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