Friday, April 3, 2009

LONG week

Oy. Sorry for putting this off so late. but it's been a long week.
Saturday was loads of fun! We headed out pretty early; I got a taxi to mom and Jaime's place, they hopped in, and we headed to where the Sherut taxis pull up. We had to wait a little bit for our taxi to fill up, and then we were off...Got to TA, waited on the corner and watched the incredibly multi-cultural mix of people coming and going in the busy intersection by the bus station while we waited for Adrienne.  She eventually showed up, and we headed to a neighborhood called Neve Yaacov, wandered around, found our way to the beach, and walked along it for a good long while, watching the waves, feeling the wind, seeing people wind-surfing and working out on these funny outdoor gyms that TA has all over the place...ran into a bunch of people doing Israeli folk dancing, must have been a class. It was fun. We finally got to our destination, HaYarkon park, which is a nice park by a river that separates Tel Aviv from Ramat Aviv, which is where TAU is. We were exhausted by the time we got there, so we just sat and rested for a while, and also called Adrienne's cousin John who is one of my brother's best friends from home. Then we headed to Adrienne's apartment, which is itty bitty but HERS, and she gave me a key so if i need it I have an apartment too :-D. She packed up some stuff, then we went to find dinner. We ended up at a place called Bar Gurion, where Mom and I got shnitzel, Jaime got a sandwich he got to "create", and Adrienne got some pasta. Then we caught a taxi back to the bus station and got on a sherut which left very quickly for Jerusalem. Got back to the city, caught a taxi home...Um...I don't remember what we did on saturday night. Not much,  I don't think.
Sunday, Mom and Jaime were a lot later than I had hoped, so we just grabbed a take-away breakfast at Aroma before heading to school. We went the outdoor route, and I got to show them the botanical gardens and such. My class was pretty boring, but they had books and food, so they just sat in the back. Then we headed out to my internship. I brought them to the YMCA and showed them the Gan (preschool) where I work, showed them my boss' frog-filled office although my boss wasn't there, then they went off to do their own thing while I worked. Just a normal day with the babies...when i got out of work, mom and jaime had been down to Emek Refaim, had ice cream, and were back waiting for me. We stopped at the chocolate shop near the YMCA that i've been wanting to check out and I got two small chocolates, then we headed to the Old City again. Turns out it's really easy to get to the Kotel from King David street! So yeah, we did that whole deal, had dinner...as it started to get dark, we headed back to my room. On the way home, we made plans to meet our tour guide from our first trip here 10 years ago (August 1999!) at Aroma. We had a little bit of time in the room first, then we went and met her. She is still wonderful, and even invited me to seder! It was wonderful to see her again, she really made that trip memorable. After about an hour with her, mom and jaime had to head back to their room to pack and rest up for their long day of travel, and Francis was nice enough to offer them a ride. After several long hugs, I had to say goodbye to my family :-(( it was such a nice week! I was super-sad to see them go.  
The rest of the week was...blah. I had midterms. things just dragged. midterms were okay though. Oh, and I had another field trip, this time to the Israel museum, where they have a scale model of Jerusalem in the second-temple period. It's cute. and really detailed. and i met a couple from Newton (about 40 minutes from my hometown). Yeah. Other than that...Nothing really happened until last night. I had this program for my education class on something called BiblioDrama. it's where you read bits of a Torah portion out loud, and then the facilitator asks you questions that you have to answer as if you were a certain character. AKA "You're Moses. how does it make you feel that _____" and "would you rather be an Egyptian or an Israelite right now?" (if you can't tell, we were doing a Passover themed BiblioDrama). It was actually pretty interesting, and I can definately see how Hebrew school teachers of mine used elements of it, and I can see how I could use it if I ever end up teaching Hebrew school. 
After that, I went home, and then Emily, Sarah, Bekah and I went up the hill to Burgers Bar, a chain restaurant that a lot of people love. I got shnitzel. it was pretty yummy, although the garlic-mayo dipping sauce i got made my tummy hurt. We also went to Mr Zol while we were up there, and I got some matzoh, some apple chips, some pesadich (kosher for passover) cookies, and some rice cakes. I also discovered that they DO have a cheese counter, and they even have semi-decent cheddar! dunno prices, but i'll figure it out. I will pay almost anything for cheddar! 
Eventually we headed home...watched some QAF then went to bed. 
Today, we went to ben yehuda street so that emily could get some sunglasses and sunscreen for her trip to Cyprus this coming weekend (although the prices on the latter were so obscene that i convinced her to just take my huge bottle of 15 instead), and so Bekah could pick up some last-minute gifts for home. She is not coming back to school after the break. Sarah and i got bagels for breakfast...real bagels are such a treat and so welcome! Then we met up with a friend of Sarah's. I got a crepe, we walked around and tried to find her friend some nice shoes, Sarah got a crepe, em got a milkshake, and we headed home. Gathered some stuff, put on sunscreen, and went outside to lie on the (gross, prickly) grass for a while. it was HOT. I stuck it out longer than em and sarah, but eventually felt like i was melting alive and came inside and crashed on my bed instead. And yeah. that's pretty much you, up to date.  I promise I won't let it be another week, okay? 
<3

5 comments:

  1. thanks for the nice update. maybe somebody else will comment here, too ;^)

    l/dad

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  2. whycome is she not coming back to school? sounds like the weather is finally being 'israeli'!

    l/mom

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  3. *Comments so that your dad doesnt think hes the only one to comment*

    hi!

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  4. thanks Gabs. hope your adventure is going well, too.
    /shaina's dad

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  5. Even though you probably wont get a chance to read this, my adventure is going great, thank you Jeff! I hope you have a good pesach at home. give my love to Sandy for me!

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