Sunday morning, I went to volunteering in an excellent mood. ;) Justus had me start looking into the case of Rachel Corrie, a kind of radical left-wing peace activist who came to Israel in 2003 and kneeled in front of a giant bulldozer. Thus, the bulldozer did not see her and ran her over, accidentally killing her. The point is, now her parents are trying to sue the Israeli government, saying that the bulldozer driver intentionally ran her over in cold blood. So now I'm doing research into talking points about the situation so that Justus can speak about it should he go on a lecture circuit. It's actually pretty interesting stuff. Sunday was also the first day I stayed for lunch and actually got to eat it with other interns, which was pretty cool--we ended up getting Holy Bagel.
When I got back from volunteering, Andrew was getting some beauty rest. He is sitting next to me and insisted that I write that. He was also particular about having me write "beauty rest" instead of "taking a nap," which is what I initially wrote. In any case, I awoke him and we went to our second Introduction to Jewish Art class, which was pretty good. We talked a lot about icons and images throughout Christian art history and started to get into Jewish art near the very end, which is what I've been waiting for.
Sunday was the first day the gym under Derech Hebron was open, so after class Nathan and I went down there and worked out for a while, which was good. After that, we headed down to campus for a bit to say goodbye to the Kuma people who left for Poland for a week.
Monday morning, instead of going to volunteering, I went to Beit Ar-El to be part of a panel for some Hadassah fundraising people to ask us questions. When I called Justus to inform him of this about a half an hour after I would usually get to volunteering, he told me that it was okay that I couldn't come, but I should try to make it in every day in the future, as people had been asking where I was ALL DAY. I somehow doubt that, and I kind of chuckled when he told me that. The Hadassah thing was fine, and afterwards I returned to the apartment and ate lunch before going to Ulpan and then Creative Non-Fiction Writing. Both of these were good, except for the fact that in Ulpan our teacher told us we were having a big test Thursday (tomorrow). In writing, we wrote a small piece about why Israel is a good place, and got our first real assignment, which is to write three pages about a specific thing on Year Course. That class just seems to be getting better and better.
After class, we had mifgash dirah with Emma, which was hysterical as usual. Then I went to the gym before going to sleep.
On Tuesday, instead of going to a siyur, I went to the Kotel and met my father's side of the family for my cousin Yuval's bar mitzvah. It was pretty cool, and Tuesday was the first day it was cold here. We met with a middle-aged religious guy who facilitated the whole thing across the mechitza. The ceremony was quite different from what I'm used to in America, and only consisted of a couple prayers and the reading of four aliyot. While we were there, Jews kept trying to go up to the temple mount (where the Dome of the Rock is) and I saw police grabbing them and literally throwing them back down the ramp up. After the ceremony, we went to a museum next to the kotel about the chain of generations in Judaism that was fairly corny, but after that we went to a delicious lunch at a restaurant called Carma. After lunch, my cousin Gil dropped me off at the top of Har Herzl, and I tried to find my way back with a bus. I took one bus towards Jaffa gate, got off at the central bus station, took an 18 (which stops near home) heading the wrong way and ended up exactly where I had started, then took an 18 in the opposite direction and got off at a stop for a 71, which goes right to my apartment. All in all, what should've taken something like half an hour took me three hours. It was fun to be lost for a while though. :P
When I finally got back on Tuesday, I took my clothes down to Beit Ar-El to do some laundry with Andrew, and it ended up taking far longer than I expected. We sat in a classroom for most of that time talking to Emma, which was good and quite funny.
Then today I awoke and went to volunteering, still working on the Rachel Corrie research. We had some great shwarma for lunch and I then returned to the apartment. Shortly after this, Nathan was down on campus and saw a great couch, so he called me and Scott and we went down to bring it up to the apartment. It is much better and comfier than our old couch, and we put it down for a little while on the way back to sit on it in the middle of the street:
When we got back, we put our old couch in front of Abby's apartment door to barricade them in and brought the new one out to our porch. It is fantastic so far, but there is concern among the apartment that on warmer days the fake leather will heat up and make it uncomfortable. We'll see.
I went to the gym very briefly before going to meet with Nathan's grandfather to get a free dinner, which was excellent, especially considering that we are very low on money on our apartment's food budget. When I got back, a lot of people in the building got in trouble for being belligerently drunk and then made their way away from the apartments. I decided not to join them because I have a lot of work to do tonight, and also because I'm participating in a 10k race for lone soldiers tomorrow. I haven't been training for it nearly as much as I had for the Nike Night Run or the Be'er Sheva 10k, but I hope I can maybe break 48 minutes--we'll see.
I hope you are doing well and that it is not nearly as cold wherever you are as it is here. Take it easy!
:)
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