A Spontaneous Adventure and Getting What You Ask For

Shalom Chaverim!

It's Thursday afternoon, which is like Friday here, and I am sitting in my apartment eating lunch and unwinding after a long week. Seems like a good time for some blogging action.

In my last post I complained bitterly about how my Ulpan class was not challenging enough and how I felt like I wasn't learning anything new. With this in mind I moved up one class level at the beginning of last week. For the repercussions of this decision to make any sense, I need to first explain the structure of Ulpan, and specifically the Hebrew University Ulpan: Within Ulpan there are 6 levels: Aleph, Bet, Gimmel, Daled, Heh, and Vav (named for the first 6 letters in the Hebrew alphabet), with Aleph being for beginners and Vav for people who are reading and discussing literature, politics and the like in Hebrew. At the Hebrew University summer Ulpan there are 14 levels WITHIN Aleph, starting from people learning the alphabet. I started out in Aleph 13, the second highest Aleph. When I moved to Aleph 14, I jumped 200 pages in the textbook that we use. This corresponds to about 400 vocabulary words that I missed out on. The moral of the story is that I asked for a challenge and man did I get one. I have a LOT of catching up to do. Despite being overwhelming, my new class is great. We actually finished the Aleph book and started Bet last week, and we are scheduled to finish Bet by the end of the Ulpan which is great. I already feel like I'm understanding muuuch more Hebrew when I eavesdrop on the bus and am becoming increasingly comfortable responding to strangers as well as holding conversations with acquaintances and friends.

Some other cool school-related things have transpired since last I wrote. First, registration has begun. I have a meeting with my academic advisor Wednesday of the coming week so nothing tangible has happened yet, but it's exciting to peruse the course catalog and start planning a schedule. I am looking forward to studying more than just Hebrew. In addition, we had an orientation for the Internship Program which I am hoping to participate in. The program consists of a class (case studies of different non-profits and other service-providing orgs in Israel) and 8 hours a week at your internship placement. There's an interview process and the like, so we'll see what happens, but some of the jobs and organizations sounds pretty neat. I'm particularly interested in the positions where I can either 1. go to events or workshops sponsored by an organization and blog/photograph/write articles about it or 2. tutor Ethiopian students or kids who go to schools with both Arab Israeli and Jewish Israeli students. More on this to come as it pans out, but I'm looking forward to pushing myself to speak Hebrew and get involved in Israeli society in a deeper way.

Now onto the fun stuff. Last Thursday Matan and I were sitting in our apartment looking ahead to a long, quiet weekend in Jerusalem (where everything is closed and there's little to do). This was a depressing prospect - sometimes you just have to get out and do something new, ya know? - so we decided to call our friends Ayelet and Yoni who live on a Kibbutz in the Golan. Ayelet grew up with Matan on Ketura and Yoni is her husband. They were thrilled to have us come visit along with Ayelet's sister Aynat and her husband Uri, and one of Ayelet's friends from Germany named Tim. The Kibbutz where they live was founded by a group of people from Scotland (including Yoni's parents) so it's a unique place to say the least. Every year Yoni's mom throws a huge birthday party for his dad, called Lenny Fest, which happened to occur on the very Friday night that we arrived. Lenny Fest consisted of a HUGE Scottish-style bbq (good thing I've started eating chicken again!), more Scottish whiskey than you would know what to do with, and Scottish folk music all night long (Mom, you would have lost your mind over this). It was quite the party, and we had a blast.

The next day we woke up and went to visit the cattle farm where the Kibbutz raises cattle for beef. The drive there is along a dirt road with barbed wire on each side because the surrounding fields are full of old land mines because the Golan has been the site of many wars in Israel. Yikes. Anyway we got to the farm and Ayelet and her friends had cooked a delicious breakfast. We ate and then walked around visiting the different animals, at which point I SAW A CALF BEING BORN! The Kibbutzniks around me thought this was no big thing, but to a city girl like me it was pretty neat. I also rode a horse and bottle-fed a calf.

After breakfast we drove to a natural spring and hung out there for the early afternoon. It was beautiful, the water was cold and refreshing, and we had a great time. Here are some pictures of the adventure:

Ready to hit the road! Hah!
The Kibbutz

Gotta love driving next to land mines. Sorry worriers of my family :-/

It turns out Matan gets along quite well with horses

Mmmm breakfast

plop! out comes a calf! (sorry if this is gross)

bottle feeding
a beautiful afternoon

Other than that, it's mostly been business as usual. Which now that I think of it is really nice to be able to say: I feel like I'm finally falling into a routine here where my bus rides each day are no longer a hassle, Ulpan feels like a normal school day and not like a struggle for survival, and I get to come back to my apartment which truly feels like a home. I'm still struggling a bit with how to negotiate my social life, as I don't live in the dorms and therefore am obviously going to have different kinds of friendships with the other students, but I'm being patient. I'm here to live in Israel, not to hang out in the dorms, right? Right. And tonight my friend Katie arrives from the States (!!!) which I'm sure will help.

And that my friends is all for now. xo!

New words, New friends, and New (in a while) Food!

Helloooo! How is everybody? All is fine and dandy around here after my first three days of Ulpan and it seems a good time for an update, so here it comes:

Ulpan is pretty crazy. It's a 5 hour day (with a 30 minute lunch break and 15 minute stretch break) that is conducted only in Hebrew. I know that this is the best way to learn a language, to be explained new words in Hebrew and be constantly berated with repetition and practice. I like it a lot, but it's exhausting. It takes all of my concentration and focus, no zoning out allowed as you might be able to pull off in a class conducted in your native tongue. The only bad news is that my level seems a little bit too easy right now. I think the first week is meant to be review which is great, but many of my classmates are finding the review difficult, and I'm afraid the class will have to proceed at the pace of the students who are struggling a bit. However, I hear that Ulpan is pretty merciless, and that they go the pace that they're gonna go. So hopefully I'll be inundated with new verb tenses and the like very soon. My teachers (we have one in the morning and one in the afternoon) are both very kind and smart, and I like the students in my class.

As a matter of fact, I like EVERYONE that I've met so far. We had some orientation events (a wine and cheese reception to mention one) and every person that I have gotten a chance to chat with has been so friendly! It's really neat to hear each person's stories, find out what brought them to Israel and what they hope to get out of their experience. Last night the Madrichim (kind of like social life organizers) threw a huuuuge Shabbat dinner at one of the nice hotels in Jerusalem. Nearly everyone came, and we ate, talked, and sang Shabbat in. Needless to say it was superbly fun. I've met a few girls and guys in particular that I feel like I'm really starting to become friends with. Oddly enough the majority of them are from Canada (Toronto and Winnipeg) and the others from various states back home. On the one hand I feel like I'm having to scramble a bit on the friend front because I don't live in the dorms, but everyone has been really great about inviting me over to stuff and making sure I stay involved. I also happen to live blocks away from all the bars they go to which 1. gives me street cred that I certainly don't deserve and 2. means that whenever anyone goes out I can meet up with them very easily. So that's great. I'm so happy to be starting to make community here and I really am so looking forward to the year ahead with most of the people that I am starting to call friends.

In possibly bigger news, I HAVE STARTED EATING CHICKEN AGAIN!!!! This announcement requires a back story: As some of you may know, I have craaaazy dreams and nightmares almost every night. About a week and a half ago I started having dreams about chicken sandwiches. In the dreams I would be in some sort of crisis (stranded by the side of the road, or lying in a ditch with a broken leg, or some other unpleasant nightmarish concoction my subconscious cooked up) and I would be saved by none other than a chicken sandwich. This was weird. But I decided that maybe my body was speaking to me, trying to tell me something about a need that wasn't being fulfilled. So I decided to listen, and I ate a chicken sandwich (that btw was beautifully prepared by the one and only Matan Hoffman). This sandwich all but changed my life. Before any of my die-hard vegetarian friends freak out, I will say that I have no plans of chomping down on steaks and hamburgers any time soon, and I surely intend on continuing to eat in an environmentally responsible way, but MAN DID I MISS CHICKEN. Since that fateful evening I have also eaten Matan Hoffman Chicken Schnitzel (with mashed potatoes) which also resulted in euphoria. We'll see what happens with this entrance back into the poultry-eating world, but for now I'm pretty pleased. What follow are pictures of the chicken meals and of me consuming them, I hope they provide a laugh or two :) :)

yummmm. that is a sandwich with chicken breast, lettuce, grilled onions, and ketchup! straight from my nightmares, care of Matan Hoffman

this is me, very scared (of getting sick which luckily didn't happen) and excited.

chicken schnitzel! mashed potatoes and salad.

no longer any fear, just pure joy!

The last thing I feel compelled to share is what I have done so far today, the first weekend that I have been exhausted enough to truly appreciate since finishing up at Carleton in June. First, I slept until 11:15. After waking up, Matan cooked us (does anyone see a theme forming? Hah) egg fritata which we ate with toast and salad with tahina. Then we read in bed for about half an hour. Then we fell asleep. For two hours. Now we are sitting around while we wait for the banana bread that we're baking to finish. Then we will watch a movie. I have yet to change out of my pajamas and I think I'm the happiest girl alive.

I will conclude with things that I am looking forward to (and therefore that you can look forward to reading about)

1. The arrival of my dear friend Katie who is moving to Israel in less than 2 weeks! I can't wait!
2. Ulpan getting hard! At which point I will probably complain about it to all of you. When this happens, you should tell me to suck it up and that I asked for it.
3. Spending more time with the friends that I've made and getting past the small-talk stage. I really hate the small-talk stage, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.
4. Getting a chance to travel in the country a bit more (hopefully to the Golan soon!) and back down to Kibbutz.
5. More exploits into the wonderful world of chicken!

Okay now I'm just blabbing. I love you all dearly, and hope everything is going swimmingly with each and every one of you. I want to ask everybody to keep my wonderful Ima (grandma) in their thoughts as she recovers like a champ from a knee replacement. Love you Ima!

All the best from Jerusalem,

kate