Proud to be an American

Hello all!

The past week or so has been a week of firsts for my stay in Jerusalem so far! On Monday the 19th was my first day of Ulpan (intensive Hebrew class that I have for four days each week, for four weeks before the actual semester starts). I am in level Bet (the second of four levels) and I think it's just about the right place for me. My Pitt Hebrew education taught me a decent amount of vocabulary, but not enough grammar! We are learning the future tense right now, which is actually pretty hard! I have two teachers, Inbal and Daphna, and their teaching styles are incredibly different (they switch off so that Inbal has Mondays and Wednesdays and Daphna has Tuesdays and Thursdays). It's going to take a little bit of getting used to. Two days, I have class for only two hours, one day for four hours and one day for SIX HOURS! Luckily on the six hour day we have what's called on our class schedule a 'tour' but really last week meant an hour-long song session with this crazy conductor/piano player lady who taught us songs from a song book. It was actually pretty hysterical, and something that would NEVER happen at a college in America!

January 20th was a day I have been looking forward to for just about 8 years--the inauguration of our new president! Some friends of mine and I went to a student center that's near our dorms to watch the inauguration with pretty much only Americans. Obama is fairly controversial to Israelis who care about American politics, so I would say it was about 96 or 97% Americans that were at the showing of the inauguration and a couple Israeli students/people who work for the student center. I was pretty excited about the inauguration and it was an absolutely incredible sight to see how many people were at the actual event to witness such a monumental moment for American history. It was bittersweet to be in Israel for the event; I have never felt prouder to be an American than I did when I was in a room with about 100 other American students studying in Israel and watching our first African-American president be inaugurated, but I wish I could have taken part in festivities and viewing parties with my friends in the States.

On Wednesday after class, some friends and I decided to go to the Old City for our first time in Jerusalem thus far. We took a bus right to the Jaffa Gate of the Old City and just wandered around for awhile in the Old City. We went to the Kotel (the Western/Wailing Wall-the last remaining wall of the ancient Jewish temple in Jerusalem), ate lunch, and did a little shopping. Later in the evening, we went to this pretty tourist-y light show/performance at the Tower of David in the Old City. It was a pretty well-done projection/light show projected over the ancient architecture of the Tower of David, which in theory is pretty cool, but it was a fairly hokey 'history of the Jewish people' themed light show with a little bit of goofiness. I'm glad we went, but I don't think I will do it again.

On Thursday night, we went out on the town on Ben Yehuda, after having some roommate bonding time (Aliza, Omer, and me) and cooking a yummy dinner of pasta and a salad of fresh produce from the grocery store right around the corner from our dorm.

Friday morning, my friends Amy, Aliza, Helene, and I went to the shuk pretty early in the morning to buy flowers and delicious Marzipan rugelach (the most wonderfully delicious chocolate-y gooey pastry!) to bring to Amy's family's house in Ramat Bet Shemesh (a town of mostly Americans who have moved to Israel, about 30 minutes northwest of Jerusalem) where we were spending Shabbat. We had such a lovely time with Amy's family, who were so kind and welcoming to us! For those of you who know me well, they also had 5 little kids! That thrilled me and was a much-needed refresher from hanging out with so many people my age! Haha

We came back after Shabbat was over and my camp friend Tovah and I met another camp friend out near her apartment on a shopping district/restaurant and cafe-filled street called Emek Refaim. It was really nice to see her and to catch up, and I'm so excited that our stays in Israel will be overlapping for the next couple of months!

Another exciting week ahead--more to come soon, hopefully. Thanks for reading!! :)