Sunday, January 31, 2010

Continuation of One!

So I think I ended with coming back from the Old City on Friday. We were in a cab on the way back from school and we were stopped in the middle of a demonstration. Kinda scary. It was a demonstration for the land that the Jewish people were building houses on. There were Arabs, Jews, Christians all for the protest against this tiny house. So we made it back to school and then we had a HUGE Shabbot dinner in my apartment. There were like twenty people here and we had a ton of food, great chicken and lots of wine. We had challah, wine, candles, and then people began singing Jewish songs. It was a ton of fun. Ew though, our floor was so gross after people left and we don't have a mop yet :(. I didn't do much after dinner, hung out with some people. My second Saturday was very low key during the day. I did some homework, organized my room, cleaned the apartment. Not too much. Later that night I went to the community of Pisgat Zeev for Tu-Besh-Vat. This is like Arbor Day in Israel. Wagner has a requirement for me to do community service for ten hours a week at this Jewish Community Center as the JCC on Staten Island is the sister JCC to Pisgat Zeev. I was met by Yoel, who is helping me with the transition between the JCC's. It was a lot of fun, and I am really excited to be going up there each week. It makes me feel as if I have a family already over here. I was introduced to many people in the community, and they were excited to finally meet me as they knew that a student would be arriving soon.

On the way back, we drove through the West Bank! Yes! The West Bank! We are so close to it. It was nothing like I expected. We drove right through the security without being stopped and then we went to see a Jewish settlement. I was a little nervous, but then we were back in Israel. It is so confusing though between what is Arab land and what is Jewish land. I really can't even begin to explain as I still don't fully know. I'll fill you all in though :) So finally I am up to Sunday, which is today! We had class today, really weird to have classes on Sunday. I keep catching myself staring out the window during class looking at the West Bank and the Mosques. Hmmm I think I should be paying attention, but it really is beautiful to just look out onto the desert. After class ended, we had our academic orientation for our classes. It sounds so unorganized and just not fun to register. Worse than WWAM! Iknow! I can't even imagine something worse than that. Oh well, I'll be registering sometime within the week. Not sure what my classes are, I have a meeting with my advisor this week as well.

I cooked my first dinner by myself tonight! I cooked ground chicken, with spices!!!!!! Thanks Ro! And then some spaghetti sauce with spaghetti. Really good. I was so proud of myself! :) Did a little homework, still trying to sound out all of the sounds and then trying to figure out what it actually means. Now I feel like downloading some pictures to Facebook and then they will be up here shortly! But I miss all of you! And I am so excited to have followers and I love that I can share this with you! Adios!

1 comment:

  1. OMG Katie Jo cooked? What are they doing to you over there!? lol :)

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