Blogs from Haifa District, Israel, Middle East - page 10

I'm officialy 23 years old. And I know most of you are wondering how I spent my birthday. Well...it all started at midnight. I was sitting in the car on my way to a pub in a kibbutz with Roee and his friends. The pub was a tent with a lot of rugs and cushions, people come there to smoke nirgila - a.k.a. hubblybubbly. We did a round of birthdayshots and to my pleasent surprise I got icecream with whipped cream and sparlkes in it. I really enjoyed how everyone did an effort and remembered my birthday. Anyways we smoked nirgila and enjoyed the evening. The next day was Roees brothers Bar Mitzvah. It was a very nice experience, but it did make me feel a little strange. Strange in the sence that I realised how ... read more

In the first week of Ulpan we studied the alphabets. Yes both of them, there are two. We learned this basic introduction speach where you tell your name, where you are from and that you are currently a student studying hebrew at the University of Haifa. There were a lot of people in beginners level so there was a test at the end of week one to see how much we had learned and according to this we would be placed in new groups. I don't really think they did this though cause there wasn't much of a difference in the new classes. There were quick learners aswell as slow learners. I had my days and moments. Sometimes I saw the light and I did understand what the teacher was saying, but on other days I ... read more

I got back home yesterday, and am slowly getting over my jet lag. However, I still owe everyone some Vegas stories, so here goes: We stayed at the stratosphere hotel, which is the tallest building west of the Mississippi. On the roof they have 3 short rides. The coolest one spins you around off the edge of the building, high above Las Vegas, which was really cool. We also some some stand-up comedians, including Dana Carvey (Garth from Wayne's World) who was pretty funny. Generally, we had a good time in Vegas. After Vegas we went to LA, and since we had some time to kill, we went for a walk around Beverley Hills. We saw a woman walking her dog in a baby stroller. So weird. So this is the last entry for this trip ... read more

Shabbat Shalom! Last night we didn't go to the Shabbat service but we still had a nice Shabbat dinner at the hotel with all of the teams. This morning we had practice at 11am. We had to take taxis since it was Shabbat and we didn't have any buses available. We had a little difficulty trying to get a field to practice on since all of the gates were locked and secuirty was not happy that we were there. We managed to get about 25 minutes on the turf field that the women's team had been playing on until security realized where we were and kicked us off. Coach was able to stall a bit so we could each take a penalty kick before leaving. We have just been hanging out all day and have a ... read more

Shalom! Last night we went to watch the Women's team play and they absolutely crushed the Great Britain team. The score ended up 12-0! They should easily beat every team they face. After their game, we headed to Maccabi Haifa's stadium to see them take on Glentoran F.C, a Northern Ireland team, in a Champions League Qualifier. Although the game started off a little slow, it eventually picked up with Haifa scoring off a knock down inside the box. From then on Haifa completely outplayed the other team and it was clear who was the better team on the night. The final score ended up 6-0 in favor of Haifa. The stadium that they played in is where we would play our semi-finals and finals. It is a really nice stadium that seats up to 20,000 ... read more