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
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