Shalom and boker tov, dear readers. So sorry I made an empty promise to blog more regularly and then haven't updated since Christmas Eve. Now I have "high-speed" internet in my apartment, so no excuses really.
On Christmas Eve, a few of us when to this really nice restaurant near by apartment called Little Prague, which is well-known for having several types of beer, which I actually did not sample any of. That's one good thing about living a few blocks away from such a touristy area is the abundance of great restaurants in such close proximity! The food was wonderful and non-kosher, and I had the most delicious artery-clogging chicken steak covered in melted cheese and mashed potatoes and coleslaw. For desert there was nutella-filled crepes with peaches. All SO incredibly delicious. But I couldn't help but think how very different it was from all my previous 21 Christmas Eves. It did not seem like Christmas was approaching at all. Normally on Christmas Eve, I would be gathered with my entire family. But really my Christmas Eve wasn't bad, just different.
Christmas Day was extraordinarily uneventful. Christmas Day was the day that we were going to get our internet in our apartment! Excitement was high in the air that morning, as my roommates and I woke up and eagerly anticipated the phone call from the internet technician telling us he was on his way. They had given us a timeframe between 10am and 1pm. At 10am, we all gathered eagerly in the living room and awaited his arrival. Two and a half hours later, we get a phone call. It was the internet technician, telling us in broken English how he was running a bit late and should be there sometime before 3pm. Although quite disappointed as we were all eager to skype our families for Christmas, we waited. And waited. Finally he arrived! In no time at all, he set up our modem for us. Complete with one internet cord. We asked what about the wifi that we had thought we ordered. Apparently that is something completely separate. In fact, our internet cord wouldn't even work until we called this number to turn it on for us.
So I called the number to at least get our internet cord working so perhaps we could take turns skyping with that for a bit. After being on hold for most of the afternoon (and having to run to the convenience store twice to put more minutes on my phone), we got our internet cord working. Now to order the wireless was a completely different matter. I was on the hold even longer and transferred approximately 6 times (not even an exaggeration), since none of the customer service reps spoke English and could understand what I wanted. Finally, we got through, and they made an appointment to come set up wireless in our apartment a little over a week later. So that's how I spent my Christmas.
Academically speaking, we finished our class on the Persian Period archaeology of the area and moved onward to Hellenistic archaeology, which is the last course in our history classes! I was quite eager to start this one, since it's basically what one of my undergraduate BA's is in. It's quite different than the way that I was used to studying archaeology. In undergrad, we usually learned about specific sites and applied the characteristics of that site to the greater history of Greece and Rome. Here it's kind of the opposite, which is interesting and not what I'm used to. Additionally, I'm also used to a great deal of memorization when it comes to my classes, since at Michigan, we would be required to memorize and be able to recognize certain features of sites for our exams and plans and be able to locate it, date it, and explain its importance. Here at TAU, we just write a short paper. Quite different.
On New Year's Eve, some of the boys in my program had a big party at their new apartment. One of our friends is Russian, and he made this thing called plov, which is a meat and rice dish, which was absolutely delicious! We had a pretty great time (not too great though that we wouldn't be able to make it to class the next day though). It's also interesting how New Year's really isn't celebrated here. There was no Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve. No ball drop. No obnoxious party favors at stores. Nothing really. New Year's Day in Israel is an optional holiday, but in Tel Aviv apparently some 40% of people take the day off of work.
Apartment-wise, our new furniture FINALLY came in! So we each have our own beds now and closets! It's simply wonderful to not have to rife around in my suitcase for a clothes or to have to share my bed anymore! We also have a washer and dryer now! It's my first time not having to pay for laundry since I lived at home! I'm sure it will be great, but we haven't set it up yet, since it's really heavy and wrapped in a box. I'm pretty confident that we'll be able to figure it out though.
Other news - my cousin Anna is in Jerusalem for the next 2 weeks or so for a class trip! Tonight hopefully I'm grabbing a sherut from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem to see her and exchange belated Christmas presents. It's so strange the way that members of my family keep finding their way over here. About two years ago, my cousin Adam was here for a few weeks in January, then I came the following summer for two months to dig, then I moved here this year, and now Anna is visiting. So wonderful! Also one of my best friends from home Breanna and her mom will be coming for a week at the end of February! I'm really excited for their visit, simply so that I can show them Israel.
Israel is one of those countries that I feel that most people don't care to visit. What with terror attacks and it's proximity to "dangerous" countries in the Middle East, I feel like very few people come here unless they are Jewish. That's why I'm so excited to show my guests otherwise and to demonstrate that this really is a lovely country with such a rich history! I'm also excited for the opportunity to show them some of the historical sites and be able to explain a bit about some of my biblical historical passions!
Some of the things I love about my life in Israel right now are the really close friendships that I've developed with the other students in my program! We actually are like a big family and care very deeply for one another. I love the random moments when we realize that we communicate over facebook much more so than regular friends (due to us all not wanting to waste minutes on our pay-as-you-go phones). I love how when one of us is sick and misses class how the the rest the class is so willing to share their notes and to help catch them up. I love how after class some days, we all run to the mall to grab a falafel. Or the way we talk about archaeology kind of all the time.
I am in love with the location of my paper. It's so great being able to shop at the Shuk for all my produce. Lately I've been craving fresh fruit, and the shuk is right there! Right now my roommates and I are on a huge melon kick. So delicious! There is also a bakery, and I'm in love with their fresh bread loaves! We only tried it out this week because we needed some bread, and we got this kind that has tons of seeds in the crust, and it's so good! I like eating it with peanut butter. Another one of our favorite treats right now are these small baked cookies that have different fillings in them such as strawberry or fig or chocolate. Also very delicious.I love being able to see the Sea from my bedroom window. I love watching the sunset over the Mediterranean. I love watching the waves. It kind of reminds me of home, since I pretty much grew up on the beach of Lake Michigan and spent all my summers there.
I also love the long bus ride to school. Rather than simply rolling out of bed and staggering across the street to campus, we have to wake up early and make it to the bus stop by 9am, so that we can catch the bus. We're the first stop, so we luckily always get a seat. I like listening to my iPod and just looking out the window the whole 45-60-minute journey to school on the bus. It's still hard for me to wrap around my mind that this is my city now. It feels like I've lived in Tel Aviv forever (and it has been 3 months now), but then I remind myself that I have at least 7 months left here! Hopefully my Hebrew gets a little better during that time.
I also am growing to love the Middle Eastern fashion. In Tel Aviv, women wear lots of leggings or jeggings and boots and scarves. This is really perfect for me, since I actually hate wearing real pants, so getting away with wearing leggings everyday and dressing it up slightly with a scarf is simply fantastic. Unfortunately, this had developed into a slight scarf addiction, and now I've accumulated quite a lot. Also I've finally purchased harem pants!!! So stereotypical Middle Eastern, and I love them. Most comfortable pair of pants ever.
Hopefully my next update will come soon, but I can't make any promises since we have a few papers due as the semester winds down. I also have a gameboy emulator on my computer now, so my nights have been filled with lots of Pokemon playing. Grad school....
On Christmas Eve, a few of us when to this really nice restaurant near by apartment called Little Prague, which is well-known for having several types of beer, which I actually did not sample any of. That's one good thing about living a few blocks away from such a touristy area is the abundance of great restaurants in such close proximity! The food was wonderful and non-kosher, and I had the most delicious artery-clogging chicken steak covered in melted cheese and mashed potatoes and coleslaw. For desert there was nutella-filled crepes with peaches. All SO incredibly delicious. But I couldn't help but think how very different it was from all my previous 21 Christmas Eves. It did not seem like Christmas was approaching at all. Normally on Christmas Eve, I would be gathered with my entire family. But really my Christmas Eve wasn't bad, just different.
Christmas Day was extraordinarily uneventful. Christmas Day was the day that we were going to get our internet in our apartment! Excitement was high in the air that morning, as my roommates and I woke up and eagerly anticipated the phone call from the internet technician telling us he was on his way. They had given us a timeframe between 10am and 1pm. At 10am, we all gathered eagerly in the living room and awaited his arrival. Two and a half hours later, we get a phone call. It was the internet technician, telling us in broken English how he was running a bit late and should be there sometime before 3pm. Although quite disappointed as we were all eager to skype our families for Christmas, we waited. And waited. Finally he arrived! In no time at all, he set up our modem for us. Complete with one internet cord. We asked what about the wifi that we had thought we ordered. Apparently that is something completely separate. In fact, our internet cord wouldn't even work until we called this number to turn it on for us.
So I called the number to at least get our internet cord working so perhaps we could take turns skyping with that for a bit. After being on hold for most of the afternoon (and having to run to the convenience store twice to put more minutes on my phone), we got our internet cord working. Now to order the wireless was a completely different matter. I was on the hold even longer and transferred approximately 6 times (not even an exaggeration), since none of the customer service reps spoke English and could understand what I wanted. Finally, we got through, and they made an appointment to come set up wireless in our apartment a little over a week later. So that's how I spent my Christmas.
Academically speaking, we finished our class on the Persian Period archaeology of the area and moved onward to Hellenistic archaeology, which is the last course in our history classes! I was quite eager to start this one, since it's basically what one of my undergraduate BA's is in. It's quite different than the way that I was used to studying archaeology. In undergrad, we usually learned about specific sites and applied the characteristics of that site to the greater history of Greece and Rome. Here it's kind of the opposite, which is interesting and not what I'm used to. Additionally, I'm also used to a great deal of memorization when it comes to my classes, since at Michigan, we would be required to memorize and be able to recognize certain features of sites for our exams and plans and be able to locate it, date it, and explain its importance. Here at TAU, we just write a short paper. Quite different.
On New Year's Eve, some of the boys in my program had a big party at their new apartment. One of our friends is Russian, and he made this thing called plov, which is a meat and rice dish, which was absolutely delicious! We had a pretty great time (not too great though that we wouldn't be able to make it to class the next day though). It's also interesting how New Year's really isn't celebrated here. There was no Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve. No ball drop. No obnoxious party favors at stores. Nothing really. New Year's Day in Israel is an optional holiday, but in Tel Aviv apparently some 40% of people take the day off of work.
Apartment-wise, our new furniture FINALLY came in! So we each have our own beds now and closets! It's simply wonderful to not have to rife around in my suitcase for a clothes or to have to share my bed anymore! We also have a washer and dryer now! It's my first time not having to pay for laundry since I lived at home! I'm sure it will be great, but we haven't set it up yet, since it's really heavy and wrapped in a box. I'm pretty confident that we'll be able to figure it out though.
Other news - my cousin Anna is in Jerusalem for the next 2 weeks or so for a class trip! Tonight hopefully I'm grabbing a sherut from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem to see her and exchange belated Christmas presents. It's so strange the way that members of my family keep finding their way over here. About two years ago, my cousin Adam was here for a few weeks in January, then I came the following summer for two months to dig, then I moved here this year, and now Anna is visiting. So wonderful! Also one of my best friends from home Breanna and her mom will be coming for a week at the end of February! I'm really excited for their visit, simply so that I can show them Israel.
Israel is one of those countries that I feel that most people don't care to visit. What with terror attacks and it's proximity to "dangerous" countries in the Middle East, I feel like very few people come here unless they are Jewish. That's why I'm so excited to show my guests otherwise and to demonstrate that this really is a lovely country with such a rich history! I'm also excited for the opportunity to show them some of the historical sites and be able to explain a bit about some of my biblical historical passions!
Some of the things I love about my life in Israel right now are the really close friendships that I've developed with the other students in my program! We actually are like a big family and care very deeply for one another. I love the random moments when we realize that we communicate over facebook much more so than regular friends (due to us all not wanting to waste minutes on our pay-as-you-go phones). I love how when one of us is sick and misses class how the the rest the class is so willing to share their notes and to help catch them up. I love how after class some days, we all run to the mall to grab a falafel. Or the way we talk about archaeology kind of all the time.
I am in love with the location of my paper. It's so great being able to shop at the Shuk for all my produce. Lately I've been craving fresh fruit, and the shuk is right there! Right now my roommates and I are on a huge melon kick. So delicious! There is also a bakery, and I'm in love with their fresh bread loaves! We only tried it out this week because we needed some bread, and we got this kind that has tons of seeds in the crust, and it's so good! I like eating it with peanut butter. Another one of our favorite treats right now are these small baked cookies that have different fillings in them such as strawberry or fig or chocolate. Also very delicious.I love being able to see the Sea from my bedroom window. I love watching the sunset over the Mediterranean. I love watching the waves. It kind of reminds me of home, since I pretty much grew up on the beach of Lake Michigan and spent all my summers there.
I love waking up to this in the morning!
It was quite window on this morning; there are lots of people surfing!
I also love the long bus ride to school. Rather than simply rolling out of bed and staggering across the street to campus, we have to wake up early and make it to the bus stop by 9am, so that we can catch the bus. We're the first stop, so we luckily always get a seat. I like listening to my iPod and just looking out the window the whole 45-60-minute journey to school on the bus. It's still hard for me to wrap around my mind that this is my city now. It feels like I've lived in Tel Aviv forever (and it has been 3 months now), but then I remind myself that I have at least 7 months left here! Hopefully my Hebrew gets a little better during that time.
I also am growing to love the Middle Eastern fashion. In Tel Aviv, women wear lots of leggings or jeggings and boots and scarves. This is really perfect for me, since I actually hate wearing real pants, so getting away with wearing leggings everyday and dressing it up slightly with a scarf is simply fantastic. Unfortunately, this had developed into a slight scarf addiction, and now I've accumulated quite a lot. Also I've finally purchased harem pants!!! So stereotypical Middle Eastern, and I love them. Most comfortable pair of pants ever.
Okay, obviously this isn't me, but I do feel a lot like Princess Jasmine in them (sans the belly shirt, of course).
And lastly, I know I've raved about this before, but I absolutely love my coursework. In undergrad I also loved what I was studying...most of the time. I would go to class mostly prepared (unless it was a language class, then fear of appearing unprepared would cause me to over-prepare), here it's so easy for me to complete the required readings, usually the optional readings, and every time a professor mentions a book or an article if we'd like further information, I always jot it down. Additionally, since I hope to one day also be a professor and plan to teach later as a graduate student, I sometimes find myself subconsciously planning lessons and tagging articles for my future students to read someday! It's really been a great confirmation of my passions, and this is what I want to do in the future! At Michigan, I was incredibly lucky to have such great professors and mentors who helped guide me at Michigan and guide me to here. I've also been so lucky to expand that network of mentors to include many professors here who are also deeply interested and invested into my future in academia and in their field!
I know I keep promising to take pictures of my apartment and post them, but I still haven't done that, and our apartment is actually kind of messy right now, so hopefully we'll have cleaned by my next update, and I'll have pictures.
Hopefully my next update will come soon, but I can't make any promises since we have a few papers due as the semester winds down. I also have a gameboy emulator on my computer now, so my nights have been filled with lots of Pokemon playing. Grad school....
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