Advertisement
Published: September 16th 2006
Shalom! Last sunday we arrived at ulpan (intensive hebrew class). Ulpan classes are 5 days a week, for 5 hours a day in class, and then we have homework. It is very exhausting and takes a lot of concentration. But I am learning, which is really the point, so its good. I am in a higher level than most of the people in my group because of my hebrew ulpan last summer, and since i've been here for 2 months already and speaking on my own. So I have been helping a lot of the other people in my group with their work. Everyone continues to tell me I'm a good teacher, which is a nice compliment, but funny for me.
In the afternoons, we have time to go to the beach, which is a 5 minute walk from where we are staying, and there is a pool at the place. So we have time to relax, but homework takes up a good chunk of our afternoons, then dinner, and many evenings we have lectures or other activities. And, since classes start at 8am, we are all exhausted the whole week.
On our second day of classes, we actually
had a day off. But, don't think that we just slept all day. We went on a day tour, and we had to get up at 6am!! We went to 2 towns in the south with ancient caves. The caves were mostly underground houses, and other things. Of course, they were ancient arab villages, greek and roman villages, and other eras, built on top of each other, as usual. We also went to these natural caves with stalagmites and stalagtites (like luray caverns if u know what that is). It was pretty cool. But it was a very long day and we all were pretty bored by the end of the day.
So this weekend, about half of us stayed at the ulpan's housing. On friday, it was our friend simon's birthday, so a bunch of us went out in Netanya to a cafe on the beach. It was nice, and fun to go out with everyone. But Netanya is not a great city like Tel Aviv. We had tried to go to Tel Aviv, but it was too expensive because it was shabbat and taxis charge a lot extra to go places on shabbat. Anyway, it was a
fun night. Today, saturday, we all just hung around and relaxed, which was also nice. This next week should be fun also, and then next weekend starts the jewish high holidays. I am very excited to celebrate the holidays in Israel this year.
Well, sorry this blog was not so exciting, but its been a good week, just not full of stories. hehe.
Love,
Leah
Advertisement
Tot: 0.044s; Tpl: 0.009s; cc: 13; qc: 29; dbt: 0.0206s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb
N-Dogg
non-member comment
tanning
Leigha, I noticed you are looking a little darker white girl. A note on tanning: espite societies outlook on the activity, it is very, very, very not good for you. Your skin darkens because it is literally burning--stop thinking tea-stained papyrus and start thinking toilet paper on fire. For those who enjoy tanning, it will equal wrinkly, pock-marked-like skin with the possibility of dark freckles. Kind of like when you burn something...like your skin... ...do you really want to burn the most importatn organ in your body and your body's first line of defence against infection? Just some food for thought...