Sushi Shabbos

Shabbat Candles

This morning we went to the shuk to buy provisions for our Shabbat Japanika. We didn't trust the fly-infested fish splayed open on trays of bloody ice to put raw into our sushi, so we stuck with veggies. We rolled up the sushi in the seaweed I found on the street with our friends' bamboo place-mats. And to further extend our festivities, I made a coconut semolina cake, an every-old-vegetable-in-the-fridge salad, and sangria with very old kiddush wine. Noa made homemade challah, Agost made a spanish omlette. We lit candles, did a full kiddush. Even said grace after meals. We invited a couple of our friends from downstairs to feast. Eating dinner by candle-light, bemoaning the college application process in various parts of the world, planning a Halloween party, and cleaning up after dinner made me aware that I have a new, nice group of friends.

Noa and Agost making salad

Our Sushi fillings

Sushi (not deep-fried this time)

Agostina

Agostina and Noa

Noa's challah

My cake

My cake cut up

Yiscah

Making flyers for our Halloween party

A picture and a thousand words

Street Photo this morning was a blast. We planned a trip to the Judean hills (independent of Bezalel) to landscape photograph and to just enjoy the scenery. Apparently Yosef knows some beautiful spots that most israelis have never seen. Today we didn't take any pictures, but our Yosef read aloud some literature about the creative process. He handed us a bunch of pamphlets, many of which I really enjoyed. Here is an excerpt:

"When the good pictures come, we hope they tell truths, but truths "told slant," just as Emily Dickinson commanded. We are spinning a story of what it is to grow up. It is a complicated story and sometimes we try to take on the grand themes: anger, love, death, sensuality, and beauty. But we tell it all without fear and without shame."

--Sally Mann

I am beginning to understand that an experience is a possession, and I must fully own whatever is thrown at me. Today I walked into drawing class and in stumbles a nude woman with raisin boobs. We are life drawing today. Pesach asked me if I had ever done nude drawing before. Does my dog count, I wanted to ask. No, I said. He asked me, what art school did you go to. An arts magnet school. Oh, a college. Which one? It was a High school in New Haven, I said (I didn't even mention I went for writing, not visual art). He gave an, Oh. and then sighed. I shrugged and smiled an I'm-not-here-to-impress-you-I-am-here-to-learn smile.

We drew the model in natural light (or should I say natural dark). It was nearing five-o-clock and becoming harder and harder to see the scraggly pubic hairs on our lovely lady, Chen (pronounced with a chet...not like the popular Asian surname). It was a classic moment, and I enjoyed it a lot. Here are some sketches, and also pictures of painting from yesterday.

On the way to street photography today, I chanced upon a table of free books. Among them was a soft-cover booklet called, "Halachos and Attitudes Concerning the Dress of Women and Girls." I read it cover to cover and found some of it hillarious and frightening at the same time. Here's how Menachem Av thinks religious women should dress:

"Cursed be the man who allows his wife to expose hairs of her head beyond their covering. The woman who allows some of her hairs to be uncovered in order to exhibit them causes poverty to descend on her home, her children do not become the prominent people they could have become, and an impure spirit is caused to dwell in her house. What causes such misfortunes to happen? The hairs that she exposed within her house. If the effect of an indoor exposure is such, imagine what damage is caused by ecposing hair outdoors etc. A woman should therefore see it that not even a single hair is uncovered. Instead of considering a full-head covering as a restraint and restriction, it should b viewed as the crown and glory of the Jewish woman. "

The best part was that I was on the bus reading this book with a tank top on, sitting across from a Hareidi man.

There is a butter shortage in Jerusalem. I thought it was a rumor, but I went to the supermarket yesterday and there was no Land-o-Latkes on the shelves. Maybe it's all those Jews watching their "cuh-less-tur-awwwl".

High on (sea)weed

Today was an awesome day. I don't have morning classes on Wednesdays, so I woke up at 11:30, ate my last banana with cereal, packed my lunch, and rushed to Painting class with Talia. I brought my puny paint set...my three brushes, and 5 tubes of paint. I didn't bring a canvas because I didn't know what size she wanted. She said she wanted as big as we were comfortable with, so I ran to the art shop upstairs and got a size A2 canvas for 40 sheckles. She pulled up this picture (above) of Trotman Maquettes. We were told to paint the dark spots, then gradually move to lighter gradients. I had no idea what I was doing, but just dove in. I interpreted the spacing of the heads a little differently.The good thing about oil paints is that you can layer and layer and the image becomes more complex. The teacher asked to show my canvas as an example to the class. It was an intense three-hour session of painting, but very thrilling. I can post a picture soon. Next class, we have to prepare an all red canvas and bring in as many different green tubes of paint that we can. I also need to buy turpentine/oil to thin my paint and wash my brushes. I love student discounts.

I then rushed to Ulpan. We conjugated adjectives and learned house/room/furniture vocabulary. On the bus I got a call from Na'ama who told me I got a position working at Hadassah hospital on Sunday afternoons from 2:30 to 6:30 teaching art to patients in the Children's Ward and in the Rehab facility. I'm going to be working with my Italian friend, Ruth.

On the walk back to the apartment, I saw a bag with something square in it lying on the sidewalk. Yes, I am wary that unattended packages on the street in Jerusalem can be dangerous, but this one was flat and looked harmless. I opened up the bag and found a whole packet of sushi seaweed! Nori! Costs ten sheckles! Me and my roomies are gonna have sushi shabbos!
I made the best dinner consisting of leftover defrosted chicken breast, two-day-old pasta and sauce, a shriveling eggplant, peppers, onions, and garlic. It was a fab rustic sauce.
could this day get any better?

Dreamed a Dream

I had the craziest dream last night.

We were in an abandoned subway station in France where a strip of underground, chic restaurants were carved into the platforms. As our family was waiting for a table outside one of the cafes, we followed a small trickle of fire ants to a giant hole in the stucco walls
swelling with ants. We were just about to be seated and Sarah and I were picking each others noses.
Suddenly a cobra emerges from the fire ant hole and sticks out a human tongue. It devours an ant, then a cicada, then gradually larger animals: a mouse, a rat, a possum, a cat. I was screaming like a howler monkey. No one in the cafe noticed.

I was then at an Amity Basketball game, and everyone from my school was there. Tommy was dressed in a furry hat and multiple feather boas. I brought watermelon (isn't that what sports moms do at sporting events?) I was really self-conscious for some reason...like this was my High School reunion. The watermelon didn't run out. I shared it with all my friends and used it as a conversation starter (Hi! Want some watermelon? Now give me a recap of your career endeavors since we graduated in 2010). I gave my bowl of watermelon to Andy and when I came back, the watermelon had changed to green apple slices. I was really pissed at him. I awoke to the sound of my phone when Olivia called me at 7:30 AM. I was angry.

It's off to painting with Talia. Just thought I'd write this somewhere so I don't forget. They say recording your dreams is the first step towards controlling your dreams (lucid dreaming). So that's that.

Arts and Farts and Raspberry Tarts

Sunday was my first "Spirituality and Consciousness" class with Rabbi Jeremy Kagan. I was expecting this mind-opening seminar seeing as Bezalel is the critical art school in Israel and we all want to be mind blown by creativity. However, this middle-age man with a large, black velvet kippah and tzit tzit walks in with a disheveled briefcase and doesn't even introduce himself. He's a modern orthodox, Yeshiva-bred rabbi. He's from New York (born in Hawaii, actually). He gave a little smirk when I said I was from CT. He studied there apparently (probably at Yale or something). We discussed the 613 mitzvot and the significance of the first commandment which is to Eat of all the Trees in Eden, which he took to mean that our strength, our sustenance, and inspiration comes from an external source. We must seek to be nourished. That kind of thing. You can tell when rabbis believe something, or when they are just pulling stuff out from under their yarlmulkes.

Monday was my first true wheel pottery class. We were given a spin on the wheels. Jaquaranda, our teacher, made it look so effortless....however the whole process of throwing the clay, centering it perfectly on the wheel, stretching it, is soooo hard. It is tenuous and delicate. I left the class with nothing but clay lumps. I had a lot of fun, though. It's feels fantastic to mold mud as it's rotating at a relatively high velocity. We did yoga before we sat at the wheel. Preparing the clay, moistening it, sponging it. It's so tactile and incredibly relaxing. They should teach wheel building in nursing homes and rehabs.

My next class was "The Empty Space" with Michal Somethingorother. I introduced myself to her, explaining I was an international student. There were 3 more of us. Two from Germany and one from Scotland. Michal asked the class, "Who would like to translate today?" and begrudgingly, a young girl volunteered. I felt bad. Michal was lecturing away in Hebrew on the placement of shadow and light in some German artist's installation, and this poor girl had to translate verbatim. The room was dark, and I was falling asleep because I couldn't hear our translator over the drone of the projector and our teacher. I decided to leave and see if I could switch into another class. I again went through the frustrating process of class shopping. The Fine Arts Deptartment Secretary just puffed at her cigarette and poked at the computer keys with her long red nails to tell me that there was nothing available except for drawing (I didn't want to forsake One-Arm's class). I went to the Fashion and Jewelry design department and the Visual Communications department and they also rejected me. I'm just low on the food chain. I get it now.

I ended up reentering "The Empty Space" and Michal gave us a project in which we were to plan a "movie screening" at an "art gallery". In truth, we were to organize our next class, which was to watch an Art Safari episode of a famous German installation artist. I was put into the ritual committee, which controls the order of events. All the English speakers were grouped together, which was convenient. I came up with the idea of having us (the Ritual committee) intently watching the audience as they watched the movie (kinda post-modern, existential...who is the audience? we? you? us?!!!!!!!!) And also to take off their shoes and wash their feet before entering (going all out with the ritual aspect of this). Basically we can do whatever weird stuff we want and get away with it. She ended the class with an "Oh, wait! Next class meet me in Tel Aviv at this gallery I'm going to be exhibited at). I was like: what? Surprise! Hell No am I gonna shlep an hour out of my way to the sketchy part of Tel Aviv to see your weird art. That's a 60 sheckel trip with bus fare and everything!

I came home very tired and ate fried spaghetti and ketchup. Suddenly, Noa knocked on my door and said we were late to see the Masa Mega-event Concert with Idan Raichel. Hannah was going to be there, along with every other non-israeli adolescent Jew taking a gap year. I saw:

Max Feldman

Tali Mandelkern

Sam Dorenberg

Horny

Laina Paulker

The Rimon Kids

Kids from Tel Aviv Ulpan

Yedidya

and Hannah <3

The Concert (They used a Visualizer, dad!)

Me and Hannah (I wore my pajama shirt)

Hannah taking a picture

It was so great to see her there. The concert was fabulous, the music was really eclectic and middle eastern. We got a cab ride home with this crazy fat Russian man who blasted Israeli techno through his pimped-out bass-heavy system.

Today I didn't have class, so I hit the art supplies store near the old Bezalel campus in downtown Jeruslaem. I bought tubes of oil paint (in primary colors), brushes (big, medium, small), a large pad of paper, and a juicy permanent marker. I went to MaxStop to buy a cheap plastic bowl to put water and my pottery tools in, and a cutting board to use as a mixing pallet for painting. I spent probably $200 USD. I guess these are my books. I ate corn out of a can for breakfast/lunch today to further play the part of the bohemian starving artist. I still have to buy stuff for making canvas in the morning.

I then went to the pottery studio to work on my homework (make three cylindrical cups). I ended up making two. It was a whole other experience working alone in the studio until dark. I made the mistake of wearing white pants, which I think will become my messy pants. I'll wear them around the city and be like "yo, hey, I do art, can't you tell?"

(AHHH I just got this annoying piece of lemon grass out from between my gums. And I am listening to the Bill Withers anthology, which makes me happy. Just thought I'd locate you in the moment.)

Tomorrow is painting class. I am glad not to be the only person who hasn't painted with oils and canvas before. I am not afraid of screwing up (the class is focused around "the accident"). I just don't want to waste any of my high-qwalitay paints.

i love you.

Haifa

The view between two Haifa homes.

Wow. I am so glad I got out of Jerusalem this weekend.

My friend, Olivia, and I were aching to leave this stressful place for a couple of days. So much schtick involving ulpan, toasters, starting school, gym memberships...

Shabbat in Haifa with Olivia's great aunt and uncle Michal and Tzvi was the perfect remedy to our extreme case of Stir Craziness.

We woke up just in time to catch the last bus to Haifa before Shabbos. The bus ride was gorgeous. I pressed my nose against the glass to take in the rolling hills of the Galilee, the clear blue Mediterranean coastline, the ancient caves, and ramshackle Druze villages.

Olivia's great uncle Tzvi picked us up at the Haifa bus station in his Oldsmobile. He looked like an older version of Mickey Rourke in Sin City:

He had a huge black eye and a massive bandage on his forehead. The previous week he had fallen over a ledge and onto the hood of a car.

Anyways, he's a really funny guy. 78, smart, Jewish, cynical, raised in Brooklyn, made aliyah 40 years ago with his wife and kids. He was a sociology professor at Brandeis! I wish I could have taken a picture of him at night, when he lights his corn cob pipe and paces around the house with that massive bandage on his head.

We arrived at their house, which is situated on top of the hill overlooking the ocean. When I opened the door, the smell of warm food spun my brain, nose, and saliva glands in a swirl of euphoric pleasure. Michal, Olivia's great aunt, was making cookies and quiche. So grandmother-like.

The house is all coordinated in a modernized 1970s, Ikea-like way. The color scheme is coral, pumpkin, and sunflower. It is a really nice home.

Tzvi and Michal both speak english perfectly. Michal has written many books and is a professor of African Studies at the University of Haifa. It was a pleasure to have no language barrier (except they were both hard of hearing, so I had to scream everything).

( A bad picture of olivia and Michal, but you get the point)

This trip has made me realize that retirees are pretty much the same universally. They love to gossip about the most ridiculous things, complain about their sciatica, and tell really fantastic stories. It turns out, Michal hosted the Village Of Peace at her home (because she is an African Studies professor). She gave us some dirt on all of their multiple wives and physically-abusive parenting.

We helped Michal do all the prep work that would have been hard on her arthritis (peeling potatoes, cutting carrots, etc.) Olivia and I watched sunset over the ocean, and then I read the New York Times (A REAL NEWSPAPER!) until our guests arrived. They were also an english-speaking couple. We lit candles, blessed the wine, ripped open a challah, and dinner began. First, cauliflower soup. Then, Southern Fried Chicken, roasted carrots and sweet potatoes, real mashed potatoes, quiche (Michal and Olivia are vegetarian), green beans, cranberry sauce, heinz ketchup, and red wine. For dessert, Tzvi had made creme schnitz (basically a Napoleon), and Michal served brownies and fresh coffee. I was really happy. I don't know how else to say it. I was blissfully, contently, uninhibitedly HAPPY. After dinner, we helped clean, and Olivia and I camped out on the balcony and sketched with my new artsy fartsy pencils.

We went to bed around midnight. Olivia and I shared a pull-out couch/bed. She slept-talked a lot. Mumbled something about roots and trees and made this funny smacking sound with her lips. I cowered in my little corner of the couch.

I woke up to the smell of Tzvi's corncob pipe. For breakfast, Michal made us fresh, challah french toast with REAL MAPLE SYRUP! And also orange juice, hot coffee, and yogurt with raspberry pomegranate jam.

After we recovered from yet another intense eating experience, we went to a moshav called Yodfat to visit some more family. It is a very Israeli, laid back village. Olivia's cousins are really hippy and chill. Mindy, Tzvi and Michal's daughter, is also a caterer and brought out trays of fruit and cookies and served us really fantastic spiced Turkish coffee. The only slight discomfort was that there were swarms of flies (the moshav has a monkey forest, and the family owns two horses).

Tzvi dropped us off near a sheirut (shared taxi) terminal, and we got a ride to Tel Aviv. We met up with some friends there, walked around a bit with them, cooked some chicken wings (I couldn't eat because i was so overstuffed from being a guzzling gourmet).

We caught a bus from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem after Shabbat ended.

Overall, this was an incredible weekend. Olivia was glad to have a travel buddy, and I was glad to get free, home-cooked meals. I am really committed to not cooping myself up in my dorms on Shabbos for the rest of the year. It feels great to see what Israel's all about.

Oh-Man oot!

Means art in hebrew.

Crazy last couple of days. I feel like a "real" arts student.

Yesterday:

- Had a Hadassah meeting for my volunteer position at the hospital. It was weird because it was three Bezalel students interviewed at once. I think I did well, and was able to fill out all the forms that were in Hebrew.

- Went straight to painting class with Talia Israeli. Here's her website: http://www.taliaisraeli.com/home.html

It was comforting to see many familiar faces from my Masa program in class with me. Our course this semester is focused upon "The Accident". She talked about how art affects the order of things. Our job as artists is to access people and to shift our environment. She then pulled up a half hour clip of the World Trade Center burning to the ground, and said that some call call this tragedy, art. It was as if she was saying 9/11 was an accident, which it truly wasn't. A girl from my program started crying. It was incredibly awkward.

She did say some pretty poignant things. She related the video's emotional impact to how we are able to affect someone even if we are not physically with them, and said a bunch of other things I couldn't hear because I was chewing loudly on Corn Nuts.

I have to buy canvas, wood for making frames, oil paints, brushes, a palette, and other stuff. Now I know why they're called starving artists.

I ran from painting at 5 to get to ulpan by 5:30 (I was 15 minutes late)

Morah Kati was up to her usual tricks. We are actually moving fast and got up to telling time. My friends ditched the second half, though, so I was alone for most of it.

I went to the bathroom after ulpan and accidently splashed water on my phone while washing my hands. I was on the bus and realized none of the buttons were working. I said to myself: This is my second broken phone. Either the phones in Israel are crappy, or you are crappy to the phones in Israel. Thankfully, I had bought rice at the shuk last week, and I remembered reading that if you soak you phone in rice, the grains act as a desiccant similar to silica gel, and the water is absorbed. The phone rice reminded me of how much i wanted real, edible rice, so I boiled some. It was my first successful attempt at making a fluffy, wholesome basmati.

After that I sketched and watched way too much "Food Party". It's this amazing show in which this quirky Vietnamese girl cooks with love and potato dandruff and ostrich eggs with her puppet friends. She also has a blog which I read a lot. http://foodparty.tv/

Today was packed with all things art. I had street photography (in the middle of Bezalel Street) with a man who looks like a combination of Woody Allen and my 6th grade teacher. He wore a pink scrunchie in his ponytail. I really enjoyed his lecture, which was mostly impromptu because the slide projector broke. Some notes I took in my journal about what he said:

- Arnold Newman

- Robert Frank "The Americans"

- Goal of class is to meet/explore jerusalem

- a photograph is recognition. The subject becomes special.

- don't copy what we know. We are not here to take good pictures. We must explore what we don't know.

- the way the photographer sees is through his subject

- Three objectives: Honesty, Understanding, Passion

- we give ourselves our own grades. We evaluate ourselves based on the goals we set. He can mark them up 5 points or down 5 points. Passing=60

We can use whatever camera we choose. We don't even have to take pictures. It is however we choose to make observations.

Overall, I am really hyped for this class.

I had an hour to make it back to the main Bezalel campus. The fastest way was to take a bus. While on the bus I met a couple. I journaled it. Here's the excerpt:

"1:36 Thursday Oct, 21, Number 19 Bus

Just met an older couple from Seattle whose daughter is taking a gap year before going to Brandeis. She is studying at Hebrew U and is living in the same dorms I am. Is it a small world or is every Jew at Brandeis on a gap year in Israel? The dad was kind of a jerk. One of the first things he said to me was 'my daughter has the same water bottle. That's so interesting" I wanted to be like...no it isn't. He also said "let my wife take a picture of us so that it'll look like I picked up a younger woman in Israel (wink, pinch on the arm)". Eww. I'm basically your daughter. Don't say those things to me. They did get my picture, and my name, and email. I hope it's not some scam and I'm going to get robbed in the middle of the night."

I arrived at painting class and immediately introduced myself to two israeli girls next to me (This was the problem I had in ceramics class...i wanted to be upfront here). They were really nice and let me borrow their pencils and paper for sketching.

My drawing teacher, Pesach Slabosky is left handed.

Because that's the only hand he has.

He's slumped over and has the longest ear hair I have ever seen. His voice sounds like Julia Child. I didn't laugh at him. I chuckled (to myself) at the situation I had found myself in. Here I am studying art in Israel. It sounds so romantic. And my drawing teacher is a one-armed greasy old man from Brooklyn (actually an impressive artist...Columbia Grad, Brooklyn School of Art http://www.givonartgallery.com/artistPage.asp?aID=60). It was painful watching him assemble a still life of desks and chairs piled on top of one another. It was even more horrified when he sharpened a pencil with a box cutter between his legs. I had to go to the Bezalel art store and buy various pencils of varying hardness and my own box cutter. As Pesach says, "Small pencils and big pencils have different possibilities. You have to know how to use them differently. It is good to have different pencils of different hardnesses in your box."

I love artistic sexual innuendoes.

He is American so he says he translates half his class from english into hebrew anyways. The materials for this class are much more basic: "just buy whatever you need to sketch and make art," he says, in an i'm-not-gonna-make-you-poor-from-buying-bourgeoisie-art-supplies tone.

Tomorrow I am going to Haifa with my friend Olivia. We are staying with her cousins in a Moshav. They are caterers, which means free, amazing food.

But for now, I will feast on Mad Men Season 4 Finale. According to mom, it is quite prolific.

Fed Up

Physically (more gastronomically) and mentally, I have had enough. I didn't think Israel could be so filling.

The Physical:

I went to the shuk yesterday morning and bought more fruits and vegetables than I could get my hands on (eggplant, cabbage, mango, bananas, onions, squash, carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes, apples, alfalfa sprouts) I also saw a nut guy selling scoopfuls of CORN NUTS. I thought of Sahg, who loves those things. In no time, my ugly kilt grocery trolly was brimming with dinner possibilities. I realized as a student, I will only have an hour break between classes on some days, and there are only overpriced cafeterias near Bezalel, so I will need to pack a healthy lunch almost daily.

The shuk is so much more relaxing on a weekday versus a friday. I could actually take a breath of air that wasn't polluted by a Hassidic man's B.O or the stench of dirty diaper wafting from the butt of some screaming baby. I was eyeing a spice stand towards the end of the market and I scanned the many shelves and burlap sacks stuffed with colorful powders and grains. Suddenly, my synapses became electrified as if I had just eaten a whole habanero pepper. A bottle of fresh ground hawaij: that amazing Yemenite spice my israeli friend, Merav, uses to make the most amazing soup. I went home and made a pot of delicious vegetable soup with some onions, squash, tomatoes, cabbage, and carrots. It was really yum.

I saved the seeds from the squash to roast in our new toaster oven. Our new apartments aren't stocked with ovens like they were in Tel Aviv, so 9 of us decided to invest in a really freakin huge a mini oven. It can bake challahs, chickens, whole fish, you name it. Noa, Agostina, Sarah, and I went to all the appliance stores on Agripas and Jaffa Street to find the best price. We settled on a place where the russian owner could speak pretty much perfect english. The model we wanted was 340 sheckles (roughly 40 sheckles per person). Nobody wanted to pay for it because they didn't want to be "that guy" going around asking everyone for their share of the money. I was like, come on, guys. Man up. I paid for it. Agostina and Noa gave me their share of the money. Agostina and I schlepped the giant thing home (it was roughly half the size of a refrigerator box) and cheered when we plugged it in and it worked.

This is where we get into the Mentally Fed Up:

After I roasted my squash seeds, Olivia comes in and announces that their apartment wants to buy their own toaster oven. That means instead of the price being split up between nine people, it's split up between four of us (88 sheckles each). And I just spent 280 sheckles on something we can't afford anymore. It doesn't make sense for me to keep the oven, because I'll only be here for a semester. I was a little pissed because Sarah, who lives in Olivia's apartment, didn't speak up when we bought the toaster oven. We had discussed this with the other apartments and they all agreed that if one toaster oven didn't work between us, our apartment would buy a smaller one (because who uses an oven THAT much? and can't we just share so it's more cost effective?)

I said we could sell them the Big Bertha toaster oven we just bought, except it doesn't really seem fair that Agost and I had to schlep this thing through the streets of Jerusalem, sit next to it on the bus, and price hunt for it, when they didn't do any of the work. I should ask The Ethicist.

All of this was after the day I went to the gym (for the third time) to ask about getting a student membership. Again, the crabby secretary said she could do nothing for me and directed me to this other guy who sat behind this polished desk decorated with all these mock sports trophies. He said Bezalel only subsidizes a certain amount for students to work out at their gym, and it doesn't subsidize students here for a semester. So he's going to call Bezalel, because I told him that it wasn't just me that was interested, and i WANT to give him my freakin MONEY (how much does it really cost him for a girl to run on a treadmill 4 times a week?). He's going to see if he can get Bezalel to subsidize us. But it has been more than a day, and I haven't received an email from him saying we've been approved.

That night, I went to ulpan, and Shoshana called my friend, Yiscah and told her that she can't get us into a higher level. She also said Yiscah and I emotionally abused the secretary. I, myself, was nice to her, because I wasn't sure if she had a mental disability or not.

Go figure.

So I'm just sick of dealing with people. Mainly dealing with Israelis...a stubborn people of the desert who have deserted any semblance of compassion and concern for kids like me. I don't speak hebrew, so I can see how communicating with me can be frustrating. I am also naive, and am looking to save money, so that's probably a turn-off too. And, I'm eighteen, traipsing around Jerusalem while their kids are training in the army, so that could be another source of resentment. Or maybe this is just how living alone is. Maybe this is the independence I thirsted for. I am my own advocate and own person now. This is just me realizing that as exciting and freeing this life is, it's also frustrating.

Clay Day

Update:

I WALKED DOWN A STREET CALLED "PENIS". They spelt it Pines, but it has the same hebrew pronunciation as a male's reproductive organ: Pey, Yud, Nun, Samech. Olivia and I were the only ones that laughed.

Dreamt I dressed up as Lady Gaga for Purim. Wore a tutu and sequin leotard, and made origami talons out of newspaper, which I slipped over my fingers.

Saturday night we went to Link, a dimly-lit, dark wood, cafe/bistro/bar, in order to celebrate Agostina's 19th birthday. I bought her a bouquet of flowers the day before at the shuk. (Funny story behind this: I accidentally gave the flower peddler, a shadowy, scruffy man, ten extra sheckles for the flowers. I paid and took off in order to catch the next bus to the dorms, but he came running after me to give me my extra change. Upon hearing the sound of his quickened footsteps I thought some creeper was trying to chase me, so I walked faster. But I heard him scream, "Giveret! Miss! Your change!" and knew it was okay. He gave me my ten-sheckle coin and asked me for his number to have a drink sometime. I guess he thought he deserved something for his customer service and good citizenship. No. Thanks.)

At the bistro, my face lit up like a Telletubby's stomach when I saw "French Onion Soup" listed on the menu. It was kosher. (I love french onion soup...the broth-softened bread, the gooey cheese and brown crisp layer on top.) But I was disappointed to find that it was a lipton-like broth with a couple of croutons floating in it like sad bath toys in dirty water. They shook a little parmesean cheese on top. It was quite pathetic. Stick to your falafel, israelis.

The cake made up for my lackluster dining experience. I had brought candles to the restaurant, and snuck behind the counter and gave our waiter instructions to bring a slice of cheese cake to the table with the "1" and "9" candles illuminated. I was going to ask if they sang. I don't know what the custom is for restaurant birthdays. There's no T.G.I Fridays in Israel.

They brought it out, and we sang "Happy Birthday" in all the languages we knew (we had a french woman, italian, brit, argentinian, australian, israelis, and some americans at the table, so it took a while). I think Agostina was happy.

On Sunday, our group had to meet at Bezalel to receive our studio keys. Only our group has access to it, and the staff is working on setting up a lounge with a coffee machine, water bubbler, etc., to nourish our creative, easily-tired minds. The studio is okay. Nothing to write home about (but here I am, doing just that). White walls, a couple long tables, and some paint-spattered chairs. It does feel grown-up to have a key to your own studio space.

That night, I went to ulpan, and painstakingly sat through 3 hours of learning how to conjugate verbs. I have been filling out exercises in pages we haven't gone over yet to keep me occupied. And i've been practicing drawing. And I wrote an ode in my workbook (in cursive! that's how bored I was) and translated it phonetically into hebrew letters:

I am very bored in ulpan class today.

I am amongst the pupils of balding

men and botox-injecting women. Their age-dulled

eyes (cataracts?) chill

my youthful spirit...one that thirsts

for the flame of life's gusto.

Please...help me. Save me.

If only the blue lines of your paper sheets

were perfectly tuned strings

on which I could play a sweet

and mournful song expressing my

current pitiful state.

Oh, to be young! Oh to be restless!

The pangs of my constricted soul

almost match that of my legs, which yearn

to leap through meadows and outstretch

themselves in exuberant dance. As darkness

encroaches upon the cerulean sky,

so does purposelessness poison

my sanity.

In class, I don't come across as a snob who thinks she's better than everyone else. Unlike a lot of my peers, I don't skip lessons. I just sit and answer when the teacher calls on me. Afterwards it was nice to come home to a dinner that my friend, Noa, prepared for us. I made some pasta sauce and cauliflower. I skyped with the fam. It felt warm.

This morning, I awoke bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for my first REAL class at Bezalel. And, man, did it feel real. I clutched my books tight to me, as I shuffled through the busy hallways. The building is definitely pulsing with that artistic vibe. Everyone smokes. The students are quite an eclectic bunch, though. They range from dweeb-y, tzit-tzit-and-Teva-wearing jewboys to frizzy-haired, olive-skinned, mediterranean vixens. I had no problem finding my ceramics class, which was less of a class than it was a lecture/orientation.

Here's a list of class materials I need to buy:

- pencil

- rag

- newspaper

- Assorted pottery tools (Kempler Brand)

- piece of wood (15 inch...shelf-size, to dry my pottery on)

- a container/bowl to hold water to moisten my clay

- 10 Kilos of Minerco SM White 02 Clay

- A baboon's ass to shove this list into (just kidding)

It's a bit ridiculous. But it's Israel. Everything here is ridiculous.

After a tour of the facilities, we were led into our respective classrooms for an introduction. We were given clay, and instructed (in Hebrew) to make three nesting bowls by pinching (thankfully this words's a cognate: "peen-cheeng"). I'm one of two students not majoring in ceramics, but this was easy. It was very relaxing. It was just me and the clay. We had a moment. Me and the clay. The clay and I. I was shaping it, and in some spiritual, metaphysical way, it was

shaping

me.

I wrote in my journal during break:

"On my break for my first class at Bezalel. I know I should be socializing, but I am too exhausted from trying to translate everyone's hebrew blabbering into a language I understand. I made acquaintances with a lot of the students, though. They all offered to help and translate for me.

I know. I'll be honest: It sucks not knowing hebrew. I feel so weak. I'm such a baby here. Everyone in this room has been through the army and I've just finished High School. I'll definitely need to stop laughing at street names called Penis.

The teacher, Jaquaranda (Jaqi), is fantastic. Patient, kind, and young enough to feel I can trust her, but old enough to command my attention and respect. I saw both my ulpan teacher and Maya in the hallway. That was a bit of a life raft. Now I know how freshman feel towards their link leaders.

It's a bit daunting to think I am taking such a plunge. But the truth is, the biggest leap is over. I'm falling, but gravity tells me I will land somewhere."

All Shuk Up

Yesterday afternoon I went to coffee with a couple of my friends and went back to the apartment to spray paint. We are technically not allowed to spray paint the walls, but a) they were my friends walls, and b) there's white paint to wash over it. I spray painted my new drum all these crazy colors. It looks ma'mash sababa.

That night a group of us met my painting teacher, Talia, in Tel Aviv to explore the city during the kickoff of it's art season. She is really cool. Looks like an American Apparel model with her thick glasses and lack of bra. She led us to some amazing galleries, a few of them with some of her artwork...very good. My favorite was a 3D exhibit, where we were required to wear 3D glasses to view the artist's pictures of a 1950's living room from all different angles. We also visited this gallery that showed an artist who created life-size stuffed rats, and constructed a makeshift schul within the gallery but replaced the traditional prayer books with this manuscripts of a religion he made up, and on the sides of the ark were giant rats.

We got home at about 1:30. The sherut (basically a public taxi) ride home was terrible because our arab driver didn't understand that when he said it cost 5 additional sheckels each to get to Mount Scopus, it meant we were allowed to get off the sherut after we paid that amount.

He got into an argument with us and said we owed him 10 sheckels each more. We said no. Olivia tried to get off the sherut and the driver actually started to close the door on her. Thankfully, the security guard came out when he heard us yelling, and settled the thing. Ech.

When I collapsed on my bed, I slept soundly until...let's just say, very late. I woke up, had a banana, and went to the shuk. It was crazy crowded (as are Israeli markets before shabbat) and incredibly hot. I wanted to buy chicken (because I haven't cooked any animal since I've gotten here). I also bought some food and flowers for a picnic tomorrow for my Spanish friend, Agostina's, birthday.

We don't have an oven, so i'm gonna have to do some seared chicken thing with some lemon wine sauce maybe. Agostina's making rice. I'll make some cauliflower and israeli salad. I bought a challah and it smells fresher than P-Diddy right out of the pool.

Good Shabbos!

balagan

Remember those reoccurring nightmares of being lost in a labyrinth version of high school, being powerless in the centrifuge of clogged hallways, blinded by confusion, groping for some semblance of sanity?

Hi. My name is Aliza Gans. I am a Masa Israel Experience student. I am a victim of Bezalel's course registration.

The only problem with this program is that I hardly feel like I am on a program. There is very little foresight in what chaos lies ahead. The madrichim are helpful when it comes to crisis, but I often find logistical errors could be avoided if we were just told things in advance.

I spent a month in Tel Aviv, and had no expectations as of what we were going to be doing at Bezalel. I just kind of dove in. I am often clueless, but when it comes to dealing with other clueless people, I lose my patience.

Last week, at our initial orientation, they told us we were not allowed to take classes outside of the Fine Arts department. Then, yesterday, a couple of my friends visited the main offices and demanded equal opportunity to experience the different branches (Visual Communications, Ceramics and Glass Blowing, Jewelry and Fashion, Architecture, Photography, etc.). They eventually acquiesced. The only reason our initial available courses were so limited is because "they didn't want to get our hopes up" in letting us think we could explore all of Bezalel's various departments only to find that the classes are full.

So our group shows up in this conference room, where this oldish, smoker, department head of Fine Arts barely reads the courses that are available to us. Our classes are listed on one sheet of paper...basically the name of the course and the teacher. There is no paragraph describing what the course is. There is no comprehensive, online or print catalogue of what's available. Only this excel spreadsheet of obscure names of courses like "Meeting Point" and "Space Maneuvers"...what do those even mean?!!!!

After a sort of unhelpful meeting, we are told to disperse and scramble to all the different floors of Bezalel to sign up for the classes we wanted in their respective departments. I immediately went to the 8th floor, ceramics, because I knew I wanted to secure my spot in a class I was truly interested in. The hallways were filled with international students all on the same mission as I was. I got lost and ended up asking a maintenance worker where the office was.

There is a line at the door. I sit and wait. I notice that each student inside the office is taking about 15 minutes each. I end up waiting for 1.5 hours. Just to sign up for one class. The woman at the desk, after asking me what my name is, where I live, what I'm studying, my entire personal history (so that's what took so long for everyone else!), finally tells me that there are only 2 classes available for me in the Ceramics department...pottery wheel, and hand building clay. There is no glass blowing! And she says I should meet with my teacher early before class to introduce myself and inquire what type of clay I should buy for class (I have to buy my own clay?! Clay is basically dirt! Can't they provide that for me?)

I end up signing up for pottery wheel on monday morning. It will be beautiful starting the week off by moulding a shapeless mound of dirt (I'm thinking of that scene in Dirty Dancing when Patrick Swayze makes pots with Baby at sunrise.)

So, I end up going through this process 4 more times until I sign up for all 5 of my classes. My brain was on information overload. Fizzed out like warm coke.

I do have an awesome schedule. It turns out, I have Tuesdays off (which I will probably use as a day to volunteer at Hadassah Hospital to teach art to sick children....yes, I'm such a humanitarian, I know). But a couple of my days are really packed because I finish class at 5, then have to go to be at ulpan by 5:30 and don't get home until 9 PM.

Here is my schedule:

Sunday

12:00-15:00 The History of Spiritual Consciousness with Rabbi Jeremy Kagan

Monday

10:00-13:00 Pottery Wheel with Jaquaranda Kori

14:00-17:00 The Empty Space with Michal Hofman (an installation/sculpture/video class)

Tuesdays

Free

Wednesday

14:00-17:00 Painting (in English) with Talia Israeli

Thursday

10:00-13:00 Street Photography

14:00-17:00 Drawing with Pesach Slavosky

Friday and Saturday

Shabbat

So, although there is still much that is left up in the air...I came home this afternoon with a smile. Next year I will probably appreciate all the babying of college with advisors, R.A.s, campuses with signs pointing where we have to go, and meal plans, and everything in English, and not having to deal with Israeli public transportation. I have a lot to look forward to.

But I didn't look forward to going to ulpan this evening. I spent 20 minutes going over what "zeh" and "zot" mean until my buddy, Yiscah, and I decided we were going to go to the office to see if we could move into the next level.

This woman at the ulpan reception desk reminds me of Winifred, that slightly mentally-disabled girl who used to bag us at the Stop&Shop checkout. She was no help. So Israeli Larry David comes and calls the head of the institute and describes our situation, and ends up telling us that there is no space in Aleph Plus and also our evaluation tests (which we took the week we arrived in Israel, and we have improved immensely since then) indicate that we are not in Aleph Plus level. Yiscah got really worked up and I tried and remain cool (because you can't get anywhere when you meet a hard-headed Israeli with a frustration and anger.) We ended up walking out and stopping by Maya's for a glass of wine. That calmed me down a bit. I'm fine now. I'll talk to Shoshana to straighten things out soon.

Oh! I completely forgot to mention that I met up with a couple of my Bronfman buddies last night on Emek Rafaim. We ate at Kafit (a cafe that serves expensive food) and I was the only one who hadn't eaten since that morning, so I ordered an overpriced salad. The conversation was a little bit awkward because once we caught up with what each of us was doing, we didn't have much else to talk about. But it was very nice to see familiar faces, and we planned a night to visit Shimon, our Bronfman rabbi and program coordinator, to be introduced to other Bronfman alumni currently residing in Israel. Gotta love Jewish networking.

Tomorrow begins a giant art festival in Tel Aviv (I love that just when we leave the city, there are actually serious artistic things happening). A couple of friends and I are meeting with my prospective painting teacher, Talia, who's going to show us around galleries and such.

And now's the time when my Mad Men episode has just finished loading online, and the kettle is singing, ready for mint tea. My mind deserves a break.

Nu? Hebrew U!

After I came back from our desert trip, I had a couple days to settle in to our new dorms.

Sunday was our first full day at Mount Scopus. I went to the shuk on Machane Yehuda and bought a chockfull of vegetables and other essentials for healthy cooking. Everything there is fresh and cheap. Also, there's nothing like a loud, Israeli shop-owner screaming, "SHECKEL, SHECKLEL HAMELOT!" into your ear to remind you of how far you are from the Stop and Shop in Amity Plaza.

I also bought a grocery trolly. If you have recently been to Israel, you might notice 80-year-old Russian women wheeling their groceries in these atrocious carts made of plaid fabric the color of hideous Catholic girl school uniforms. I went for Scottish Kilt Red. It actually came in quite handy seeing as it is a 15 minute walk uphill from the nearest bus station to my apartment, and a dozen plastic bags loaded with groceries on my arms tends to cut off my blood circulation. My roommates are borrowing it all the time. I think I should charge them.

At 5:30 I went to my first Jerusalem ulpan class. I was lucky to find I was in class with a bunch of my friends. But when we walked into class and realized that most of our fellow students were moms and balding men, we were a little crestfallen. Also, the teacher spent the whole class reviewing the Aleph-Bet. I feel like I'm backtracking to where I started in Tel-Aviv ulpan. The teacher said we will be bored for the first 3 weeks, and then we will feel we are at a comfortable level. THREE WEEKS? That's my life, we're talking about. Prime hours of my evening...5:30 to 8:30! I am going to see if I can switch into a higher level with my friends. I want to learn hebrew as soon as possible, and I don't think the Aleph-Bet has come in handy when trying to ask for directions or order coffee.

On another note, I am working on adding some warming touches to my room. I am glad to have brought my fluffy, down, tangerine quilt from home, and to have a window to open to let fresh night air in. It reminds me of cool nights in New England, curling under the covers with Sparky at my feet. Yesterday I went to Maxstop, the Israeli version of Walmart/Dollar Tree.

I bought:

- tupperware to store food in

-plastic sandwich baggies

-three, 2-sheckel, light-up, transvestite wrestler figurines

-a silver sparkly tube of paper to make some wall decals with (which I later realized was a giant party popper that exploded all over my room when I tried to take off the foil paper)

After my brief stint at Maxstop, my friend, Naftali, and I went to the shuk in the Old City to look for musical instruments. He wanted an oud and I wanted a drum. We stopped at various stalls, each shop owner carried a tray of hot tea to lure in tourists. One arab man tried to sell us a fine-quality oud from Syria. Upon closer examination, we found two pegs missing, and that it was impossible to tune. I found a giant drumhead (15" in diameter) with a small crack in it and haggled from 100 sheckles down to 70. The shop owner said, "You are a very hard girl".

Now is today. I am sitting on the grass under a tree on Hebrew U campus. I downloaded "Soul Messages from Dimona". I just got my Jerusalem bus pass, so I am able to explore the city a little more conveniently. Maya is coming today to help us fix our internet. I think I am going to open up a mailbox down at reception, and investigate acquiring a membership at Hebrew U's gym (as it is strictly prohibited by MASA's security guidelines to go jogging on campus (Maya told us some horror story of some guy who was running and didn't realize he had entered an Arab village...I guess it only takes one bad apple to spoil the whole bunch).

I had a lot of weird dreams last night...of signing a birthday card for my friend, Agost, with a character of a fat, mustachioed woman...of Miss Christine in pre-school ballet class, of ravens.

As I was sipping tea this morning, I heard something falling from the sky like hail. It was raining dry bird poop. Maybe someone above me was sweeping their porch. Go figure.

Riding on a camel with no name

More journal entries:

Wed. October 5

"I had a dream. I irrigated my nostrils with saline in teaspoons.

Just began our desert trip today. Our first top was S'derot, a community right alongside Gaza that experiences constant rocket attacks from Al Qaeda and Hamas and etc.

This guide, Noam, is a photojournalist who explained Israel's situation and reiterated why we shouldn't sympathize with palestinians because of all the 'human shield' tactics they use. 97% of rockets are fired from civilian-occupied territory. But this guy, Noam, was self-righteous and very much a braggart: 'yo...I climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro and spent two weeks with orangutans and saved starving nuns in Tibet...be my friend on Facebook.' That kinda thing.

Then they brought us to this community center for victims of terrorism suffering from Post Dramatic Stress. Our "tikkun olam" project was to beautify their office/bomb shelter with nothing but tape and spray paint. Mind you, I've never vandalized, and the only other time I've worked with spray paint was for my Egypt project when I sprayed a Barbie sarcophagus and Rebecca Han painted our tree.

But we split into groups (basically the capable, willing Bezalel Kids). I made a mural with a couple of other kids of a Hamsa watching over the city.

We went to our hostel to eat dinner and then headed to the VILLAGE OF PEACE.

Here's the story behind this place:

This guy in 1968 Chicago had a vision of all the Brothers moving back to the "Promised Land". But they needed to do it the way their ancestors did. So a group of them moved to Libya for two years and then worked on a kibbutz (they pronounce it Keee-boooz) for a couple years to learn hebrew. They then built this communal village in Demona that is vegan, artistic, and damnnnn fiiiineeee.

The Elder of the community is a tap dancer and singer. He did a number for us to the tune of "When the Saints go Marching In".

Another woman was a fabulous gospel pianist. A 14-year-old girl sang in Hebrew and moved some of us to tears. We African Danced. It wa so invogoratingly beautiful. The Highlight of my trip so far. I kept on thinking of Dad. I want to live there and be happy with them and eat fried tofu and okra."

their album was even reviewed on Pitchfork! 8.4! http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/11481-soul-messages-from-dimona/

Thursday

Just left Sde Boker. Went to the Ramon Airforce Base. Saw some planes. Talked to a pilot about his job. It seemed as thought he took his job casually. He showed us a video clip of an air boming in Gaza last night. He dropped a bomb and described his job as fun.

Friday

Yesterday was a great day. Visited Ramon Crater--a magnificent pit that looked like the surface of Mars. It was encrusted with all different colors of natural sand: clay green, sugar white, mauve, taupe, rust red. They gave us glass bottles to collect different layers to make sand art. Then we arrived at our Bedouin home where a caravan of camels was waiting for us. They are quite beautiful, strange, stupid creatures. A Bedouin man led us over some desert hills.

Cliche desert experience, but very worthwhile.

A bunch of us sat around a circle of benches. There was a fire pit with some coals that seemed slightly hot, so i put some dry palm leaves as tinder on it and made a fire. Judith brought her flute....Nathaniel, his classical guitar, and we had a "kumzits".

Later, we met Salaam, a real Bedouin, who shared a Bedouin folktale, some songs played on a traditional hand-harp-like instrument, and traditionally-ground Bedouin coffee.

We feasted for dinner on mattress pads on the floor. They brought out giant aluminum saucers heaped with israeli salad, hummus, pickles, olives, vegetable rice, grilled lamb kebabs, and fresh flatbread until I couldn't move and used the mattress I was sitting on as a place to stretch my stomach.

As it got darker and cooler, a bedouin boy pulled up to the tent with a cart of baklava, kadaif, and Bedouin coffee and tea.

Our madrichim led a desert night walk. We were not allowed to talk. We meandered through the tent village, past the camels, and into the hills. I have never seen so many stars in my life. Niro, our (gay?) tour guide, tried to make some symbolism with taking 40 steps on our own to find a private place to meditate and ended up lecturing us on how to make art (Israelis love having that power over everyone...being the only one able to talk in a group of people condemned to silence.)

I sat there, in solidarity, my neck craned up towards the sky. I felt insignificant with infinity of the sky above and the hills around me. I felt lost, but any time before this, lost would have been connected with fear. Now it is connected with wonder, and excitement because I have an incredible opportunity to find my way to where I am meant to be.

After counting 5+ shooting stars, we returned to the tents and had another kumzits by the fire. I went to sleep on a dusty foam pad in a sleeping bag that might have been washed. I dreamI lost a molar as I was working in a law firm. And for some reason, the loss of my tooth led to the promotion of a woman at the firm. Everyone thanked me in Bar Mitzvah-chair-lifting fashion for losing my tooth. I then dreamt I lost a lot of valuables and was looking in all these tents and dunes to find them.

I woke up a little earlier to pee at 5:23 AM and realized the sun was rising. I walked out of the camp and saw the sky pinken and the clouds begin to glow with morning light over the camels.

I went back to bed and was much amused by the sound of 50 people sleeping. It sounded like a snoring breath storm.

Breakfast was at 6:30. A bedouin woman kneaded and rolled and cooked fresh flat bread over a hot iron bowl. An arab man made giant griddles-ful of omelets.

Now we are on a bus destined for Eilat. I would love to sleep except they have really annoying music playing over the loudspeakers. This trip is GREEEAT!"

Saturday

On the bus on the way back to Jerusalem. So, after I last wrote, we had left for Eilat to go on a hike and then snorkling. The hike was up a mountain. I thought since I hiked Yehudia in the Golan with Crocs, then this would be just fine. I got a bad blister on my left foot, and the problem was that the trek was sandy and Crocs have poor traction, so I slipped and scraped my hands. The view from the top was incredible, though. We supposedly could see four countries from the summit.

We then began the treacherous decent downhill to the shore to snorkel.

The view from the goggles was incredible. I had never in my life seen anything so breathtakingly clear. Colorful fish. I could be submerged underwater forever without taking a breath. My dreams of becoming a mermaid were almost realized! I felt graceful but at the same time constricted by the lifejacket that was chafing my armpits.

Before shabbat, we arrived at Kibbutz Ketorah, which is supposedly the richest kibbutz in Israel. They raise cows, grow dates, and their biggest revenue comes from a special algae which they grow for the Japanese to make male enhancement pills. We had a nice dinner in the Hadar Ochel and brought in Shabbat the traditional kibbutz way. The kibbutz had a swimming pool which was sooo refreshing. After I swam, I took a nap on the lawn with the kibbutz dog.

Jerusalem Tiul and Settling in

It has been forever since I last wrote on here. Thankfully, I have been keeping a journal, which says everything for me.

Here's an excerpt from my journal:

Oct. 1

" Yesterday we arrived in the City of David and toured the tunnels...the aquaducts. It was refreshing except Yiscah kept on screeming and whooping like a war hawk in my ear. Soooo annoying. We did a Hakafot tour. Eh. Went to a couple of synagogues to try to get a taste of simchat torah. But the truth is, Jewish life feels empty in a synagogue her if you're a woman. I was literally thrust behind a curtain in a sweatbox of a balcony. It is very difficult to feel spiritual in a constrained environment.

Thursday night we went to Ben Yehuda. It looked like the Golden Calf scene in Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments for fifteen-year-olds. Everyone was maybe my age or younger all congregating, awkwardly hugging, tugging at eachother, drinking from the cup of lasciviousness and raging hormones. This place is steeped with nostalgia from Bronfman, being a street musician with my family, March of the Living, etc. We met up with some of Naftali's friends at Mirror Bar, the club located within the Mamila Hotel. When we opened the door, we realized we had walked into frum Sodom and Gemorah. Orthodox girls hiking up their knee-length skirts to grind with Yeshiva boys. Teens in kippot and tzit-tzit downing shots, hip-shaking to Rihanna. Frum girls passed out on couch cushions, obviously exhausted by their first drink and alcoholic and diabolic independence.

I danced. It felt great to be "normally" dressed in shorts and a long-sleeved shirt and feel like a skank.

Yesterday, Friday, we had a 3-religion tour of Jerusalem. It was reaaaally hot. My favorite stop was at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. It was incredibly mesmerizing. So many colors and sounds and languages spoken. I got scolded by a Russian Orthodox priest because I was wearing jean shorts that were too short (above my knee). I wasn't the only one. I left the building with my hair infused with the smell of frankincense smoke.

Then we went to the shuk. I got a really good 7 sheckel falafel and brought my friends to Marzipan (the best place to get chocolate ruggalach)

I was a happy girl. I ordered everything in Hebrew.

Kabbalat Shabbat was at the Great Synagogue where they had a male choir leading selected prayers. It was very church-like. It was actually quite comical.

More comical was bumping into Yedidyah and Carmie, these dudes I know from Makom. I saw them froma distance after services and rejoiced int he sight of familiarity...kids from MY hometown!!!! I walked up from behind them..tapped Y-diddy's shoulder and they were like...

'Hey. Aliza'

It was stagnant. Like they pretended they didn't know me. Weird.

Anyways, you've probably noticed that I'm writing in a new pen signifying that this is me just catching myself up from when my pen ran out of ink. But in truth...a lot has happened since then.

I am in my new dorm in Hebrew University. It is so pristine and beautiful and quiet (except for the dance party happening below on campus) Things that happened worth taking note of:

Leaving Tel Aviv

Had a boring Bauhaus tour the night before. Bauhaus is basically cubes. Imagine looking at cube houses for 2 hours where we live. It made no difference familiarizing ourselves with the architecture when we were to leave the following morning for good. That night I went to Cafe Nostra with Olivia and Sarah. Ended up finishing packing and going to bed at 3 AM.

The next morning i felt okay (thank you, Ibuprofen)

I had to sweep the whole filthy apartment. Cups and cups and cups of filth. What a hell hole.

These new dorms look like they were leased by Mr. Clean, comparatively. Paid a cab 30 NIS to take 3 bags of mine to Hotel Devorah. And we were off. Very unsentimental. I was glad to leave that terrible, dank, fetid situation.

We stopped at the Jerusalem Center Ulpan. Got orally tested in Hebrew. The dude looked like Israeli Larry David. I put on my accent. He drank it up. I moved up a level. Whooopeee.

Later we toured Bezalel. An amazing facility. So fun. People look so cool. Courses include "erotic drawing" to "street photo".

I have a mandatory class called "Spirituality and Consciousness".

I know this is right up Dad's alley. I am so excited. Things are unfolding. I am going to the desert tomorrow!