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.