Hello from Santa Cruz! I hope everyone is enjoying the new year. I wrote some descriptions of the classes I took in Israel while I was there but didn’t get a chance to edit this entry until now. So here you have it: a look at what I studied from Sundays through Thursdays every week. All of these classes met twice a week for two hours each session, except Hebrew which met three times a week. HEBREW: The semester class is being taught by a different teacher and is slightly more challenging than it was during the summer, which is nice. [View Full Entry]

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Well, it's now 11am on Saturday morning, December 22nd, which means that I have about eight hours to pack up my life from the past five months into a few suitcases so that I can fly HOME tonight. I wish I had written more blog entries while I was here, and because I started quite a few that I never ended up publishing, I'll definitely be doing some reflective entries from back home in Santa Cruz, where I'll be for about a month before my Vassar semester starts. As a last entry written here in Israel, though, I thought I'd publish [View Full Entry]

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Wednesday October 3: ASWAN The train we took from Cairo to Aswan (a distance of 899 km, roughly 560 miles) departed Cairo around 10:30pm and arrived in Aswan around noon on Wednesday. Luckily, the seats to which we were assigned were very comfortable (what I imagine first class seats must be like on airplanes, minus the frills, with more than enough added grime) so I was able to sleep pretty well. (The sanitary conditions of the train, however, are another story, and, without going into detail, I will say that the restroom was akin to a swamp.) Upon arrival at the [View Full Entry]

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A few weeks ago (September 26-October 6) we had a break from classes for the Sukkot holiday. My friend Ben was planning to go to Egypt to visit his brother, and my friend Jessica and I decided to join him at the last minute, with no concrete itinerary or reservations except for our first few nights in Cairo and Taba. Because I took roughly three kagillion pictures during this trip and have a lot to write about, I’m going to take two blog entries to write about my Egypt trip. Here’s part one: Wednesday September 26: TRAVELING TO TABA Our journey [View Full Entry]

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Before I begin, I want to make a quick note that my impressions from the religious activities in which I engaged over the past few weeks are still forming in my mind, and I’m not quite ready to write about them yet. When I do write about them, it may be in e-mail form, as I don’t know if I want my impressions floating around the internet in a public domain. I’ll probably just send an e-mail to everyone I initially wrote to about this blog’s existence. That being said… For Shabbat on the weekend of August 24th, I stayed in [View Full Entry]

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Last weekend, I went to Jerusalem for the first time (!) from Thursday afternoon (August 23rd) through Saturday night. I spent the first 24 hours doing touristy things and the second 24 hours observing Shabbat in the Old City. When I returned I was busy and lazy, and then caught an upper respiratory infection (from which I think and hope that I am now recovering) so, needless to say, it is taking me a while to write about Jerusalem. What follows is my narration of the first part of my trip. I hope to find time to write about the second [View Full Entry]

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My (mostly traveling) adventures from August 10-19, photographs included: MASADA (August 10) Last weekend, we took a group trip to Masada and the Dead Sea. In order to get to Masada in time to watch the sunrise, we left our dorms at 3am on Friday, so, needless to say, I don’t remember much of the bus ride there. We took the steep but direct route up the mountain, and climbed up to the highest lookout point to watch the sunrise over the Dead Sea. When it was light out, Dotan (our guide) showed us around the mountain and told us stories [View Full Entry]

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SECULAR TERRORISM Our first lecture of the semester was on Tuesday, August 7th on Secular Terrorism, and was given by one of the professors who will teach a course for the overseas program during the semester, Dr. Jonathan Fine. He specializes in terrorism studies, which he explained is a difficult area to study in universities because it has both an academic side and a practical side. He has experience in both but struggles to get the two sides to work together in a productive manner. This lecture was the first of three that he will give during the ulpan on the [View Full Entry]

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At long last, another journal entry. Though I wrote last time that these would become shorter and more frequent, it appears I misjudged my situation. (I would say that “I lied,” but my nine-and-a-half-year-old very dear friend and cousin Anabel explained to me shortly before I left that lying is different from misjudging. Actually, I think that she might have used a different word than “misjudging” but I’m pretty sure I have the correct sentiment. Right, Anabel?) Point being, according to Anabel’s explanation, you can’t blame a person when things don&r [View Full Entry]

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(NOTE: I re-added this entry after TravelBlog.com lost it during a system failure, and aplogize that if you subscribe to my blog, you've recieved an e-mail letting you know that I wrote a new entry when in fact this is actually about a month old.) Hello, all. At long last, I've found time get on the internet and update this blog for the first time from Israel! I have not yet set up internet access in my dorm room, so I'm writing from a computer lab in the dorm complex late Sunday night (actually, it's now ealy Monday morning) after having [View Full Entry]

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