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