Back to America So Soon 26/9/07

I am sitting in the Newark airport waiting for my flight to Houston. David is davening shacharit in the corner, and im playing on my computer and working on a kippa for Zaidy. We’re on our way to Houston for Succot- David was able to get permission to leave the country during his break for the holidays. This is his first trip to see my family in Houston at our home. It’s his first time going to my shul and meeting my friends and close families. It is going to be a really hectic and exciting chag—I have been waiting for this trip since we started dating. I have spent enough time at his house and with his family that I really feel at home there—I know where all the dishes are, I do my own laundry (mostly), I even know where the clean sheets are to make the bed for myself when I come over…. But David has never even SEEN my house. It is something that has always nagged at me our entire relationship and now at long last that missing link will be filled in.

Besides for my excitement about coming home with David, this trip is bringing out lots of feelings I had never really thought about. First and probably the most stark, was how happy I have been this entire journey so far. I can’t remember the last time I left Israel that I wasn’t depressed and literally sobbing as the plane took off. This time I couldn’t stop smiling because I know that not only am I coming back very soon but that I am going to do something really happy that I’ve been looking forward to for years. Another thing that was a huge difference was when the lady sitting next to us asked where we were from I could also answer that I’m from Israel. Yes my roots are in Houston, but Israel is my home now and it felt great to be able to say it like that. Something else cute, I haven’t been a citizen long enough to get an Israeli passport, and not even the special travel certificate that I need until I have been a citizen long enough…I had a one time use only exit letter that allowed me to use my American passport even though its illegal to leave on a foreign passport- because of some details with the dates it expires before I get home and I was worried that I would have a problem reentering the country. The customs official’s response made me feel so great “ Of course you will be able to get it, this is your home now and you will always be able to come home.” I could have kissed her.
Some of the other interesting feelings come from being back so soon. I have been away for less than 3 months. I have been away for much more significant lengths of time before so I am not really homesick. On the other hand, it was so hard to leave the first time that I am a bit worried that it will be hard to leave again. I love my family and it is hard for me to be away from them regardless of how strongly I feel about living in Israel. I don’t think it will be a problem, but it made me think a lot about how hard it will be to leave them again.
It’s time to board. Hopefully I will be unlazy enough to update more often about my trip home. Chag Sameach and Shana Tova to everyone.

Enough is Enough: Procrastination OVER

I am lazy and terrible and I’m sorry. I have been able to come up with 800,001 excuses not to write anything, but now that I am sitting alone in my apartment for the 4th evening in a row I have run out. It’s not as pathetic as it sounds…Becca is in America to be with her family for the Chagim and Shira works the night shift and is never home at night. I do have friends I could call to hang out with but I am just tired. I have laundry going and I will probably clean the floors tonight. Exciting life huh? Actually things are very exciting…

In one week from today I will be home with family. David and I are going to be in Houston over Succot. He was able to get time off from the army ☺! It is his first trip to Houston and I can’t wait. On Monday my Grandma and Zaidy got in. I have seen them every day so far and it is really wonderful to get to spend time with them. They came into Jerusalem today to see my apartment and we went out to dinner with David’s parents.

I am also almost finished with Ulpan. I took my last real test today. I’m not really sure why I have class tomorrow but whatever. I have my two final tests on Sunday and Monday and then I’m finished!! I have really loved Ulpan but I am SO ready for it to be over!!

A few weeks ago I went down to Beer Sheva for my cousin’s Bar Mitzvah. I think they are my second cousins… but whatever the connection I had a wonderful time. It was really nice to get to reconnect with a whole separate branch of my family that also lives in Israel. I have two families of cousins down there. There is one girl just a year under me, one a year older than Seth, two Bar Mitzvah age (boy and girl…they’re first cousins) and then two younger ones. I just had a really nice time schmoozing and catching up. Hopefully I will get to see them all a lot more often!!

About a month ago Becca fell and twisted her ankle. She walked around on it for a few weeks but it didn’t get better. Eventually it got worse so she was on crutches. I helped take care of her for the few weeks before she went home and I have to say that I think it was a really great taste of what being a mommy is going to be like. (She’s ok now don’t worry) It was very interesting to have to put myself and my needs aside for a little while to make sure that she had everything she needed. I also had to be sensitive yet stern to make sure that she was taking care of herself. I had to get her ice packs and help her pack to come home. It really wasn’t such a big deal, I was very very happy to help and even happier to know that we have each other to take be there. I know that she would do just as good of a job taking care of me and it makes me feel better to know that even though I don’t have my mommy so close I have a good friend who can try to help make things better like my mommy would.

An update on my friend Yoni who is the soldier here on his own: He had his swearing in ceremony a couple of weeks ago. As one of his “mommies” I made a point to be there. It was really lovely and I’m so happy we could be there for him. It was also on the anniversary of Becca’s Aliyah. Crazy. We had a little party/ watch a movie at our place…its so nice to have a place ☺

My Aunt and Uncle just finished renovating their kitchen. It's amazing and beautiful and I wanted to put a picture up here just so that I can brag on their behalf :)

PS I keep forgetting to shout out to dror and sandy who schlepped all the way over to my side of town to see me! Thanks guys!

Food for my thoughts

A few days ago I received an email from a good friend who asked a very interesting question (thank you Debbie). She wanted to know what things about moving here were harder than I had imagined they would be and which things were easier. I think it’s a really interesting question and I’ll try to answer it. Hopefully I do a thorough job.

On the positive Side- Many things have been a lot easier or a lot more natural than I had anticipated. Take my relationship with David for example. Most of our relationship has been (very very unfortunately) long distance. I was really worried that when I got here and we would start to spend significant amounts of time together and really start to build a routine together that there might be problems. Maybe we wouldn’t fit together as well as we had though? Maybe we’d find each other just plain annoying? Questions like that plagued me for the weeks leading up to my aliyah. Thank G-d we have been very fortunate. Being so close to him has been even better than I could have possibly imagined. He gets a long great with my friends and I with his, we enjoy spending as much time together as possible (obviously or we would have broken up by now), and we are simply just very happy to be together. It makes me very happy that things are working out so well ☺

Another thing that is better than I could ever have imagined is my apartment situation. Rebecca and I get along so well that I am having withdrawals from her and we are only going to be apart for a total of 3 days. She went to Beer Sheva for Shabbat ☹. We do pretty much everything together. After I come home from ulpan we play before I start my homework. She has been on break between finishing her Sheirut Leumi (National Service in place of the army) and starting a job and school. We make dinner together every night and have even started making art projects to decorate our depressingly white walls. Unfortunately we hardly see our third roommate Shira because she works a night shift for an American company, but when she is around we all get along great. Physically the apartment is coming together really well. We hung up our first piece of homemade artwork and Rebecca’s geometric wall is AMAZING (see picture). My room is being painted next once I get over my laziness over clearing out most of my furniture… We have a cool chandelier thing, two couches, and we even have curtains that we have to figure out how to hang. Basically it’s so cool and really exciting to have a place of my own with people that I like and an eclectic fun decorating style.

Ulpan fits into both categories. It is a ton more fun than I could have ever ever guessed. My class is so diverse that it is always interesting to talk to my classmates. We also get along great and always have a good time with each other. Our teachers are also some of the best teachers I’ve ever had for anything. They really help promote a good classroom atmosphere and really bend over backward to make sure we are doing well. They make class so fun that sometimes we forget that we are really learning (until the test comes around obviously!) Hopefully I will leave the ulpan with some good new friends.

On the negative side ulpan is much harder for me than I had anticipated. My Hebrew is very good from the point of view that I can get along in life and converse about many topics fairly fluently, but from the proper speech and grammar point of view I am very weak. I am managing though. I had to give a presentation the other day which was pretty fun. I had to translate a song from English to Hebrew, present it to the class, and explain why I chose it all in Hebrew. The teacher commented that I am very comfortable in front of an audience (as if that should come as a shock to anyone) and that my speaking Hebrew is very good. YAY!

Social things are also a bit harder than I had hoped. I knew things wouldn’t be easy with the majority of my friends in the army. Unfortunately the problems go a bit deeper than that. I am at a point where about half of my friends live here on their own and the others still live with their parents. As much as I love all of them there is now a certain disconnect between those of us who are on our own and those who still live at home. It has nothing to do with how I feel about the others as people or how I see them as my friends, but there are just certain things that I am dealing with and going through that they cannot understand now matter how much they would like to. It is the kind of thing that you can’t really explain to someone who still lives at home. You have to truly be on your own and completely responsible for your self to know what its like. Forget things as simple as having to remember to wash your clothes and buy food and make food, but things like learning how to pay bills, opening bank accounts, buying internet and insurance are all things that weigh on my mind at all times that my other friends don’t ever have to think about. Hopefully some day relatively soon we can close the divide. But for now, while they are in the army, they should be home with their parents and have someone to wash their clothes and make them yummy food when they come home. On the plus side it has created quite a nice community and family feeling for those of us who are living here basically without family. I have cousins who I am very close to but they don’t live around the corner and aren’t popping in and out of my every day life. Those of us loners have really started to help take care of each other. It has made us really close and I don’t know what I would do without them. They are truly the best support system. Even David can’t understand some of the things I am going through so it’s nice to have friends who can. (this is my friend Yoni who moved here by himself a few months before me and is now in the army. I can't imagine how much harder life is for him than it is for me. Becca and I have kind of adopted him-- we do his laundry!! These are pictures from his first official army photoshoot)

I hope that helps answer the question. I am with David again for Shabbat ☺. We don’t have big plans, but I am hoping to get a lot of rest because I have an eye infection and it has unfortunately kept me up a few nights wanting to scratch my eyes out. I have seen a doctor and have medicine but it takes a while to really get rid of the infection. My medical experiences here so far are a whole separate topic, maybe for next time. I hope all is well with everyone. All my love. Shabbat Shalom.

Sorry I Dissapeared!!

Sorry for not writing in so long things have just been so crazy busy in my life that I really haven’t had the time to sit still for long enough to put everything I want to say down into words. So what have I been doing these past few weeks that has kept me so busy? I moved into my apartment and started ulpan. Moving in has been a much more stressful and time-consuming process than I had previously imagined. Pretty much every day I have had to go to some store or another to buy something, or spend hours trying to organize all of my stuff in a new and unfamiliar room. My roommate’s parents own the apartment and they were here for the first 10 days helping us get things purchased and organized. We didn’t have a fridge, oven, or washing machine until about a week after moving in. Our first grocery store run was a huge excitement! We actually had something to eat!!

At the same time I started ulpan. My first night in the apartment directly preceded my first day of class. I am in level 4 out of 6 and I love it. I was very overwhelmed at the beginning. There is a huge emphasis on Hebrew grammar, and as I have no real prior grammar training everything that is supposed to be “review” at my level is brand new material for me. They give us a ton of homework and because I’ve been so busy trying to get the rest of my life together I haven’t been able to focus on my work properly. Other than that I LOVE my class. My class is taught by 2 teachers who switch off at least once every day. One focuses on grammar and the other on vocab but they are pretty interchangeable. They are both super super nice. One of the teachers is really amazingly dynamic and we don’t sit in her class for more than 5 minutes without cracking up laughing. Yesterday we played a game to demonstrate a new rule she was teaching us and is was so much fun I almost forgot I was in school. Another really fun, amazing thing about my class is how incredible diverse we are and how well we all get along. My class consists of 3 Americans (including myself), 1 Brit, 1 Russian, 1 Columbian, 3 French, 3 Arabs, 3 Germans, 1 Swiss, and even 1 Japanese woman. It is so much fun to talk to them and listen to all of their stories. For example, one of the German students is 27 and doing post- Theological school studies in Israel. When he was 19 he decided to do National Service instead of serving in the German army. He knew he wanted to go out of Germany and I still don’t quite understand what made him pick Israel. Whatever it was, he caught the Israel bug. He went back to Germany to finish his studies and then decided to do some postmasters additional studies and couldn’t stay away from Israel. I am so fascinated that a non-Jew, especially a German, can feel similarly strong feelings of love for Israel that I do and can share the feeling of having to be here despite everything. There are a lot of recent immigrants in my class- it makes for a nice environment and a support system in addition to the friends I already have. I will post more anecdotes when I have more time.

Back to the apartment: Yesterday I built my first pieces of furniture all by myself! I now have a desk and a real chair at which to do my homework! I also bought a rug and now my room is finally starting to come together. I also bought paint to add some color to my room. Israeli apartments tend to be so absolutely white that it’s painful. Right now I am sitting in my roommate’s room while she and a friend are taping geometric shapes onto her wall. I can’t wait to start painting then in!

This Shabbat I am spending at home with my two roommates and we’re doing a roomie Shabbat. My third roommate Shira works the night shift at an American company so I hardly see her and we’d all really like to spend some time together.
That is about it for the major stuff for now. Other than that I’m still trying to have fun. I went to a concert last night with Becca at the Internal Arts and Crafts Fair in the middle of Jerusalem. It was really really really fun and it was amazing that we were sitting there in an archaeological park with the walls of the Old City on the right and our neighborhood behind. I love this city and I still can’t believe I am lucky enough to live here!

Thursday 7/26

After visiting the apartment, Becca and I realized that we needed to clean it out a bit before we started getting furniture. Since there was a general labor strike and she works for the Israel Museum she had the say off again! She bought a bunch of cleaning supplies and we got to work. She was on floor duty while did a bunch of other stuff. I cleaned all of the dust out of my closet, cleaned the bathrooms which were pretty ok to begin with, and washed all of the windows as much as I could. I’m really excited to live there! It was really really hot but we’ll have fans so it will make it ok. I also really like Becca. I won’t elaborate in case she ever reads this…I think that would be really awkward, but I am really excited to live with her. We plan to paint and decorate in a few weeks after her job is over and before she starts school. It’s going to be fun.
I had to ditch her a bit early so I could get to Hebrew University to take part 2 of the ulpan entrance exam. I hate having to go the university. It takes almost an hour to get there, It is such a complicated campus I always gets lost, and I have to visit 3 or 4 offices before I can get in touch with anyone who can actually remotely help me. The ulpan test itself was fine; I had to write a simple essay, but when I tried to hand it in they drove me crazy. The lady in the Hebrew department I found said that I wasn’t in the computer and didn’t even need to take it at all. Fortunately I finally got someone who knew what they were talking about and I WAS in the computer (after 20 minutes of freaking out) and I DID need to take the test and things were ok. But still it was annoying and very typical of Israeli institutions. No one has an idea what’s going on but they all pretend they do and it usually means a few unnecessary heart attacks before the truth can be dug up. Oiy is all I have to say really.
After that lovely afternoon I went back to Aaron’s to wash up and rest. My cousin Ben Feltoon was on his way in from Haifa to hang out with me for the evening. We met up on Emek Refaim and went out to dinner. It was so great to catch up with him! I hadn’t seen him since our last family reunion and that was around 3ish years ago (I think. It was a long time.) He seems to be doing really well. He wants to be in the FBI and was telling me all about the training and stuff he wants to do. Pretty cool stuff. It was his first time in Jerusalem and I really wanted to show him around properly. I don’t think there are many things in the world as beautiful as the old city at night. We walked from my area (its about a 25 minute walk and the fastest way to get there) up to the old city. At about the halfway point the old city comes into view with the walls lit up and it is absolutely breathtaking. There’s this really cool footpath up to the Zion Gate and while you walk up it gives a sense of what I must have been like when all of the Jews would go up to the temple and climb up the mountain. I showed him around the Jewish Quarter and then we walked down to the Kotel itself. It was much more crowded than I had expected but was nonetheless beautiful. We simply sat in the plaza and chatted and looked at the wall. David had gotten out unexpectedly from the army and we were waiting for him to meet us there. There was some kind of Bar Mitzvah or something going on and there was a parade behind a huge Sefaradi Torah. David met us and davened Maariv.
Ben’s tour the next day wasn’t going to be taking him to Ben Yehudah so we decided to walk there too. We went out of the old city through the Yaffo Gate after snakeing through the Armenian Quarter and the beginning of the Muslim Quarter. In town David bought dinner and we just walked up and down checking out the street performers and tourist shops. It is really nice to see the downtown area so packed and lively. 3 years ago, as the Intefada was just ending, people were out and about but not in these numbers. I had never seen that area so packed as I have so far this summer. I’m so glad to see that people are finally comfortable enough again to be anywhere and everywhere all the time without fear.
It was starting to get late so we headed back to Emek Refaim where we were staying at David’s parents apartment. The walk took us down Keren HaYesod and through a whole separate area of Jerusalem than we’d taken Ben to before. We spent just over 3 hours walking and we saw a ton. I love Jerusalem. Back at the apartment we were all exhausted. We watched a few episodes of the Office and then crashed.

Wednesday 7/25

I got up pretty early to have breakfast with Dr. Liebowitz and his wife!!! It was so exciting. They are adorable and interesting and I really enjoy talking about various things with them. They are here because Dr. Liebowitz is doing research on some things he is writing and he also went back to the archaeological dig he’s been working on for years to check up on it. Sadly I can’t remember the name of the sight ☹. After breakfast I met up with Becca and we got ourselves ready to go to the beach! I had promised myself that at some point before ulpan/school started I was going to get at least one day where I had nothing to do but sit on the beach and enjoy the day. We bussed into Tel Aviv and plopped ourselves down. After about an hour, Ana came to join us when she got off from work. We just sat around and swam a little. There was a maddening amount of trash in the water and then I saw a jellyfish and decided to stay out and not get stung! Becca had to head back to Jerusalem while Ana and I spent another good hour lying around. She was reading Harry Potter and I was just being and tanning. After we’d had enough, Ana and I went back to her house in Yaffo to cool down and shower off. We rested for a few hours. I decided to experiment with nail polish and made a huge mess of myself and had to keep re-doing everything. It was fun which is all that matters I guess. She was going out to dinner with friends relatively late and I decided that I wanted to get back home so that I could be productive on Thursday. We had a snack of crackers with some great spreads and then headed into town. I went home through the Tel Aviv Central Bus Station. I hate that place. It’s so massive and doesn’t make any sense. The station in Jerusalem is at least one long corridor; this place is 7 floors with terrible signage and mean information people. On my way back to Aaron’s house I stopped at Ariel’s to pick up some papers I had left there and to meet some of her extended family who is all in town for the Bar Mitzvah. She was really upset because her boyfriend, who happens to also be very close to her little brother, wasn’t going to be able to get out of the army to be with them. It was really sad. Her family was really nice. I give the Arnovitz’s a lot of credit though because it can’t be easy to plan and get ready for Bar Mitzvah stuff while trying to entertain and spend time with large amounts of close family who they haven’t seen in a while!

Tuesday 7/24

I spent the whole rest of Tisha B'Av reading or sleeping. It helped the fast pass easier. Aaron, his brother, and I went to Burger's Bar to break the fast. It was delicious. I just wish they would put on as much sauce as they used to 3 years ago...Aaron was antsy so we went downtown. We grabbed a table outside at a bar and hung out with Becca (my new roommate) and just schmoozed. On our way home we went to go see some of Aaron's other friends and I happened to see one of my friends from my aliyah flight, Rachel on the other side of the street (Ben Yehudah). I ran over to say hi and I told her that my friend Shira Gross was going to be working in the same place as her next year! It's a small world that two friends of mine from completely random places are going to be madrichot in the same brand new seminary!
On the way home I decided that I wanted to see my new apartment!! It is SO COOL!! It is actually a standard Israeli apartment but the location is even better than I had originally thought and its ours! There is a ton of room and a ton of potential. It was almost 2am and it was really hard to keep from shrieking with excitement. I took plenty of pictures :). I can't wait to move in!!