The End of Ulpan

Well, Ulpan is over and I am now free to wander Israel and a limited section of the Middle East/Mediterranean for the next three weeks. Before describing this last week, I wanted to mention that my Mom really came through when I asked for a name for the cockroach in my bathroom. She suggested I name him Gregor Samsa (which was an amazing idea) but, unfortunately, the poor cockroach was eaten by the small army of black ants which also live in my bathroom before I could name him. So I flushed his corpse down the toilet, and the ants disappeared soon thereafter (I'm not quite sure why).

This last week has been about as boring as the week before, but with some notable exceptions. The Ulpan ended with a final (which I'm pretty sure I aced) and a picnic where they served these weird Mediterranean burrito things. They were a tortilla-like circle of cooked dough (or something) which was wrapped around hummus, "salad" (by which I mean cucumbers and tomatoes), and something salsa-esque. Now, I have discovered in my time here that I HATE falafel and hummus. So, I ate it, but I didn't like it. I'm choosing to count that as personal growth on my part.

Earlier in the week, I'm thinking around Tuesday or so, I went to the beach with Arian (pronounced Areon), the Macedonian guy from my class, and Anu, an Estonian girl who is friends with Arian. On the beach we met up with Katrine and her boyfriend (both from Austria), and three Americans who all went to Ohio State University and had known each other for years. Anu and two of the Americans left, but Shivani (who is Indian, which all the Israeli guys found absolutely entrancing) stayed. At some point Arian had learned the term banana-hammock to describe speedos and he taught this new phrase to Katrine's boyfriend (whose name I cannot remember). He (Katrine's boyfriend) then preceded to use it at every available opportunity, which was rather mortifying. We all spent the afternoon sitting in the sun, drinking beer, and enjoying the water (which was a bit colder then normal so it was refreshing instead of weird). Around dusk we got involved in an impromptu game of volleyball with a group of either Germans or Russians. I have gotten pretty good and distinguishing those two groups from the greater mass of Europeans by sight alone, but since we never learned their names and they only spoke in Hebrew I couldn't figure out which they were. However, one of them, a big muscley guy with hair down to the small of his back, was wearing a speedo so Katrine's boyfriend quickly christened him "Banana-Hammock." Hopefully he didn't know what that meant. Thanks to spring break last year, which I spent on Catalina island playing volleyball a lot, I wasn't completely useless during the game itself. My ability to play was hampered somewhat by everyone but me knowing the actual rules of volleyball (apparently its pretty complicated). But yeah it was fun. Afterwards, we went for a night swim, then went to a restaurant on the beach and ate some pretty good food, drank more beer, and finally returned to the University. That was probably the best day I have had here so far, very pleasant and unhurried and fun.

After the Ulpan ended, Arian, Me, the three Ohio-ans from the beach (Jared, Kat, and Shivani) and one of their friends from Philadelphia (a guy named Dominic), went to Tel Aviv because many of them were leaving the next day and everyone wanted to have some fun in Tel Aviv before they left. The train ride took forever because of some peculiarities of the trains here in Israel. You see, here, trains fill completely. This means that all the seats are taken, and the aisle way is full of people, and the ends of each cabin by the doors are also full of people, and there may or may not be people standing in the bathrooms as well. So that was irritating. When we got to Tel Aviv, Arian and I walked to a hostel (this took about 20 minutes) and got lost. It turns out that we turned down the wrong street just before the hostel would have come into sight (of course). Upon entering the air-conditioned bliss of the hostel lobby we found out that most of the rooms were full (we had forgotten to call ahead) and so we ended up paying for a room for three people which had a TV and its own air-conditioning and bathroom/shower. I'm not going to say how much this cost, but know that I almost had a rage induced stroke when I finished figuring out how much I was paying in dollars. Especially when I saw the room itself, which was fine, but not worth the amount I payed. After we had settled in I turned on the TV (because I had yet to watch Isreali TV) and MTV was on. I immediately noticed that MTV-Europe (because apparently Israel is in Europe now, though I can't imagine what they would play on MTV-Middle East so I guess it makes sense) differs from MTV back home in that it actually plays music. I was astonished. Granted, most of the songs were about a year and a half old, but still. After a while we got bored so we went out in search of a bar. Unfortunately, this was during that short span of time between when daytime things, like restaurants, have closed and nighttime things, like bars, have yet to open. Eventually we found a place called Joey's Bar which was either trying way to hard to emulate an American bar or satirizing American bars in a truly hilarious fashion. I can't decide which. Now, having never been in a bar in America, I'm not quite sure what they are like, but this one was covered in stuff, there was literally not a free inch of space on any of the walls. There were busts of JFK, Ben Franklin, and George Washington on some shelves above the bar, a moosehead with a Darth Vader helmet in its antlers on the wall next to the shelf, the heads of several other animals native to America on some of the other walls, and more eagle related statuary then I have ever seen in my life. Also, lots of red, white, and blue stuff. It was amazing. I tried an Australian beer and a Thai beer (I'm so international), and then we had to go meet up with the remaining Americans and two of Arian's friends from Macedonia. Once we met up with them we went to a little cafe and I had some delicious kabobs while everyone else had what was apparently the worst falafel in the history of time. I guess that means that I won that particular meal. Over the course of the night we went to between 3-5 different bars and wandered around Tel Aviv for a couple hours. Then we all had to come back because I was very tired and Dominic had to leave for the airport about four hours later (he was still drunk when he woke up to leave, which I found hilarious).

The next day those of us who were left (Me, Arian, and Shivani) went to the beach. I managed to fall asleep while sitting under the beach umbrella we had rented (they set them up and if you sit under them then you have to pay some guy). When I fell asleep I was completely within the shadow of the umbrella, but when I woke up some time later my legs were in the sun and I had a rather bad sun burn. By that I mean my legs are little red and uncomfortable, not that I am peeling or anything. A short amount of time after I woke up we all had to run like hell to catch a bus to the train station in order to catch a train back to Haifa before Shabbat.

Which brings me the last section of my post: I hate Shabbat. Even more than I hate falafel and hummus, do I hate Shabbat. I don't have any problem with the concept of a Sabbath, but the execution here is a bit too all-encompassing. From, oh I don;t know, 2:30pm on Friday until roughly 8 pm on Saturday NOTHING WORKS. The buses stop, the trains stop, vast portions of the airport close, restaurants and malls are not open; it's like then entire country shuts down. The only place you can reliably get to during Shabbat is the beach (because a very small number of buses still run on Saturday), but I didn't feel like getting covered in sand again today. So I was pretty much trapped at the University because I didn't feel like going any of the places I had access to. It was so irritating. Fortunately tomorrow is Sunday and the country will once again be functional. I think I will need to buy an especially compelling book every week immediately before Shabbat and just read all day or else I will go crazy the next time Saturday rolls around. Also, I still can't upload photos because either this website or my wireless connection (or both) is not cooperating. Sorry.

Ok, that's it. More Later

A Rather Boring Week

Alright, so I haven't written anything for a while, but that was mostly because nothing interesting was going on. Class has been about the same and I missed the bus for the trip to the Baha'i Gardens which was going to be the basis for a post earlier in the week. Anyway, yesterday I went to Tel Aviv and learned something very important: Don't go to Tel Aviv with a tour group. I went there expressly so I could get oriented on the layout of Tel Aviv (which is supposed to be considerably more interesting than Haifa) and to get some time in at the beach. Unfortunately, our tour guide decided to tell us everything about everyone who had ever lived anywhere in the city, so while the other group got about 2 hours at the beach at the end of the day, mine got about 20 minutes. Needless to say, I was kinda pissed. That being said I got to see some interesting things, including the house where Israel announced its countryhood, two very different bazaar-type things, and the ancient city of Jaffa (sometimes pronounced Yaffo for reasons which continue to elude me). Jaffa was actually really cool. Apparently, that was where Jonah got on the boat which led to the whole whale incident in the Bible. And, in Greek mythology, the rocks in the bay right next to the city are where the princess Andromeda was chained in order to be sacrificed to the sea monster Ceto before being rescued by Perseus (who was on his way back home after killing Medusa). Jaffa was also conquered briefly by Napoleon (again I'm not quite sure why). When we had some time to wander around the city we went to a flea market which was pretty strange. You know how in old movies when someone visits an Arab country and they stumble into a bazaar with all those covered stands and merchants hawking strange and exotic wares at exorbitant prices? Well, both of the bazaars I went to were just like that, except upgraded to be a bit more modern. The stands were covered with plastic tarps instead of cloth and the merchants were selling cell phones, DVDs, and national flag-themed boxer-briefs (I saw a set of Soviet Russia themed underwear complete with hammer and sickle, it was weird). This was in addition to spices, fresh fruits, little statues and other sorts of things which one would expect to find in a bazaar. But this only accounted for half of the first market, the other half was in what appeared to be a hallowed out warehouse which had been crammed to capacity with clothing stores. There were veritable forests of knock-off handbags, brand-x jeans, and other tems of clothing which made the girls in the group absurdly happy. I was indifferent, as essentially everything there was geared towards female shoppers. Well, thats not quite true, I saw some pretty interesting daggers and old flintlock pistol looking things which I kinda wanted to buy but figured I would never be able to get them through customs. Oh well.

The second market was more like the movie-type bazaar I described earlier. It was one long windy street with booths crowding in on both sides and yet more merchants yelling and exhorting, in their various languages, why their items were the best. The only downside to this place was that occasionally water (or at least i hope it was water) would drip down on you from above, where the coverings of the booths created a roof of sorts. At this place I ended up buying a disturbingly fresh carrot juice from a random vendor and a necklace with a hamsa (a hand held in a position like you would see on a stop sign with some weird patterns on the palm) on it. I was told by one of the girls on the trip that hamsas are good luck charms in both the Jewish and Arabic traditions, but I looked them up on wikipedia and it said that they just protect you from evil spirits/the evil eye, so it seems like more an anti-bad luck charm than a good luck charm to me. In either case I am pleased with it. What I am not pleased with is the fact that I forgot my camera, so I don't have any pictures of any of these things, sorry. I was going to make up for it by showing some pictures from my dorm, but the picture uploader isn't working right now for some reason, sorry (again).

In other news, the Ulpan will be over on Thursday. That means that I have been here for almost a month which is kind of surprising to me seeing as how I still sometimes forget that I am over here at all. However, it also means that in 5 days I get to begin wandering all over Israel to look at stuff. I figure I will start in Haifa and work my way out. In Haifa there are the Baha'i Gardens, Elijah's Cave, and the Sella Maris monastery, all of which I want to see. Then I'll go to Jerusalem and see what I can see there. Then on to Tel Aviv, the Dead Sea, and hopefully Petra (which is in Jordan). I would also like to try and make it to Istanbul, to see the Hagia Sophia, Ephesus, to see the old library there, and possibly Cairo, to see the pyramids, but I am unsure as to how much it would cost to go to Turkey and/or Egypt. I have spoken to some people here who are planning to go to Turkey during the break and they said that they found a deal for three nights and four days in a hotel plus airfare for about somewhere around $400. I will, of course, be looking into that a little later.

The last item for this post involves the local wildlife. My bathroom has now become the permanent home of a truly large cockroach. A friend of my Mom's suggested that I name the cockroaches so they seem less threatening, but the only name I can come up with for this cockroach is Jeffrey, and I don't want to name it that because Jeffrey was the name of my beloved pet cannibal goldfish when I was younger (I'm not kidding). If anyone has any name ideas please let me know. The only reason the cockroach in question has not been killed is that he lives under a portion of my toilet plumbing that is impossible for me to get around in in order to kill him. Also, those perfidious kittens have continued their siege of the suite, and have been partially successful. My suite mates tend to leave the doors open and the kittens have begun to walk right in and then home in on food sources. What is more, Gabriel the Greek Guy has apparently been feeding them for some time now. I personally no longer feel guilty about not feeding them because there are people all over the dorms who feed the swarm of kittens which have infested this place. It seems like every terrace of the dorm has at least one litter of kittens hitting up everyone there for food/affection. I accidentally petted on of the kittens yesterday night and it apparently felt that this constituted permission for it to try to eat my sandwich. So, yeah, I won't be petting them anymore.

More Later

Cockroaches, Land Crabs, Kittens & Other Pests

Alright, so I went to Cesarea yesterday and it was pretty awesome. Cesarea was either the largest or the second largest port in the entirety of the roman empire and was an important trade stop and thriving city for about 800 years. The it got destroyed by the Muslims (I think). Then the Crusaders came up and built a fort there. Then the fort got destroyed by the Mamelukes. Now there's an archaeological dig there. It has yet to be destroyed. We got to see a lot of cool stuff, like the hippodrome (where horse races were held, which, much like NASCAR, were primarily watched for the crashes), the theater (which still hosts concerts), and one of King Herod's palaces. The above pictures are, in order, 1.some ruins 2. Areon (from Macedonia), Sarah (from Denmark), and me on a statue of a chariot at the Hippodrome and 3. the remains of King Herod's freshwater indoor swimming pool/enemy-drowning pit (apparently he needed to drown a lot of enemies). Again, the issue of water was addressed a lot on the tour, in this case they talked about how the people of Cesarea (Cesareans?) built massive aqueducts from the Carmel mountain range to the coast 15km away to carry water to the city. They also imported an entire tribe of people from the Sudan to clear the nearby marshes because they were resistant to malaria. This tribe still lives in this big city in that same area which we passed on our way to the ruins. I also got to go to the beach and swim for a bit (my first time to the beach since I got here). Now, here's the thing about the Mediterranean: its warm. And not nice warm, more lukewarm like old bathwater. The mental image I got the entire time I was in the water was this one: you know when you're in a pool and you wander into a warm spot and you wonder whether its warm because of the sun or something or because someone just peed there? Yeah, the entire sea feels like that. It's also so salty that it burned my eyes a bit. That being said, I enjoyed the beach and will probably try to return there once I figure out the bus system.

Now, for some random things I have been meaning to mention here but kept forgetting. The first is that salad here is comprised entirely of cucumbers and tomatoes. Sometimes there might be cabbage, but not often. I don't think I have seena head of lettuce since I got here.

Then there are the bugs. There is some kind of spider here which is both huge and terrifying to me. I only ever see them from a distance, but there front legs always look like pincers to me and thus I have named them Land Crabs. Every time I see one I am torn between wanting to run away and wanting to smash it to death. So far I haven't done either. There are also massive (or possibly normal sized, but bigger than I've ever seen) cockroaches which live around the dorms. My morning today was ruined when I walked into my bathroom and looked into my shower and saw two of them scurrying about. I went to get a shoe to smash them, but I returned just in time to see them escape down my drain. So I turned on the water in the hopes of drowning them (or at least washing them away from my room). I came back into the bathroom a little later and saw a third cockroach on the floor. This one scurried into the tile of my shower somehow before I could squish it. As near as I can tell, they have some sort of network of tunnels around my bathroom which they use to get from place to place. My response to this invasion will be overwhelming and poisonous.

On the topic of pests, my dorm is currently under siege by four highly motivated and tragically adorable kittens. I don't know where they came from, but they REALLY want into the suite and, of course, I can't let them in. So I have to shut the door in their faces and then listen to them meow piteously through the windows. They don't appear to be malnourished and there are cats everywhere around here so there must be a food source somewhere... hopefully. I still feel like a jackass every time I have to dodge them on my way in or out.

On a completely different topic, I was talking to Washti (my Israeli suite mate) about how the Israeli students here are still taking their finals even though it is summer. Apparently this has been the case for the entire time Washti has been at the University. This year (his junior year) the teachers went on strike for about two months at the beginning of the semester, so they have finals right now. His sophomore year the students went on strike to protest a raise in tuition, so finals got pushed back until summer as well. His freshmen year, Syria decided to start shooting rockets into Haifa, so school got canceled until they stopped and, you guessed it, finals got pushed back into summer. He fears that he will never have a summer to himself at this rate. Personally, I hope no one tries to pull any of that stuff while I'm here because I don't have the time to make stuff up later.

The last thing I want to mention is that nearly everyone here is either two years younger or minimum 4 years older than me. For example, the two other students in the picture at the beginning of this post. Sarah is 23 and Areon is 27. So now I feel very, very young. Oh well. I'm going to the Bahai Gardens on Sunday after my Mid-Term so I should have some good photos then. More Later

The Golan & Jewish Geography (these things are unrelated)

Alright, so I would have posted earlier, but as soon as I borrowed an adapter from someone so I could use my laptop, the wireless internet went down. And, of course, this happened on Shabbat (the Sabbath) so the computer labs were closed. The next day was a holiday (I think it commemorated the destruction of the first temple or something) so there was no school, but also no internet and the computer labs were still closed. Irritating as that was, however, it doesn't hold a candle to a strange phenomenon called Jewish Geography. This term is used to describe how Jewish people from all over the world either know each other directly or know a person in common. It is rather disconcerting how nearly everyone here knows each other already through 2 or fewer degrees of separation. And while this Jewish Geography is mapping the world, I am somewhere on the Gentile Moon, scratching my head and trying to figure out what the hell is going on. That being said, I am meeting people (so if you're related to me don't worry or anything) and the Ulpan is going well. The speed of the thing is only know being impressed upon me as I just yesterday realized that Midterms are on Sunday. Oh well.

On Friday we took a trip to the Golan Heights, the Galilee, and Mt Bental. I didn't feel like hiking, so I took the historical tour, on which I saw various sites from the Yom Kippur War (or possibly the 6 Day War, I get all those wars confused), the ruins of the ancient city of Gamla, and got to look at Syria from a bunker on Mt. Bental. My camera managed to last for almost the entire thing before it died, so I only missed out on one picture. It would have been the best picture of them all, but what can you do? So, details. Gamla was the site of a major battle between the Romans and Jews during the Jewish Rebellion back in way back when. I got some pretty cool pictures of the ruins and some renderings of what the city looked like before it was destroyed. I also got to see the Sea of Galilee, which is apparently quite low right now because Israel is in the midst of the worst drought in recent history. I'm beginning to notice a pattern here: I go to South Africa, and South Africa burns down; I got to Israel and Israel drys up. I can't wait to see what happens to the next place I visit, I'm guessing something involving meteors. Anyway, we heard a lot about Israeli water policy and history and such. The best story that we heard, in my opinion, involved an Israeli spy who infiltrated Syria during one of those wars. He was advising the Syrians on the building of bunkers, and suggested that, because it was so hot there, the Syrians plant Eucalyptus trees for shade around the bunker sites. So they did, and he then told the Israelis to attack anywhere they saw eucalyptus trees. It was a rousing success. Unfortunately, this spy was later captured and killed by the Syrians, but that was still an excellent strategy.

I have to admit, before I went there I was little apprehensive, largely because the State Department told me not to go there as there are still unexploded land mines in that area, but it was a pretty fun trip. The above pictures are 1. The Ruins of Gamla 2. The Bunker on Mt. Bental and 3. Me in front of the Sea of Galilee. If it seems a little hazy, that's because this part of the country has the worst air quality in all of Israel. Can I pick cities or what?

Discoveries Abound

Alright, so the last few days have been mildly interesting, but I have learned a lot. The Ulpan started the day before yesterday and so far it's been pretty fun. It turns out that Hebrew is the absolute easiest language I have ever had to learn. This is because the modern Hebrew spoken in Israel today was only developed about 100 hundred years ago, so it's not as convoluted and weird as French, Spanish, or English. There are only four tenses in Hebrew (past, present, future, and imperative), and only four verb endings in the present tense. In fact, the only downside to the whole thing is that I had to learn a second alphabet because Hebrew has an cursive-type alphabet which is what they write with. The alphabet I learned is what you use to read stuff like books and banners and things. Now, though, I kinda wish I had some sort of independent study option because I get everything we have been taught, but because I'm in the absolute beginner class, the class itself goes very... very... slowly. But I suppose I'll get used to it. Something funny/really awkward happened in class yesterday. One of the guys in the class is from Macedonia, and throughout the first day of class he said that he was from Macedonia and spoke Macedonian. There is also a girl in the class from Thessalonia, which is apparently the capital of Greek Macedonia (or something). She took great offense at his saying he was from Macedonia when, according to her Macedonia no longer existed or had yet to exist or something to that effect. So they ended up loudly arguing about national identity and cultural indoctinization for several minutes while the teachers looked on helplessly. It was awkward. Personally, all I know about those two places is that Philip of Macedon was Alexander the Great's father and in classical Greek myth Thessalonia was where witches came from. Needless to say, I didn't get involved in the argument.

Now, a quick rundown of my roomates. There are five people besides me living in my suite and only one is Israeli. I tend to forget his name but it is something like Washi or Washmi. The first person I met from my suite was a very thin German guy named Sebastian. Then Adam, from New Hampshire, Martin, from the Czech Republic, and Gabriel, from Greece, who I have seen a grand total of twice since I arrived. They seem pretty cool, but I almost never see them so its hard to tell. That being said I think all of them are staying for the semester as well as the Ulpan so I'll probably see more of them later in the year. Oh, and apparently the guy who lived in my room during the last Ulpan (in July) was also named Luke, which is rather improbable. Also, on a living situation related sidebar, I have very little idea of what to make/eat here considering that I don't have any silverware or plates or anything of my own. There is a communal set in the suite, but I don't quite trust communal stuff. So I have been having mustard and salami sandwiches for breakfast everyday (because they don't require silverware or bowls and that was the only deli meat in the store which I recognized). This has led me to conclude that I really need to buy some more supplies because my stomach does not like mustard that early in the day. I would have been making peanut butter and jelly, but there is no jelly here, only confiture and I don't know what that is (the jars have stuff floating in them).

Yesterday I would normally have written a post, but I didn't because I was very sick (shocking, I know). Here's how this came about. Earlier in the day I went up to the moadon (which a sort of general purpose room for the dorms) for the orientation for our trip on Friday (we're going to the Golan Heights). Afterward I was planning to take a hike down Mt. Carmel with some people, but the oppotunity arose to go the Grand Kanyon (the biggest mall in Haifa). I thought that this would be an excellent time to get a converter for my laptop/camera battery so this guy named Jacob and I caught a bus heading in that direction. On the ride down I started to feel a little unwell, but I didn't think anything of it. The bus dropped us off at our stop and we discovered that that bus took you near the mall, but not to the mall. So we walked about a mile along the side of a miniature freeway, navigated a multilevel subterranean parking structure, passed two security check points, and finally found ourselves in the mall. Now this was a fairly legitimate mall (you know big, lots of stores, brand-names I recognized despite being written in Hebrew), so you would think that at least one store would carry what I was looking for. But, of course, you would be wrong. The closest I came was a REI type store that sold adapters for plugs, but which didn't do anythingt for voltage. This would have worked for my laptop, but not my camera. I almost bought them anyway, but the adapter didn't fit a 3-pronged plug so I left without buying anything. I later discovered that that would have worked for my laptop, but whatever. Jacob, the guy I went there with, had similar luck in finding the surf shop a friend had garunteed him would be there (it turned out to be at the Kanyon mall on the other side of town). The whole trip would have been a waste except I bought a new book (The Ruins) which made everything better. Or so I thought until I got on the bus again. This bus was going to take me to the central bus depot and from there I would take a diferent bus back to the university. But halfway through the first ride I became excessively carsick. I don't know what it is about the buses here but apparently they make me ill. That was easily the longest series of bus rides I have ever taken. It was nothing but stop and go, up and down and around these unnecessarily twisty roads. By the time I got back I was sick to my stomach so I dragged myself back to my bed and collapsed. Later I felt better so made myself Israeli cup-o-soup (using bottled water) and abruptly got sick again, this time due to the incredibly high salt content of the broth (it was like salt water). So that was my day yesterday. Today, we had a test in class (to the dismay of everyone but me) and now I plan on doing my homework, then borrowing an adapter and watching some TV on my laptop. Tomorrow I'm going to the Golan Heights for a tour. To end this I will list some things that I find odd about this place: 1. Buildings have 13th floors here 2. The elevator to my room does not have a 3rd, 5th, or 8th floor 3. There are cats EVERYWHERE 4. McDonald's actually tatses good here, but Coke still tastes bad and 5. The ocean is warm.

More later

The First Few Days

Ok, so I won't have any pictures for a while because it turns out my laptop uses 15 more watts than my adapter could handle, so now my laptop is out of batteries and my adapter is dead. Oh well. I apologize for the various spelling errors in that last post, but I was in a hurry to write something before my very few minutes of internet access ran out. So, in more detail, here's how my first few days in Israel went:

The flights were pretty uneventful, except for when I was waiting for the plane to Israel in Newark. During this wait I guess the time came for all the Hassidic and Orthodox Jews on the flight to pray, so they all went to the window and started chanting and bowing. I didn't quite get what was going on at first and my confusion was compounded by the fact that the airplane happened to be outside that window, so they appeared to be chanting and bowing at the plane. But other than that the flights weren't that interesting.

When I arrived in Tel Aviv I got through customs without any problems and went outside to the train station. Fortunately, my extended use of the trains at home this last summer allowed me to figure out the ticket robots here pretty easily (they're all built along the same lines). The problem, however, was figuring out the train schedule. I got around this by following a woman who was also from California (though she was originally from Argentina) who was having a similar problem. She enlisted the help of an Israeli girl who showed us how to get to the right platform. When I got on the train the first thing I noticed was a guy with the very large gun sitting in one of the first available compartments. Apparently you can bring guns onto public transport here so long as they aren't loaded, or at least I assume so because there was also a man with a handgun in his waistband on the bus to the university. Anyway, once I got over that I moved down the train and sat down. Eventually I realized that I didn't know which stop was the one I wanted, as most of the signs were in Hebrew (this has been a recurring problem). Fortunately, a nice little old lady told me which stop I wanted. It was funny because she didn't speak English, instead she dragooned random passengers near us into translating for her. When I reached my stop I started to walk towards the hostel and proceeded to get very lost very quickly. This was because all the street signs were in Hebrew (like I said, it's a problem). So I walked for a while, uphill the entire way and finally asked a person in a car for directions. They knew which hostel I was looking for and told me how to get there (it turns out I was about 2 blocks to far south). I then reached the hostel.

Now, I don't really know from hostels, but this one seemed really nice. The only real problem was that my sleep schedule was off in such a fashion that I wasn't tired at all the entire night and the room I was in was also occupied by several large, balding Russian men who snored. That was one of the longest nights of my life. The next morning I walked downstairs, realized that I couldn't breath because of the humidity, then ran back to my sort of air conditioned room to change into shorts. I didn't get breakfast that day, which was a HUGE mistake, so I eventually left the hostel in search of food. Now it turns out that none of the restaurants (or at least none that I found) serve breakfast in Haifa until after 9:30 or so. I, of course, went out foraging at about 8, so I was left to wander the streets of Haifa for an hour and a half until I found a restaurant that was open (this restaurant was right next to the hostel as I had been dragging myself back to wait til later to find food). The menu was in Hebrew (blast) but the waiter recommeded the omlet so I got that and it was AMAZING. Unfortunately, I got terribly sick about half way through the meal (also a recurring problem). I then went back to my room and fell asleep for several hours, which meant that I didn't sleep that night either. However, during my absence all the large Russians had been replaced with quiet Austrians so it wasn't as irritating as the first night. There isn't much to tell about the 2nd day. I ate breakfast, read a bit (I have read the same book 4 times so far on this trip) and then fell asleep aroudn noon inspite of my best efforts. That night however, about half of the Austrians had been replaced with American Archeology grad students who had just finished their respective digs. The grad students were going out to some bars/restaurants and they invited me to come along, so I did. That was easily one of the strangest experiences I have ever had. It turns that archeological digs are strange and bewildering places where nothing is quite what it seems (unless you happen to be an archeologist, then everything makes perfect sense). For instance, one girl was going on and on about how they were finding 2000+ year old boats at the bottom of the Black Sea. She was saying things like "2000 year old WOOD and ROPE, it's AMAZING." Later in the evening, her friend mentioned that she likes Hellenistic philosophy and this same girl seemed completely bored by it. This seemed odd to me because this girl had been ready puke with exictment over old rope while bragging about some neolithic old growth forest beneath a lake near her house, but Hellenistic philosophy bored her. Whatever. She was also a hippie from Seattle who wanted to spit on peopel who owned Humvees, so I spent most of the night biting my tongue instead of correcting her many inaccurate opinions. We all returned to the hostel and I (again) didn't sleep for more than 3 hours.

The next morning I was sick, very very sick. I don't know what I did, but it felt like I had the flu something awful. So I eventually managed to drag myself out of bed, get dressed and begin the arduous trek to the bus station (which nearly killed me). Once on the bus, I realized that, while I knew that that line went to the University, I didn't know which stop to get off on or what the University looked like. But again, fortune smiled upon me and a random blond girl heard me asking a guy (who turned out not to speak English) about the university, and said that she was going there as well and offered to show me around. Her name was Shaylee or possibly Shirley (it was heard to hear and she had an accent), and she had recently graduated from the University of Haifa and was going back to visit some friends before going to New York in September. It was a very good thing that I met her because it turns out that the Unviersity on the complete opposite side of the city from where I was and the bus ride was about an hour long. I would have freaked out and gotten off at the wrong stop had I not been told not to. Also, after the University stops the bus goes to some Druze village way out in the hills, so I would have been screwed even if I stayed on the bus. Anyway, she showed me to the security stand where I met the guy who would show me to my dorms. Keep in mind that, this entire time I was on the vegre of throwing up. I kept drinking water, but still felt horrible. I really need to find a sports drink of some sort, but I can't read the labels on anything and nothing here looks Gatorade-ish. Also, I think I strained some muscles in my back lugging my luggage around, but none of the stores aorund here carry aspirin or any pain killers of any kind that I can discern (again, I can't read anything). But I digress.

It is important to remeber that the Unviersity of Haifa was built on top of Mt. Carmel. Because of this, there is very little (and by very little I mean there isn't any) level ground. So the dorms (which is to say each individual dorm complex) are built in sets of four terraced buldings each bulding containing several apartments and connected to each other through random stair ways. The combined effect is something like low income housing crossed with one of those psychology mouse maze things crossed with an MC Escher drawing. Of course, my room is on the bottom most floor of the bottom most terrace and has weird smell which reminds me of the Grove in Northern California. To get there I must take an elevator and go down at least 3 flights of stairs. Because the dorms are on the opposite side of the campus from EVERYTHING else, I have to take 2 elevators and go up abotu 7-13 flights of stairs to get to the classrooms, foodcourts, etc. I predict that I will get incredibly lost several times in the near future.

I think that's about everything so far. My laptop is down until I can find an adapter, but there's wireless in pleasent air-conditioned rooms in some of the dorms. I'm hoping they also have wired because wireless sucks for watching TV, which is what I mainly use the internet for. Orientation was today and that went well. There is still a party later, but not for a couple more hours. Oh, one other thing. I didn't bring any sunglasses with me because I thought I would just buy them here, but it turns out that was a terrible plan. Sunglasses here cost between $40-$60 for stuff like what you would find at Wal-Mart. It's astounding. Also, I put a fan together today without any instructions (they were in Hebrew) and using my keys as a scrwdriver. I'm very proud of myself.

More to come later.