Moonrise in the Sukkah

I'm sitting in my room, two hours and nineteen minutes left until my first class.  After finding out (blessedly) that I did not have to take the Hebrew placement test this morning, I've been dividing my time between doing laundry, painting my nails, writing some emails, listening to my iTunes, making a delicious turkey sandwich, and deciding, after putting water in the pot to boil, that I actually was not hungry enough to make and eat an entire Osem noodle dish, too.
Some pretty exciting stuff to report on from this weekend.
Daphna invited me to go with her family to the Negev from Friday-Saturday, to a place near Mitzpeh Ramon that calls itself "סוכה במדבר," or "Sukkah in the Desert" (the girls, Michal and Noa, found that name quite funny, seeing as how the English translation of "sukkah" cannot be "sukkah").  I'll be straight with you: after hearing that there would be no running water, and seeing a picture of the "sukkot" online, I was not exactly jumping up and down with excitement as the weekend drew closer.  I took a bus and then the train to Tel Aviv on Friday morning (a satisfying accomplishment), and after a short meal and shmooze with the cousins, we set off for the Negev.
The car ride took about two hours, and as the passing fields outside my window turned from green to brown (and the number of cars on the road turned from many to none), I braced myself for what was sure to be an interesting weekend.  At a homemade sign for "Sukkah in the Desert" with an arrow pointing to the right, we turned off the road and began an extremely slow and bumpy journey to the site (slow, because any speed above "turtle" would have put the car's tires in serious jeopardy).  We drove deeper and deeper into the middle of nowhere--all we could see were sand-colored hills to our front, back and sides--and so grew my sense of foreboding.  But then we reached the sight, and I saw the dogs.
Sukkah in the Desert consisted of a series of several wood- and palm tree leaf- huts for sleeping, a larger hut for eating, two outhouses, a chicken coop, a horse pen (with one beautiful brown horse), a donkey pen (with two very vocal donkeys--did you know that donkeys actually make the "hee-haw" sound?!), and about four or five big, free-roaming dogs: at least two huge, furry white ones, and two brown rhodesian ridgebacks.  As soon as I saw and met the dogs, I knew I'd feel at home; it's amazing how animals can calm a person--at the very least, this person.  The rest fell into place perfectly.
While the sukkahs looked cold and primitive from the outside, the insides were beautifully decorated with colorful sheets and homemade arts and crafts.  They were windproof, had wood stoves to keep the inhabitants warm at night, and were supplied with clean sheets and lots of soft blankets to layer on the mattresses (which were spread out on the floor and surprisingly comfortable).  The couple that runs the place--and lives there year-round--made a vegetarian dinner and breakfast for family-style eating.  The bathrooms were not half-bad (wood shavings kept the smell to a miraculous minimum), and there was a sink with running water to use for teeth brushing.  I spent my time reading Harry Potter (sometimes with Noa, sometimes on my own), talking with my cousins, and hiking with them and the other Israeli family that came on the trip.
Friday night was crisp and clear, with a moon so bright that it seemed almost like a cold, gray sun.  We watched it rise over the side of a hill, which was pretty amazing.  Once it cleared the hill, it provided enough light for us to see everything--short of the words in a book--without flashlights.  That was pretty amazing, too.
Saturday we hiked to the crater above which Mitzpeh Ramon sits, and got back to the sukkahs just in time for the anticipated dust storm to set in.  We bid adieu to the desert, and headed back to Tel Aviv for a quiet evening of Daphna's delicious cooking (shakshooka!), Harry Potter, and some much needed sleep.
Suffice it to say that I pre-judged the Negev and Sukkah in the Desert.  Despite my hesitations, this weekend turned out to be one of my best times here so far: family, nature, Harry Potter--the makings of a great time.  It felt a lot like the huts that my family and I go to in the White Mountains most summers--the same warm, rustic atmosphere that I absolutely love.  (The only thing missing was a guitar--I really need to get on that.)  If I didn't say it enough, thank you so much to Daphna, Zeev, Michal and Noa for having me with them!  I had a wonderful time and I hope to see you guys again soon :)

Going to fold my laundry before class--which I'm determined to make fun, whether it's meant to be or not (I'm talking about both class and laundry folding).
Until next time...

Remaining Realizations

Realization Number Two: I love music.  This might not come as such a surprise to many of you, and at first glance the words "I love music" are less than enlightening to me, too.  But let me try to describe to you the extent to which I realize I've come to love music.  I don't just love listening to music; I love contributing to other peoples' music, and I love making my own.  I'm beyond that stage in my life where I could merely sing along to whatever song was playing on the radio and be satisfied.  Now, I can't listen to two measures without breaking into spontaneous harmonies; they're floating somewhere by my ear, right above where the recorded song hits, and the only way for me to catch them and understand them is to sing them.  This can play out in a rather embarrassing scenario, unless of course the harmonies turn out perfectly.  In that case, it's all sunshine and puppies.

I had a slight panic when, about two weeks into my program, I opened my mouth to harmonize to one of my usual songs, and the notes that met my ears were not the ones that I had meant to sing.  Looking back, I realized that I had barely listened to my iPod or sung בקול רם since arriving in Israel, nor had I touched a guitar: the iPod neglect I can only attribute to forgetfulness; the lack of singing to the lack of an outlet for such things on campus; and the absence of my instrument to El Al’s strict carry-on baggage quotas, the limited carrying capacity of my 5’2” frame, and my silly belief that given my sparse playing in recent months, I would not miss it.  Joni Mitchell, and later the Counting Crows had it darn right, though: “Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got ‘till it’s gone.”  Cliché as ever, but remarkably true.  Now that I have no guitar, my mind is filled with song ideas (not for new songs, necessarily, but for ways to shape up the old ones—don’t get too excited), and my hands are itching for the feel of the pick as it hits the strings.  Sigh.

The future is looking promising, however: while I will remain guitarless for some time (I hope to go 50/50 with Cayla on the cheapest guitar in Haifa—we just need to find the cheapest guitar in Haifa), my friend Jeremy and I are planning on starting the University of Haifa’s first a cappella group (look out for the BEATachones!), and I’ve started listening to my iPod like it’s my job.  Most of the time, you can find me with a headphone in one ear and a conversation in the other.  I turn on my iTunes every morning while getting ready for class, and I practice my harmonies when I'm pretty sure no one is near enough to hear or be bothered.  I’m on a mission to retrain my ear, and I’m pleased to say that so far, the mission has been a success: the harmonies that I imagine when I turn on a song are easier to imitate these days than they were two weeks ago.  Things look brighter (though that could also be because the sun has returned from its lengthy hiatus) and sound prettier; life is definitely better with a soundtrack.

Realization Number 2.5:  Jason Mraz is one of the best singers/songwriters/musicians of the decade.  He is my current muse, and I want nothing more than to see him play in concert, preferably in a small, intimate venue like he used to play in the old days.  Beautiful voice, thought-provoking (and ever-changing) lyrics, an amazing ability to improvise—he is what I currently aspire to be, musically.

Now, for some updates on Israel:

I made stir fry for the first-and-a-half time (I’ve technically made it once before, but it was with a friend—this time I did it all by myself) and it was מעולה, awesome.  I also made rice without burning it (if you think you can’t burn rice, trust me, you can), and had enough food to use as leftovers for another dinner and a lunch.  I am making some serious progress here.  It's really exciting.  

This is the last week of Ulpan, and then real classes start.  I think I’m going to take four classes at the International School (including Hebrew), and audit one class at the regular university.  I would take a class at the university, were it not for the fact that my main goal for study abroad is not to study too much.  No, I’m not a slacker.  Yes, I’m learning how to have more fun during the school year, the one thing that I’ve failed at pretty consistently for too many semesters.

Today, Doreen showed us the REAL shook.  Where is the real shook, you might ask?  It’s UNDERNEATH the other one.  The “fake” shook is the one that our madrichim took us to the first week of Ulpan: it looks pretty, and it charges higher prices than the real one.  The real one is a bit farther down the road: descend a set of stairs that you wouldn’t notice from up the street, and you’re there.  It’s underground, grimy, dirt cheap (is there a pun there?), beautiful.  I would say that it’s the best-kept secret in Haifa, except that everyone in the city knows about it besides the International Students.  Plus, the best kept secret in Haifa is the Druze religion...Hehe.  (Get it?  Druze is literally a secret religion.  We learned that today from our guest lecturer.)

Off to make dinner and study for my Ulpan final (Thursday).  My newest Hebrew words:

להתמנגל (lehitmangel) = to mingle

גירית (girit) = a badger (yep, I learned that one from Harry Potter)

Realization 1/2.5

I've had two and a half realizations over the last couple of weeks.
The first is how incredibly secular the city of Haifa is.  It's not that no one warned me before I came here; I just didn't believe what I considered to be unwarranted pessimism.  Suffice it to say that you Negative Nancies were right.  This time.
Please don't misunderstand me, though: I love Haifa.  It's big enough that it feels free, but it's small enough that it's not overwhelming.  It's comfortably cosmopolitan, and there are enough cozy cafés here for me to feel more than content (for any who don't yet know, my ideal afternoon consists of sitting in a quiet café in the middle of a bustling city, book in hand, cappuccino at lips).  The bus system is user-friendly, there is a marvelous selection of falafel shops, and the store owners have more patience with Hebrew-attempting Americans than their counterparts do in busier cities.  And the fact that it is so secular means that the buses run on Saturdays, an important ingredient in many weekend plans.
Still, though, I won't hide my surprise at the apparent lack of any religious Jewish life on the University of Haifa campus.  Rumor has it there is an orthodox shull a long walk away, and a conservative one slightly closer, but so far almost no one on my program has expressed any great interest in making the journey.  It's strange to find myself on a secular program in the Holy Land.
I did have one very meaningful Shabbat experience this weekend.  My friends and I decided to make a potluck Shabbat dinner: the boys made pasta (two kinds!), Abby made quinoa, Orli made salad, Cayla made tuna, someone made veggie schnitzel, Doreen brought ice cream, I can't remember the rest, and I made rice and brought the siddur.  Jeremy made kiddush, I made motzi, and we all dug in.  After dinner, we attempted some shabbat zmirot (I think it's safe to say it was the thought that counted there).  There were a number of special things about that night: it was my first time this trip to open my siddur (in my mind, praying in Israel is always something extra special); the spontaneous decision to hold a shabbos dinner--despite the secular environment, the less-than-optimal kitchen set-ups (double hot plates with plates that seem to shirk heat at all costs), the need to walk our dishes down numerous flights of stairs, the lack of anyone willing or able to cook a meat dish--succeeded against all odds; a group of young Jews, all from different religious backgrounds, came together to perform this ancient Jewish tradition, unasked.  There's something beautiful and humbling in that.  I hope that we hold more such dinners over the course of the coming semester.

Realization number two will come later--it's already 1:10 in the a.m., and Ulpan's bright and early as always.
Tootles

A Lengthy Briefing

(I give everyone permission to read this entry in multiple sit-downs.  Since that's how I wrote it, it's only fair.)

The last few days have gone by in a blur. 

I learned that there actually is a real Hebrew word for “improvisation” (אלתור, instead of the Hebrified אמפרוביזציה).

I went to my first Aroma since I’ve been in Israel.  How I held off for two and a half weeks is beyond even me, but it was well worth the wait.  While Canadian Aroma is like a taste of Israel, Israeli Aroma is like a taste of home.

Okay, that’s a lie.  There’s really no difference, but the idea of drinking Aroma in Israel is much more ExCiTiNg.

I cooked my first real dinner with a friend, Cayla: stir fry with REAL chicken, REAL olive oil, REAL garlic, and REAL vegetables.  It was delicious (I know you all had your doubts—don’t be such haters), and it was extremely exciting to have leftovers to eat the next day (tonight) for dinner.  Life lessons learned: I can cook, cooking can be fun, raw chicken is not as scary as it looks, it really hurts to cut onions and, לצערי as we say in Hebrew, I’ll have to go back on a meal plan next year at Brandeis because cooking is a time commitment that I cannot afford.

I was asked by my teacher to go to the two lowest Hebrew classes as a “guest speaker” on Sunday, and that turned out to be very fun.  While the higher levels listen to professional guest lecturers once a week (Tuesday, for example, an Israeli screenwriter came to talk to us about Israeli cinema; last week an archaeologist presented on underwater archaeology), the students in the lower levels don’t participate because they don’t yet know enough Hebrew to be able to follow what’s being said.  Instead, the teachers invite students from higher levels into the classroom, and the new Hebrew students ask the guest questions about herself in Hebrew that she must then answer in Hebrew.  I was forbidden from using the past tense (do you have any idea how hard that is??), and was instructed to answer the students’ questions in the same way they were asked.  For instance: “Are you going to a restaurant on the weekend?”  “Yes, I am going to a restaurant on the weekend.”  It sounds rather mundane, but it got very funny when one teacher kept making me change my answers in front of the class to make them easier to understand, regardless of whether the revised versions were true or obviously false (and mostly it was the latter).  One notable example:

Student: “Do you play a sport?” 

Ariel: “No, I do not play a sport; I go to the workout room.” 

Teacher: “No.  You do gymnastics.” 

Ariel: “Okay.  I do gymnastics.” 

Long story short, it was fun.  Also, an ego-booster: later that day and the next, I was greeted with many “Great jobs,” “You sounded greats” and “I want to sound like yous.”  It was as if I’d just stepped offstage after a performance.  To me it’s just Hebrew (in all its glory—trust me, I love it), but to them it was an exotic song and dance number.

I apologize for the length of this entry (and at the same time, the brevity: my days here are packed, but I honestly can’t remember/don’t want to bore you with every detail).  Already a few days have gone by since I’ve started writing, and I’m trying my best to fit in as much as I can remember of the highlights without losing readers off the side of the wagon along the way.  If you feel yourself falling asleep (in other words, if you are anyone other than my parents, my grandparents, or Seena—hi, Seena!), hang in there or grab some coffee.  We’re almost at the end of the Oregon Trail.

Quickly (Ha--are my "quicklies" ever true to their word?):

I did my oral presentation for Ulpan on Ba’note.  Ba’note now has 7 more fans.  You’re welcome :).

We went to the Beit Hatfutzot (the Diaspora Museum) in Tel Aviv on Wednesday (I’d been there once before with Bubbe Ann the last time I was in Israel).  Our visit was brief, but interesting.  Fun fact: in their synagogues of the world exhibit, they have a scale model of Beth Shalom.

Last night, most of the International School went to a dancing club called The Loft (everyone went out with their own group of friends, but we all ended up at the same place).  I’ve never felt more like a piece of meat, but when you’re with a group of 10 people, each dancing rather absurdly in an impenetrable circle of friends, it’s easier to relax and have fun.  We did have a distress signal, just in case: if someone started doing weird, 80’s peace sign dancing, they needed to be rescued.  No peace signs flew last night (or rather, this morning), so don’t worry—it was all a good time.

My new favorite breakfast is Honey Bunches of Oats, plain yogurt, and honey.  Used to be granola/plain yogurt/honey, but I realized that that was just wrong.  Honey Bunches of Oats is a little piece of heaven in itself, and add to that the no-fail combo of plain yogurt and a TON of honey, you’ve got yourself a winner.  I just ate some now.  I highly recommend.

Didn’t go to Caesaria this morning.  For better or worse, I decided that I wouldn’t be able to enjoy the site on 4 hours of sleep (3am bedtime + 7am wakeup for 8am trip departure = misery).  Maybe I’ll go to Aroma with my Harry Potter and my Morfix (a.k.a. the best Hebrew-English online dictionary in the world), or I’ll walk around Carmel Center or Chorev (I still haven’t learned the difference between the two—should today be the day to cultivate my internal GPS skills?).  Either way, the buses stop running early today for Shabbat, so I have to run!

Shabbat shalom everyone, and I apologize once again for the lengthy briefing.

Akko--Gezhunteit!

The laundry and I are playing a little game.  I’m trying to avoid it at all costs in the godforsaken rain/fog/wind debacle that currently serves as my picturesque landscape, and it is trying to show me—through steadily dwindling piles of shirts, socks, and the like—that I cannot avoid it forever.  Not that forever was my goal here, but I was hoping to escape the task of marching the ever-growing bag of clothing (really, you would think it was alive) through the rain for at least as long as was healthily possible, and socially acceptable.  If the weather is the same tomorrow as it has been since last night—miserable—I think I’ll just have to grit my teeth and march.  A girl can’t live on the same three tank tops forever, you know.

Today the International School took us to Akko.  It would have been much more enjoyable had the rain and the wind let up for just a few hours (and had I gotten the chance to drink coffee before our 8 am departure), but even with those less than optimal conditions it was easy to appreciate the culture and history of the city.  Akko has apparently been an important city in the Middle East for 4000 years, and each civilization or empire that helped to build it left its mark.  Our tour guide showed us how you could see the different generations in the yellow stone walls that characterize most of Akko: the biggest stones on the bottom layer are from the most ancient peoples (the Crusaders, perhaps), and the smaller building blocks towards the top are from more recent societies.  In the tour guide’s words, people simply got lazier through the ages until finally they gave up and started using concrete (see top layer of construction in ancient wall: British prison).

We went through two underground tunnels: a rather rugged one that doubled as a sewage system and crusader escape route, and another, wider tunnel that was fit to transport knights in shining armor (literally) under the city (too bad I wasn't in Akko a few thousand years ago).  Then we were given the chance to explore the shook.  The shook in Akko was pretty amazing.  The narrow alley was chockfull of people and chockfull of stands, and each stand was surrounded by its own special smell: dried fruit, spices, incense, fish—SO much fish (this was not exactly my favorite feature of the place, for obvious reasons).  One of the fish stands even had some dead sharks for sale.  I considered buying one that bore a sharp resemblance to the “Fish are Friends Not Food” shark in Finding Nemo, but settled with taking a picture with him instead.  He had a beautiful smile: very white, sharp teeth.  The picture will be put on Facebook shortly for all who are curious and brave enough to look.

I’m off to take one of the most necessary naps of my life in a few minutes, but I thought I’d give a quick recap of my Ulpan midterm highlights:

Highlight #1: The test on Thursday was supposed to take two and a half hours, but most people in my class (myself included, thank goodness) were out by the one and a half hour mark.

Highlight #2: The last question on the test was an open-ended essay.  I chose the first prompt, “At one time or another in my life, I thought that,” and wrote a semi-true account of how, “At one time or another in my life, I thought that Harry Potter’s world of magic was real.”  It was one of the first in-class essays that I’ve ever enjoyed writing, and I took the opportunity to use my two new favorite Hebrew words, ינשופים and גלימות (learned, of course, through my self-motivated HP in Hebrew Reading Challenge—which is going slowly simply because I’ve been too tired or busy to read recently, thanks for asking).  Owls and cloaks…the premises of a great essay.  Let’s hope Mina agrees.