a weekend in herzliya or should i say heaven

What a great weekend! I went to go visit Doron. It was so nice to be able to spend some time with him and hang out. So Thursday night, I got on the number 28 bus to the Central Bus Station in Jerusalem, which despite being packed full of pushy and rude Israeli's it was a very nice bus station. I waited in a very long and eventually boarded a bus to Tel-Aviv. We got dropped off at the Tel-Aviv Central Bus Station, which is the complete 100% opposite from the Jerusalem one, it was dirty, disgusting, creepy, and full of very very weird people. But I found the right bus and go on the bus for Herzliya, once I got there, Doron and his sister picked me up and drove me back to their house. Now, this is not just some ordinary house, this a gorgeous two story house with like 6 bedrooms and a huge kitchen and a huge living and the wall were covered in original artwork. It was absolutely breathtaking on the inside, and the funny thing is, from the outside it just look like a normal house, because like most neighborhoods in Israel people care more about their privacy than showing off their homes so most houses are surrounded by really tall fences that are actually very ugly, but once on the inside you get to see how nice the houses really are. Now one important piece of information is that Doron's mom is Yemenite and thus makes the most delicious food in the world and when I got there Thursday night, Doron, his parents, and his two sisters and I sat down for a delicious dinner of falafel and humus, it wasn't just any falafel and humus it was homemade and it was the best I had ever had. Then Doron took me out on the town in Tel-Aviv, well actually he brought me to his favorite gay club, and it was sooooo ridiculous. So we all know I am a very open and accepting person but I was definitely uncomfortable in this club, there was just too much drunken kissing and grabbing going on, so after a few drinks, we went home to get some rest.
Friday we spent the whole day in the downtown shopping area of Tel-Aviv, Shuk HaCarmel and Nachlat Benjamin, we actually ended up not buying anything except food, which I must say was a huge surprise for the two of us, but it was just a really fun day. Then we went home for Shabbat dinner, once again cooked up Yemenite style by Doron's mom, it was really yummy and spicy and we didn't have challah, we had this really yummy pita instead. That night we spent the entire evening watching episodes and Sex and City together, it was such an us thing to do.
Saturday, we went down to the ruins of a old crusader fortress on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea called Apollania and then we walked along the beach for like three hours, the ruins were interesting and the views from the cliffslooking down on the water were amazing and then I got a great tan just from walking along the beach all day. Doron found like 6 jellyfish (check out the picture there on the right) and he kept picking them up to freak me out, I thought they were going to sting him. After the beach we got ice cream and headed to a cafe were we sat and played on my computer for a while, I felt so Israeli!
Then I sadly had to say goodbye and head back to Jerusalem and this time I wasn't freaked out the whole way which made it much better. Once back in the dorm, I got a call that some friends were heading out to pre-game and then head to the bars, so I got dressed and went out for the night, it actually ended up being really fun and chilling just dancing and drinking in one bar and then we came home. Today I didn't have class until 2:30 pm and I was my first class of the whole semester (whoo hoo) and it was my Jewish education internship class. The teacher is very nice and most of the material we are using in the class I have either used before in a class at B'deis or used on my Jewish camping research paper that I wrote last semester so the material is going to be pretty easy, plus later this week I am going to find out about my internship, which should be really fun!
For anyone who does not know, this is Doron, he was part of the Israeli delegation that worked at OSRUI this summer, he was assigned to Mosh and so we became very close friends over the summer, he is a great guy!
Secondly, this is just a really ridiculous picture of me, just wanted to bring home the fact that I am just crazy!

Much love to everyone, i'll be writing again soon!

Adra





ps- i miss you, rubber duckie

Ulpan is O-V-E-R

just a short update:
This week was nice, we had a snow day off from school on Tuesday and that night I went out to dinner on Emek Refaim with some friends and it was really nice and relaxing.
Today was our "big final" in ulpan. It was a five page test, that we all finished within an hour. So easy. Also today we went to the travel agent and booked our tickets to fly to Greece the first week of our spring break, right before passover, we got out tickets for pretty cheap and we are going for 8 days! Now, I am doing laundry and getting ready to head to Herzliya to stay with Doron for the weekend, so excited!

Thats all,
adra

Well, they say that it's going to snow AGAIN!

SOOOooo...... it has been quite a busy and interesting week. so after last Monday nights absurdity it decided not to have such a crazy week. Tuesday was just a day, and Wednesday I joined the gym, which is such a nice gym, and some of the Rothberg girls who do this crazy work out invited me to work out with them, it was real intense but it was awesome! Then Thursday was Valentine's day, nothing exciting there during the day, but in the evening me and three friends went out to dinner. So we had chosen this restaurant out of a guide book we had but when we got there is was booked up, so our cab driven suggest we go to this really go place he knows so being as adventurous as we were we said sure. So this crazy cabbie drove us all the way to the Mount of Olives into this neighborhood where all the signs were only in Arabic and to this restaurant in the middle of a cave. We were the only people in the restaurant and it took the 4 guys working there like 20 minutes before they even gave up menus. However, the whole night didn't turn out bad, the food was pretty good and we had ourselves a crazy adventure with a crazy Israeli cab driver. Friday morning, i had to wake up at 5 am to get going for our weekend trip to Mitzpeh Ramon [ a very small city in the desert that sits on the edge of what they call a crater, which is really just an ancient collapsed mountain range, see the picture to understand better]. So we drove for many hours in a bus and stopped a couple of times on the way to do some small walks and to see some of the sights in the desert like Ben Gurion's grave at Sde Boker or the ruins at Ein Ovedat. We were supposed to have done a big hike but because of the rain a few days earlier there was a flash flood warning and we couldn't hike. So we spent Shabbat at the same hostel in Mitzpeh Ramon that I spent my first Shabbat on my birthright trip. All of the Rothberg kids bought cheap wine and alcohol from the store down the street and everyone was really tipsy, it was hilarious. The next morning a few of us woke up early to go watch the sunrise over the crater, it was beautiful!, Take a look at this panoramic photo of it!
Saturday we took a walk around the crater's edge and then got to go play archery golf in the desert [i was awful at it]. Then we drove home from our crazy desert weekend vacation. Yesterday was Ulpan like normal and afterwards, me and some friends went into the Old City to go buy scarves, tapestries, and skirts. We were mightily successful and then we walked from the Old City to Machne Yehuda [the shuk] and did some food shopping. It was really a fun afternoon! So now we have made it all the way to this moment, things are going great, I just recently got in contact with someone from NFTY to try to set up my internship for this semester and Ulpan is ending on Thursday! I'm really excited for classes to start up on Sunday and I am going to visit Doron this weekend, which should be amazing fun. Oh, btw, lots of pretty desert pictures, so just check out my photos website.

I hope everything is going well at home, please people, email me if you want to talk, i would love to stay in contact with the human race outside of this country!

kisses and hugs,
Adra

ps- i'm duck, bo bo bo bo, =)

American Bluegrass in Israel

Alrighty, here goes the past few days:
Friday as in 2/8, we had Ulpan! which sucked but we had to have a make-up day because of the snow, we had a test, which I got back already and didn't do too poorly on so that is really good. Friday night was the fun part of the day, my roommate Rachel invited me to her house for dinner, she lives in Gilo, which is the southern most part of the "suburbs" of Jerusalem, it was a very pretty little city on a hill overlooking all of Jerusalem. So before dinner, Rachel informed her parents not to speak to me in English, so the entire night was spoken in Hebrew, and they carried as if I were Israeli and knew exactly what they were saying, I think I missed about 50% of all the conversation but it was an interesting experience anyways. The food was really good too, Rachel's dad was a great cook.
Saturday was also an amazingly fun day, as are most days here in J'lem. I woke up really late and then Zack (yes Barr of brandeis fame) and I took a 2 hour walk all around french hill and then we ended up at this gorgeous park right on the hill of our campus that has all these beautiful winding paths all along the side of the hill and it over looks the Old City and most of J-town. [this is a photo of the view, it was a foggy day and still amazing] Then me and Zack stopped for coffee at Aroma on the way home, just because we love coffee so much, and it was like a children zoo there, and all these really adorable little girls were running around and speaking in Hebrew and it was just one the cutest moments. Later, Saturday evening, I went out with girlfriends to that same Israeli dance class that I went to last week, except this week there were tons more people and the guy taught alot less dances so we were sooooo confused but it was still fun. And this time the class was at the YMCA on King David so we were only a few blocks walk away from Yaffo so we started to walk that way, well we passed this one really sketchy store selling all those touristy goodies and one of my friends wanted to go in, so then we waited for a whole half hour while she bargained with these crazy Israeli guys and ended paying way too much anyways. Once we got on Yaffo, I met up with some other friends and we went to a bar called Yankee's bar (haha) which surprisingly had no Americans in it and didn't play American music. From there we headed to the Underground which was a dance club and had a great time, all the single girls found these disgusting arsim (Hebrew word for Guido, kind of) to go dance with and then us attached girls just danced around with each other and were crazy, it was for sure a top night. [This is a picture of me and two of my friends at that crazy dance club.]



Sunday began with Ulpan as usual, nothing new to report there, then after Ulpan we took a trip to this place called Eretz Bereshit or Genesis Land, where this cute Israeli guy wore a funny looking costume and told us that if we rode his camels we would get taken back in time to meet our forefather Abraham; and so we did ride the magical gamalim (camels) of time travel and we did meet Abraham who happened to be Australian, did you know that Abraham was Australian? and we ate food in his tent. It was a cute trip and we all had alot of fun riding the gamalim. But there was one particular hilarious moment amongst the camel riding, so there was this one baby gamal that was walking alongside its mama gamal and we went down this one hill and the baby gamal was too scared to go down it so it got stuck at the top so one of the camel guides picked up the baby gamal and carried him down the hill, all the while the little gamal was screaming and it sounded just like E.T but it was so funny and yet also really sad.
So now we have reached Monday, oh man, was it a fun Monday, so as all other Mondays begin I had Ulpan, blah, but then when I got home from Ulpan, Doron (from the mishlachat [Israeli group] at my camp this summer) called to say that he was coming to visit me, so then Doron came over and we spent a few hours just hanging out in my room talking like two little girls becuase that how we do. Then Doron went to meet some friends in the city and I went out to dinner with my friend Leah, we went to this really good Italian place called Luigi's (right off of Shamai, fyi Mom and Dad) and then proceeded to try and find this club called Constantine where this Bluegrass band made up of American who had made aliyah were playing. After much walking, we meet up with my roommates Rotem and Rachel and when to the club, it was a great club and the band was pretty awesome, bluegrass is actually really great music, and at the club I ran into two people who used to go to Brandeis so that was really nice too. After the bluegrass we went over to this bar called Layla Bar were they have something called Glory Mondays, where u only ave to play 25NIS to get in and for one drink, plus this bar has recruited like 4 Rothberg students to promote the bar, so EVERYONE was there, it was crazy crowded. Even, my friend Mark from camp and Brandeis who is Tel Aviv this semester was there, so I stayed for a while but it was too crowded to actually be fun so we came home. And here we are at today, I woke up today really tired and in no mood to go to Ulpan becuase one of my Ulpan teachers is a huge bitch, so I stayed home, I ended sleeping until noon so I guess it was a much needed break from Ulpan. I just made pancakes, which was fun, but they don;t taste as good as home here. Ok, i guess that is all for now, but check back soon, i'm sure there will be some more unexpected adventures and crazy times.

xoxo, harbah ahavah [much love]
Adra

PS - jbl, i miss you <3

Getting settled.

So it has been a very fun and exciting past week here in J-town. Lots and lots of hours of Ulpan, which is tough, like really tough, but I am learning a lot so it's good too. But outside of school I've been lots of fun stuff too. So on Monday night, Rotem, Rachel (my roommates) and I went out to dinner and to a bar. We had burgers at this place called Evo which is soooooooo much better than burgers bar! and then we went to this bar called the Blue Hole on Hillel and I got this drink called "deep intoxication" it was essentially alcoholic hot chocolate, it was great! Tuesday after Ulpan I went with my friend Sarah to the shuk at Machane yehuda and we bought lots of chocolate and gummy candies as well as some much needed produce, then we headed down to Emek Refa'im where we went to an Israeli dance class. But we had the wrong address for the building for this dance class so we sketchily walked around for an hour before we found this school gym where the lesson was held and since we spent an hour finding the place we had missed the beginner lesson and the dance teacher just laughed at us the whole time as we tried to learn all the really difficult dance that he taught. BUT it was soooooooooooooooo much fun! me and sarah want to go back every week, I love Israeli dancing! After dancing we went out to dinner with some other people who came to meet us on Emek Refa'im and I got this amazing pasta with mushrooms and dates, we got back ot school at like 11:30 at night, that was a really long day!
So then Wednesday after Ulpan, a few of us spur of the moment decided that it would be awesome to go into the OLD City to the Christian Quarter on Ash Wednesday. So we walked down the entire Via Dolarosa which was a very cool experience, but we had a really interesting encounter at station number 1.

There was this Armenian guy who told us that he would show us a great view of the Dome of the Rock for free (see gorgeous picture), so he walked to what i think they call the Turkish porch or something like that and then we was being all creepy and talking to us and then we noticed that he pinky finger nail was like an inch tall and none of his other fingernails were long and one of my friends told me that was a way the people snort coke, so we nicely said by to the creepy guy and came back to school, but it was really really cool to see the Christian Quarter and learn about all the Jesus stuff.

Also, we passed by this really cool looking graffiti.

And now we are at today, Thursday. Today was a normal boring day except for the fact that I forgot to set my alarm and was woken up by Jason calling me and letting me know it was 8am (by the way - thanks so much J!), so I rushed out of the dorm and was still a little late for Ulpan. Other than that I have a big grammar test tomorrow so I spent the afternoon and evening studying and working on stuff. So cool news: I think I am going to start planning a trip to Turkey with some friends, also maybe a trip to Greece and me and Aynsley want to take a day trip to Caesarea sometime soon too, because there was a student activities sponsored trip today but we stupidly didn't go.

Additionally, here is a picture of me and some friends at the Kotel last week!

I hope everyone is having as much fun as I am having no matter where they are, can;t wait to get in touch, because spectacularly I got a working internet connection yesterday and will be online as much as possible from now on.

xoxo,
A

Picture Post

This is the view out of my window, that is downtown Jerusalem
These are my roommates, Rachel and Rotem
This is my room, its pretty big.
This is a picture of the snow in Jerusalem that causes us to have two snow days last week, it was so beautiful!

A short update

Hi, so I'm sitting in the cafe in the Rothberg building because I still don't have internet. Here's a quick recap of the last few days:
Thursday- Some girls held a Cocktail party where everyone dressed up and we drank, of course, and for some crazy reason I was totally smashed and beyond the room spinning drunk at midnight so I just went to bed, but it was a fun party while I was there.
Friday - Old City Tour and then we stayed in the Old City and went down to the Cardo to shop. Kab Shab we went to the Masorti shul down the road, it was alright. There was a dinner at the Regency hotel for Rothberg students, it was a buffet, pretty good too. I also stole a mug from the hotel because Zack was too much of pussy to steal one even though it was his idea.After dinner I watched "Wet Hot American Summer" with some people and it was very nice.
Saturday - laid around all day in my suite, Rachel (my roommate) sister Michal was visiting, she was very nice. The boys were out of the town so the three of us girls hung out and they made great lunch for us. That night I went out for dinner and then drinks and hooka downtown, I met some really great people and it was an all around fun night.
Sunday (today) - had to wake up for Ulpan, but we only had one hour of in class time today, for the rest of it they took us down to this archaeological dig place and we just hung out there playing in the mud for the rest of the day, not so bad.

I will certainly try to get internet today so that I don't have to drag my computer to school and so that I will be available and can post pictures.

They are closing the cafe so I have to go.

XOXO,
Adra