The First Few Days

I decided to divide my first blog post into two, since the stuff in this post is really completely different from the previous.

The first few days in Israel have been great. My flat mates are all really nice, and it’s great to make new friends with similar academic interests as my own and also to reconnect with old friends from Megiddo again. We’ve hung at the beach a lot so far, since orientation and classes haven’t begun yet.

On Friday we went to the grocery store to buy groceries and a broom and some other necessities, and we have decided to never do our grocery shopping on Friday afternoons again. Friday is the beginning of the Jewish Sabbath, which means that everything closes start starting at about 3pm on Friday afternoons and doesn’t reopen again until about 8pm on Saturday, after Shabbat has ended. It was extremely busy and crowded and made all the more difficult since none of us really know any modern Hebrew yet, and my biblical Hebrew background is not at all useful in trying to say phrases such as, “Where are the trash bags?” We also took a while to try and convert the Israeli shekel to figure out what it would be in the American dollar, and the conversion rate right now is about 3.6, which is kind of a convoluted multiple to try to figure out in your head. Also we had difficulty reading the labels on things. Grocery shopping is so much more interesting when you’re not really sure what you’re purchasing.

Today we went to the beach since much of the city was shut down for Shabbat and ended up being asked to be extras in a movie they were filming. I really have no idea what the movie is about, but it’s apparently called Snails in the Rain. It’s probably going to be all in Hebrew, and I can’t find anything about it via a quick google search, but if you happen to ever see it, look for me in the background during a fight scene on the beach. I’ll be the one in a bikini perched precariously on a rock in the water.

That’s pretty much all that’s been going on so far.  Tomorrow we get our student IDs, and on Monday we start orientation, which will be a relief. I’m looking forward to getting some structure back in my life and also start to do academic thinking again, since my brain has pretty much turned to mush from watching television for the past few weeks before I left for Israel.  I’m also quite curious to see how the educational system works in Israel, since the States seems to primarily use a Socratic method in education. Specifically regarding my education in archaeology, it will be interesting to see the roles that the schools of biblical minimalism and maximalism play in our instruction, since these can be quite controversial.

My sleep schedule is still messed up.  Like we stay up until 3am and don’t wake up again until 11am.  I heard that for every time zone you pass over, that’s how many days you need to get over your jet lag, so hopefully in the next few days I can sleep regularly again. Also I miss my like 6 pillows from home and my dog.