Welcome to Mediterranea

While the plan was to take a bus-cab combo to the University, this morning Nurit managed to talk a passing cab driver into taking me from Herzeliya to Haifa for about the same price (so I was led to believe).

Now, the Mediterannean Sea is on my left, Israel is on my right, and a great playlist is in my ear: Dave Matthews, only the best of Glee, the one Ingrid Michaelson song that I know and like ("The Way I Am"), some Kings of Leon.  At this moment, I really appreciate what our Core teachers on Muss used to say to us on our weekly tiyulim--כדאי לנו to look out the window while we travel through this beautiful country!  Their rule about iPods, however, seems a bit misguided.  A soundtrack definitely enhances the viewing experience, the same way that it does in a movie or a play.  Imagine watching a series of pictures with no music playing behind them: the pictures might be lovely, but the music adds a whole new level of meaning, feelings and identification with the subject matter.  Just a theory.

This is my fourth time in Israel, but the view never gets old.

Or rather, it does get older, but in its age it only becomes more beautiful and awesome (not in the dude way--in the awe-inspiring way). 

We are driving up a hill--it's clear that we're headed towards the University, which stands on top of the Carmel Mountain--and I am ready to put down my iPod (where I'm taking notes for this blog) to follow my own advice about looking out the window, when the cab driver starts pointing out places in the area where the recent forest fire hit.  Huge patches of trees are brown and orange instead of green; there is a collection of burnt buildings, which I believe represents one of the first (or maybe the first) neighborhoods to get hit; flowers and signs lie on the side of the road next to where the bus full of jailers-in-training was burned to the ground.  The place deserves my full attention, and after a final note the iPod is put down.

I moved in to my room yesterday (no need to go into detail about that; just know that I have no hangers yet but that I DO have my own bathroom), and have been trying to familiarize myself with the campus since then.  Between yesterday and today I bought a few food- and home-related necessities (Cheerios, PB&J, a Lysol equivalent for the bathroom, pasta (because we all know that's one of the only things I can make--so far!), tuna (protein), coffee...), met a bunch of people, went to a bar as part of orientation (yes, it was school-organized), ate falafel (SO much better than American falafel--I don't understand how 90% of American falafel places mess up their falafels!  Rami's excluded.  He at least knows how to use his chick peas), took an oral ulpan "test," played a few funny but personal space-invading ice breaker games (what better way to get to know someone than to GET TO KNOW someone), and met 2 of my 4 suitemates (both very nice; both from a rather different cultural pool than the one from which I hail).

That was 2 days in one run-on sentence.  Not bad, if you ask me.

Tomorrow is the first real day of ulpan, so I'm going to try to get to bed before midnight, if possible.  I think I was placed in the highest level--good, I hope, for my Hebrew, but with the downside that it's a small class and I won't meet as many people.  I guess I'll have to find other ways!

Lila tov, all of you who had the patience to read through all of this :)