeps to the City that Never Stops.
We talked about our apartments and living in Tel Aviv today. I am going to be living in a humungous apartment with eight other girls and one boy. Yes we all realize that this guy got the short end of the stick. Even I think that is too much estrogen in one place, and I am a contributor. Everyone gets along really well and I think it will be potentially great material for a future sci fi novel.
So our last night in the desert was pretty much amazing!! The Negev and Arava deserts in Israel are very rocky. It’s not like the Sahara or Arabian Nights. However……there is a spot with some incredible sand dunes. There are rocks for miles and miles and miles as far as the eye can see, then there are these rolling hills of soft, amazing sand. It was a giant sand box of the softest sand I have ever seen. It is an unbelievable sight to see, but even better was to feel the sand on our feet. When faced with a sandbox of this magnitude, everyone no matter their age acts like a kid; and that is exactly what we did. We took off our shoes and when crazy. We ran and jumped and rolled down sand dunes. Sooooo much fun! I rolled down a sand dune and now have sand in every crevice of my body imaginable, even some unimaginable. There is sand in my ears.
After romping around the sand dunes we had dinner under the stars. I thought I saw a lot of stars at the Kibbutz…..that was nothing compared with middle of nowhere desert. I could see the Milky Way.
It was a pretty incredible evening. Now I need to attempt to wash all the sand off. I will probably be finding sand for the next month.
We talked about our apartments and living in Tel Aviv today. I am going to be living in a humungous apartment with eight other girls and one boy. Yes we all realize that this guy got the short end of the stick. Even I think that is too much estrogen in one place, and I am a contributor. Everyone gets along really well and I think it will be potentially great material for a future sci fi novel.
So our last night in the desert was pretty much amazing!! The Negev and Arava deserts in Israel are very rocky. It’s not like the Sahara or Arabian Nights. However……there is a spot with some incredible sand dunes. There are rocks for miles and miles and miles as far as the eye can see, then there are these rolling hills of soft, amazing sand. It was a giant sand box of the softest sand I have ever seen. It is an unbelievable sight to see, but even better was to feel the sand on our feet. When faced with a sandbox of this magnitude, everyone no matter their age acts like a kid; and that is exactly what we did. We took off our shoes and when crazy. We ran and jumped and rolled down sand dunes. Sooooo much fun! I rolled down a sand dune and now have sand in every crevice of my body imaginable, even some unimaginable. There is sand in my ears.
After romping around the sand dunes we had dinner under the stars. I thought I saw a lot of stars at the Kibbutz…..that was nothing compared with middle of nowhere desert. I could see the Milky Way.
It was a pretty incredible evening. Now I need to attempt to wash all the sand off. I will probably be finding sand for the next month.
I meant to post this the other day but the internet crapped out on me...
I climbed a mountain yesterday.....Well half a mountain. We wanted to see the sunset. It was really beautiful. The sun was bright red against the mountains and you could see everything. It was pretty amazing and surprisingly the colors were better with my sunglasses on than off. So we started our short hike under the impression that it would be a short easy hike. We practically climbed straight up the the mountain....it was really really steep. You're not really afraid of heights until you're on a practically vertical trail up a mountain and it's covered in rubble, and one side is a really really steep drop to the rocky, scary bottom.
Side note: There are a lot of rocks here in the Arava desert.....more rocks than you could possibly imagine. It is really unbelievable. There are rocks and nothing else. So the path on the mountain was covered in little rocks/rubble that made the path slippery cause the rocks were moving under us. Not good.
Side note 2: We are in the Arava desert. Negev means desert in Hebrew so when you say the Negev desert you are actually saying the desert desert. I'm learning Hebrew already.
So I climbed my first mountain of this trip. Yay.
Today we started talking about our volunteering opportunities. There are some really great places for us to work this year. I am really really excited.
In between the learning we've been bonding. Bonding 24/7 for a week in the middle of nowhere
Side note: There are a lot of rocks here in the Arava desert.....more rocks than you could possibly imagine. It is really unbelievable. There are rocks and nothing else. So the path on the mountain was covered in little rocks/rubble that made the path slippery cause the rocks were moving under us. Not good.
Side note 2: We are in the Arava desert. Negev means desert in Hebrew so when you say the Negev desert you are actually saying the desert desert. I'm learning Hebrew already.
So I climbed my first mountain of this trip. Yay.
Today we started talking about our volunteering opportunities. There are some really great places for us to work this year. I am really really excited.
In between the learning we've been bonding. Bonding 24/7 for a week in the middle of nowhere
Friday, September 3, 2010
Dude I'm in Israel......again
I first came to Israel on Birthright, and in true American Jewish college student tradition, I absolutely loved it. Three years later I graduated college looking for an adventure. Not ready to start grad school or get a real "grown-up" job, I came back to Israel. I am spending a year in Tel Aviv volunteering with organizations that help refugees and migrant workers, exploring Tel Aviv and Israel as a whole, and studying Judaism and social Justice.
So Tuesday I packed up my over-packed suitcase (the zipper was busted by the time I got to Tel Aviv) and got on the airplane.
Wednesday I arrived in Tel Aviv and went to the apartments in Jaffa. I spent the rest of the day walking around Jaffa with a fellow participant I met on the plane.
Note: To all of those people who told me Israel is in the desert so it would be a dry heat and would not be humid.......sooooooo not true! You disillusioned me. It is crazy humid in Tel Aviv, and hot until October apparently.
Thursday we officially started Tikkun Olam in Tel Aviv-Jaffa! We met at the Daniel Center, one of the partners of Tikkun Olam. There were a lot of people there to welcome us and tell us about all of the amazing opportunities that will be available to us. Never gonna be bored in Tel Aviv this year.
Then we got on a bus and headed south. We basically went as far south as possible in Israel. We are in the desert. We are spending the week at a Kibbutz called Kibbutz Ketura. It is really beautiful, but really hot! Max, Arizona has nothing on Southern Israel!
Today (Friday) we learned about what a Kibbutz is. Never really knew what it meant to live on a kibbutz. It's like a small, fully functioning village. There is also an environmental research and educational center, called the Arava Institute. Pretty interesting stuff going on there in terms of sustainable development and renewable energy. The kibbutz also apparently has 5000 date trees and a whole mess of cows. They sell dates and milk products to everyone else to make money to keep the place running. They also farm a special kind of red algae that can be used to make certain medicines and cosmetics.
We had shabbat this evening. It was a lot like Hillel Shabbat, which is pretty cool since I'm a zillion miles away. We lit candles and went to services....I knew most of the songs :) Then we had really good dinner and now we are all enjoying the wonderful desert night. There are more stars than I have ever seen....ever! Apparently the entire country is filled with Jewish grandmothers who just wanna keep feeding you until you explode. At least the food is good
So I've never written a blog and it might be really bad, but I'm working on it and I'm sure I will have more entertaining anecdotes as the program progresses.
So Tuesday I packed up my over-packed suitcase (the zipper was busted by the time I got to Tel Aviv) and got on the airplane.
Wednesday I arrived in Tel Aviv and went to the apartments in Jaffa. I spent the rest of the day walking around Jaffa with a fellow participant I met on the plane.
Note: To all of those people who told me Israel is in the desert so it would be a dry heat and would not be humid.......sooooooo not true! You disillusioned me. It is crazy humid in Tel Aviv, and hot until October apparently.
Thursday we officially started Tikkun Olam in Tel Aviv-Jaffa! We met at the Daniel Center, one of the partners of Tikkun Olam. There were a lot of people there to welcome us and tell us about all of the amazing opportunities that will be available to us. Never gonna be bored in Tel Aviv this year.
Then we got on a bus and headed south. We basically went as far south as possible in Israel. We are in the desert. We are spending the week at a Kibbutz called Kibbutz Ketura. It is really beautiful, but really hot! Max, Arizona has nothing on Southern Israel!
Today (Friday) we learned about what a Kibbutz is. Never really knew what it meant to live on a kibbutz. It's like a small, fully functioning village. There is also an environmental research and educational center, called the Arava Institute. Pretty interesting stuff going on there in terms of sustainable development and renewable energy. The kibbutz also apparently has 5000 date trees and a whole mess of cows. They sell dates and milk products to everyone else to make money to keep the place running. They also farm a special kind of red algae that can be used to make certain medicines and cosmetics.
We had shabbat this evening. It was a lot like Hillel Shabbat, which is pretty cool since I'm a zillion miles away. We lit candles and went to services....I knew most of the songs :) Then we had really good dinner and now we are all enjoying the wonderful desert night. There are more stars than I have ever seen....ever! Apparently the entire country is filled with Jewish grandmothers who just wanna keep feeding you until you explode. At least the food is good
So I've never written a blog and it might be really bad, but I'm working on it and I'm sure I will have more entertaining anecdotes as the program progresses.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)