Ani lo metaber Ivrit

“Ani lo metaber ivrit” or in anglit (English), I don’t speak Hebrew. Hopefully that will change soon since yesterday we started Ullpan. Ullpan is learning the Hebrew language, which I’m sure will be very tough for me. I never paid attention in Spanish class in 9th or 10th grade so I never learned anything, but I also didn’t care to learn. I’m excited to start to learn Hebrew and I hope by the end of 5 months I will be able to have a conversation with a stranger in Hebrew. I don’t start teaching for another 2 weeks so the next 2 weeks is Ullpan at 12:30 for 3 hours and then free time other than that.

I spent last Shabbat the way Shabbat should be celebrated in Israel and that is at the beach in Tel Aviv. Busses don’t run on Shabbat and taxis are very expensive so we took the Sherut to the beach. The Sherut is a great concept, one that I think would work back in Bmore. It’s basically a van that picks you up, they run every 3-4 minutes and you flag it down as you would a taxi. The van holds about 12 people and they run on a route like a bus would and you get off anywhere you want. The Sherut is a little more expensive than a bus but more convenient, it is also significantly cheaper than a taxi. It takes me about 25 minutes to go from my house to the central bus station in Tel Aviv. Sherut’s run from every major city and so far I’ve taken a lot of them to get to where I need to go. I spent the afternoon with friends lying on the beach in TA followed by a couple drinks at the bars on the promenade as the sun went down, no complaints from me.

Yesterday I met an Israeli girl named Daya and we made plans to go out to dinner. She picked me up and told me that before dinner we were going to her cousin’s house to pick mangos. Daya’s uncle whose real job is at an IT company, also had a red pepper and mango farm, insisted on showing me every detail of how his farm worked. It was actually pretty interesting and high tech, the red pepper farm was about 1/3 of an acre and the mango farm was a little less than an acre, the entire farm was computerized in terms of how much, when and where the water was distributed. I left the house with a grocery bag full of mangos and red peppers and was told they are taking me with them on the next family trip in Israel. Anyway, sushi after that, had a great time, met some of her friends, all very nice and cute…Kaufman/Sharrow/Stander/JWeitz if you’re interested on making the trip.

I know the video sound didn’t work last time, I will fix that. The first picture is of the sherut and the second one is of me, Daya her cousin and uncle.

Shabbat Shalom!

Sorry for the long delayed first post from Israel but I started to write it a couple times got delayed and than started to rewrite and got more delayed. I got back from Jerusalem about and hour and a half ago, spent the whole day walking around, I’m exhausted so I think this will be a good time to finish the first post.

Where to begin? First, Israel is really hot and I haven’t stopped sweating since I got here. The good thing is that the heat is my least favorite thing about Israel. I arrived safely last Saturday, took a cab to the hostel that was right on the beach. I met some kids who were traveling from Canada and the UK and had a fun time the next two days hanging out with them. When I first arrived on Saturday the beach and restaurants were packed so I just wondered along the promenade to see the city. I would say 90% of the population in TA is under the age of 30, Tan and beautiful. I had a great time at the beach, partying with my new friends and even managed an ocean swim at 4:30 in the morning on Sunday.

Monday, I took a bus to Nes Zionna, and got settled into my new apartment for the next 5 months. My apartment is 4 people including me, one girl from California, and a guy and girl from Argentina. Everybody is really nice, I wish I would have paid better attention in Spanish class in high school because the girl doesn’t speak the best English but still, everybody seems pretty cool and we've got along well so far. As for Nes Zionna, it’s a small city, surrounded by larger cities, about 25 minutes outside Tel Aviv. The mall is in the center of town and it’s the place to be seen. The mall is packed 24/7 because it has the best A/C in the country. It’s a pretty well off town, it looks like it’s been built up somewhat recently since there are a lot of nice luxury apartment buildings everywhere. Spent the week hanging out with people from my group, eating falafel/schnitzel/schwarma, sipping ice coffee while people watching and just walking around getting to know the city.

Yesterday, I went with a friend from the program for an overnight trip to Jerusalem. He knew a couple of people who lived there so we went to meet up with them. Jerusalem is a pretty spectacular city, our hostel was in the old city, somewhat near the western wall so we decided to stop there first before putting our bags down. It was a very interesting ride to the Kotel, first we drove through a very religious and crowded Jewish area, reminded me of what you would think Krakow would have been like 100 years ago. Than we had to go around the Muslim quarter to get to the Jewish Quarter, very different and I wasn’t expecting to go to the Muslim side, I think next time I will take a different route. Not that it was scary but I would certainly prefer to be on the Jewish side. After that we went to our hostel, grabbed dinner and met up with some of Dan’s friends. Every Restaurant/Bar/Café was packed last night, had a great time out. Today we just walked around Jerusalem, got a hebrew Ravens T-shirt from the famous Ben Yehuda street and then went to a concert in a park with his friends, it wasn’t a rap concert but still the music wasn’t bad. It’s been a long, exhausting and exciting week for me, I’m going to lay down and take a nap.

The video is for those of you who have never been to the Western Wall, I promise to work on my commentary as the months go on. The big building is the mall in Nes Zionna and the other pic is the best hummus I've had in Israel so far, a little late night snack last night.

What’s the fastest way to Israel?

I’m assuming the answer to that would be direct, however, if you look at the picture you will see I’m in Houston. Why am I in Houston, we’ll the short answer would be that I got a free flight to Israel but only if I left from Houston. So while I’m sitting in the Houston airport waiting for a flight to London which will then connect me with a flight to Israel, I have some time to think about the reason for this voyage.

The question you are probably asking, why I would leave my successful life as a CPA to go half way across the world just to live in Israel for 5 months. The answer to that is simple, I don’t know. I don’t know why I felt the need to go live in Israel but it’s something I felt I had to do or I would end up always regretting it. I don’t know why I am more interested in Israeli politics versus American politics, I don’t know why I wake up in the morning and read the Jpost before I read the NY Times, I don’t know why I’m so drawn to Israel when all of my friends and family are either in or around Bmore. “Why is Israel so important to me”? That is the main question I’m hoping to answer over the next 5 months. So while I can’t wait for weekends out in Tel Aviv, camping in the Negev, hiking in the Galilee, spending time in Jerusalem, and eating a ridiculous amount of Humus, I hope somewhere in between all that I figure out why I had to leave everything to go to Israel.

With all that said, am I really missing the entire Ravens season when they are going to dominate the AFC? I must be crazy!