cimat hasof (almost the end)

I can’t believe Ulpan will be over this Thursday! The time has really been going by so quickly, and I know the three weeks I have off will fly by, as soon as I figure out what to do with them…

Last week we visited the Ghetto Fighters Museum which is located on a kibbutz near Haifa. It is a smaller Holocaust museum than Yad Vashem, with more of a focus on rebellions such as the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. It also has a lot of artwork. It was the first museum built in Israel to remember the Holocaust. One of the most moving parts of it was a black wall onto which were projected Hebrew and English letters floating upwards. These letters would float into place next to each other to cover the wall with the names of the thousands of Jewish villages and communities destroyed in the Holocaust. The name would be whole for about five seconds and then slowly its letters would continue to float upward one by one and disappear. It gave a feeling for how these communities were erased. The museum is also home to the glass booth that Adolf Eichman sat in while on trial in Jerusalem.

On Thursday night Savannah, Laura and I went to Israeli folk dancing. We had a great time doing line, couple, and circle dances. I was very happy they taught us some of the dances I remember from camp: lo ahavti di, mayim mayim, and shemesh. Earlier that day the three of us ventured down to Hadar to the open air market and bought vegetables and other food. Fruit and vegetables are so cheap here! I bought 3 plums, 2 tomatoes, and 2 cucumbers for about 5 shekels which is less than $2. I am starting to get the hang of shopping and cooking for myself. On Friday I made blintzes and they were successful!

This weekend I had a wonderful visit with the Schwartz family. Aunt Janet and Uncle Billy were staying in a hotel in Herzaliyya so I took the train there Friday morning and David picked me up at the station. I spent most of Friday reading by the pool with everyone. We went to Hannah and David’s house for Shabbat dinner, it was so nice to have real food! On Saturday Hannah gave me lots of recipes that can be accomplished with no oven, and my cousin Avital and I painted our nails blue before heading back to the hotel for more lying by the pool. I took a bus back to Haifa after dinner. It was such a nice visit, and David and Hannah gave me a lot of ideas for where to go during my 3 weeks off. Right now I am hoping to do a lot of traveling around Israel, and then maybe go to Greece for a week right before the semester starts.

Our final for Ulpan is on Thursday, though I have become increasingly distracted by planning my travels so I may not be studying as much for this as I did for my midterm. I have learned a lot about Hebrew grammar, and am hoping to work more on my conversation as my time here goes by. I am meeting with a tutor tomorrow night to just speak in Hebrew, but since it’s just one on one I’ll be able to stop him at any word I don’t understand, which will probably be a lot. Also tomorrow I think Savannah, Laura and I are going to the beach one last time before Savannah leaves to go back to the States. It’s sad that a lot of people are leaving at the end of Ulpan, but I’m also very excited for Jordana and everyone else getting here when the semester starts!

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