Blogs from Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv District, Israel, Middle East - page 18

Classes started last week. I'm taking Hebrew plus four other classes: Israeli Drama, the History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, After Auschwitz: Representations of the Holocaust in Contemporary Culture, and Jewish Education. The Israeli Drama class is really fun, I miss all the drama I used to do in high school. Last night we had to read a play and analyze one character in it, and then today in class we read parts of it, playing the character we had analyzed. It was really nice to read a play aloud again. The class about the Arab-Israeli conflict is good; it's very lecture-based and the professor is kind of dry, but the material is interesting. The Holocaust class is really interesting; it's about analyzing literature and films and artwork about the Holocaust, so it's not just an English ... read more

Not too much has been going on here. I've been walking to the beach and reading and studying there. It's really relaxing there- we found a restaurant on the beach that has couches that are long enough to lounge on, and we go there and get a drink and read and relax. Yesterday our program took us to Jerusalem for the day. It was about 15 degrees colder than it had been the day before and it rained on and off all day. We went to the Kotel and around the Western Wall where it meets the southern end and talked about a lot of the history of Jerusalem that we talked about on Birthright and in my Ancient Israel class. Then we went to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where we saw graffiti from ... read more

In typical Casey Farin fashion, whenever things seem like they should start getting better, they get worse first. And I usually just respond by laughing. Yesterday morning I woke up with my right eye crusted shut. Pinkeye. My suitemate Debbie woke up a little later and looked in the mirror at her eye all red and goopy and, flustered, says, "I have pinkeye!" So at least we both had it. We ended up going to a doctor who spoke very very minimal English and somehow conveyed to him that we had pinkeye, that our throats hurt, we were congested, and had been coughing and sneezing. After the doctor looked in Debbie's throat, she asked him, "Beseder?" meaning "Okay?" and he responded, "Lo." meaning "No." Pretty much the story of our lives. I laughed really hard. We ... read more

The past few days have been really stormy- we've lost power for 2-3 hours a day for the past two days while it's been snowing in Jerusalem. Last night I studied for my Ulpan test by the light of my computer because the power was out and I didn't want to walk all the way to the 24-hour coffee shop/restaurant where I spend a lot of time. The thing is, Coffee to Go is really close to my dorm, it was just miserable out. My cell phone broke yesterday. I put my purse on a chair, my purse slid off the chair, my cell phone fell out of my purse and landed on the ground. It turned off and I tried to turn it back on but everything was backwards. Then it turned off and wouldn't ... read more

Well, this is it. Last call everyone get on. The bags are packed and the last preparations are made. I hope i haven't forgotten anything. Anyway, its off to Rio. Tomorrow morning, 0640 am the plane lifts off and i will be on it to madrid and then to Rio. I have a hotel already booked and i hope everything will be all right when i get there. 3 month from now i'll be back to see tel aviv. April 6th i'll be back. dont stay up to wait ... read more