So my 25th birthday came and went a week and a half ago. I had a party Friday night (the 14th) at my apartment and scared my roommates by inviting 80+ people on Facebook. However, I reassured them that I had thrown many parties before and if you wanted a good number of people there, you had to invite a lot more than you could ever want. Sure enough, we had the perfect amount of people coming and going throughout the night. There was definitely a strong camp representation from both the Israelis and Americans here. TASP and related folks were not so proportionately represented and so it turned out to a big GFC reunion of sorts. Absolutely no complaints here! There was some dancing, a few "it's a small world/country" incidents and a lot of new friendships formed or old friendships strengthened. It was a very successful and fun night. :)
The next day, some Israeli friends asked what I wanted to do and I responded with "not make decisions." So they planned for me! These friends: Idan, Meir, Doron and Noam, also happen to be my favorite Israeli guys. They took me to lunch and embarrassed me with the whole singing and dessert bit. As weird as it sounds, even with all the people tell me "Happy birthday" the night before, it didn't really feel like my birthday until that moment.
After lunch, I went to get a massage. Back at home, my wonderful roommates had made me a cake, complete with Reese's Cups, which I still have not seen in this country. They swear they exist at certain stores, but even after eating them, I am not convinced. They even bought me a fun apron (I cook a lot here.) with the statue of David on it, with the head missing. It's really funny to wear!
Since then, I've been working hard and keeping more than busy with grad school work and learning Hebrew. I've started to force myself to use the language more. I now write text messages and emails in Hebrew (when I can) to Idan. He responds in either Hebrew (to help me) or Spanish (to help himself). Also, many people are visiting the country in the next month on various programs. I'm meeting one of my best camp friends in J-town tomorrow night for dinner and another will be in TA this weekend. That's just the beginning of 9 visitors! I can't express how excited I am to get to see friends from home!
Oh, and Thursday night, I'm going to a $25 Christmas Party, with unlimited drinks and sushi. Apparently, it's pretty VIP-- should be celebrities there, too, though I will be shocked if I know who they are! The concept of Christmas here is really skewed. My students had trouble understanding why we weren't celebrating it like we did Halloween or Thanksgiving. I feel like this idea of it being an American holiday instead of a Christian one has permeated throughout the country. There are security guards sitting outside of bars wearing Santa hats. I suppose I can accept their embrace of the "Hallmark" aspects of the holiday, as long as I don't see a nativity scene outside of Bethlehem.
There are full albums on http://picasaweb.google.com/cpasses of my unexpected trip/layover in Paris, the beach hike I mentioned before, random trips to J-town and my recent trip to Greece. Check them out and let me know if you would like to pictures of other things I've written about.
From all of my students here in Israel, "Merry Christmas!"
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Monday, December 17, 2007
Pictures on the web!
I've uploaded all my pictures to the web. You can find the album at: http://picasaweb.google.com/cpasses/
Right now, they are caption-less, you it's up to you to guess what everything is! I'll label them soon. I'm planning on uploading other albums, here, also, of past & future events. I'll post here when I do, so you don't have to have two pages bookmarked to keep up with me.
Right now, they are caption-less, you it's up to you to guess what everything is! I'll label them soon. I'm planning on uploading other albums, here, also, of past & future events. I'll post here when I do, so you don't have to have two pages bookmarked to keep up with me.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Beware: This is long!
Being in a Jewish state means different school vacations. More important/longer holidays equal longer breaks in the school year. I think it’s going to take more than two years to get used to the new rhythm of the school year. Not having few days off at the end of November was so difficult, even though the school year started later than in the States. I guess that’s what happens when you’ve been following the rhythm of the American school system for 19 years. So, today is the last day of my week long Hanukkah break. The public school system doesn’t have another break until mid-April, but luckily the universities have about a month between semesters starting in mid-January, so I’ll have long weekends to take advantage of.
I spent my Hanukkah break in Athens, Greece. I have so much to say about it, I don’t know where to start. I will try to limit the "overexcessive" details (keyword meaning there will still be some details) and instead include Wikipedia links to many of the things I saw. Athens is only an hour and half away from Tel Aviv by plane, and we (Ali and her friend Aviel) left in the evening on Wednesday, after the TASP Hanukkah party and my private English lessons. We just checked into our hotel and went to sleep the first night. At the airport in Athens, I was designated the navigator and then realized, as I looked at the map on the train to the hotel, that I can actually read enough Greek to figure out where I am and where I need to go. (For example: ΑΘΗΝΑΣ says Athens.) I thank the Greek fraternity and sorority system that I was not a part of at Texas for this.
After sleeping in, we set out on our first day in Athens. We found a smoke-filled little cafe/bar to eat breakfast in. Almost every establishment in this country could have the words “smoke-filled” in front of it. I am beginning to wonder why we don’t hear more about the European lung-cancer rate. I’d be surprised if it’s not extremely high.
After breakfast (nothing special), we went to a little shopping area in the center of town called the Plaka. We were expecting a little more than an abundance of souvenir shops, and were told by one of the shop owners about the market in Piraeus, a port city, on Sundays. More walking around led us uphill, through lots of cute Greek houses toward the Acropolis (or that’s what the handpainted signs said). They did not lead us to the main entrance, but to a great view. When we found the gate, it was too late in the day. Same for the Roman Agora that we found afterward. So we noted that the archeology sites closed at 4:30 and headed back to the Plaka, where we discovered Starbucks. Seriously. Out of all the coffee shops in Israel, Starbucks is not one of them and we were very cold, so in we went. Prices were about the same as in the States, but in Euros, so it was more expensive. Having a cafe mocha just the way I like it was worth it, though. :)
We ate dinner at a very popular and crowded restaurant. I had beef moussaka & was happy to find that Dad’s is very similar, though not quite as good. If there weren’t so busy, I might have asked for the recipe for him…
Friday, we woke up early and took the metro to Piraeus and got on a fast boat to Aegina, which is the closest island** to the mainland (40 min away, 1.5 hours on the slow boat). We did a lot of walking around and exploring while deciding what to see. Then we hopped on a bus to go to the other side of the island and see the Temple of Aphaea. It was incredible. I was amazed that such a huge sanctuary would be built for one of the gods that wasn’t one of the “main characters”. I couldn’t wait to see one built for Zeus. For lunch, we started walking downhill toward the marina to find a restaurant. Jokingly, Ali stuck out her arm for a ride as a car drove past. It actually stopped!!! The guy was so friendly and gave us his card to call him if we were going back to the port in 2 hours and he’d give us a ride. He also directed us to one of the only open restaurants. Not much is open in the winter season, when only 10, 000 people live there. During the summer season, the man said the island has 50,000!
We sat at a table overlooking the water and ate delicious fish. Afterward, we took a little walk on the beach. We decided to wait for the bus instead of calling our new friend because we had already bought the ticket, but we were misinformed about the time. No one at the marina seemed to have the same answer. At this point, we had an hour and a half to catch the last boat leaving the island. We started walking back to the main road to see if we could find a cab, this time seriously sticking out our arm for a ride. One very helpful man stopped and offered to take us back to the marina where he would call a cab for us. There was actually one already there, waiting to take one person to the port, so we hopped in, too and got to the boat with about 10 minutes to spare! It was the slow boat and we were very hungry when we got back. Upon recommendation by a random person at the metro station, we ate at a restaurant in the Monastiraki neighborhood. I had a Greek salad, which contained a big slab of the best feta cheese I’ve ever eaten and souvlaki, which is just a chicken & tomato kebab with rice or pita on the side. I also had a Greek beer: Mythos. It didn’t taste too much different than a decent light beer, like Amstel Light.
Saturday, Ali and I left Aviel to entertain himself and went to Piraeus again to try to go to another island. We got there a little too late for the morning boats. They run constantly in the summer season, but only at certain times in the winter. We went back to Athens and decided to check out the National Archeology Museum. It was huge! I couldn’t believe how many artifacts and statues had been found. There were a lot of partial statues, but so many were whole and very large. It’s a wonder that they had been preserved so well for so long. There was also a display case of ancient medical tools. Many looked so similar to today’s tools that it made me reflect on what a truly advanced society they had. After eating at a cafe that made us wonder how much “American” stuff the country had before the 2004 Olympics and how much just stuck around afterward (ex: potato chips, Starbucks), we went back to the hotel and took a little nap. We ate in a neighborhood called Peristeri on the hotel’s recommendation. I think our waitress was the only one who spoke English and she was embarrassed by it. But she was extremely helpful in translating the menu, because that was also not available in English. I ordered something they didn’t have so she brought me something that was apparently similar. I don’t know what it was called, but it was turkey and some veggies roasted inside foil. Pretty good!
Aviel learned that the Acropolis, which is normally 12 Euros, is free on Sundays, so that is where we went that morning, before going to the Parliament building to see the special Changing of the Guards. The hill took us a little longer to walk up than we thought, and we stopped to look at the Theater of Dionysus, who was the god of wine, among other things. We didn’t have a ton of time, but we had enough to take plenty of pictures with the Parthenon and the other buildings like the small Temple of Athena Nike outside the Propylaea (the entranceway) and the Erectheon (for Athena, Poseidon and some lesser known gods). The view of Greece was amazing up there! The Parthenon is currently undergoing a restoration project to reverse damage of previous restorations in the late 1800’s and 1930’s, so there was a lot of scaffolding holding it up. It’s still a pretty inspiring sight. The thing that got me about all these temples and ancient structures was the size of all of them. The Greeks didn’t have the motorized machinery we have now and didn’t use metal products. We got to the Parliament just in time to see the Presidential Guards doing their routine with their funny outfits. After the two new guards were in place, we were able to take pictures with them. They are not allowed to move or speak and I was very good and resisted the temptation to take advantage of the situation. Maybe if there weren’t as many people standing around, watching and waiting for their turn. I found out that they get relieved by new guards, without ceremony, every hour.
Because of the rain the night before and in the morning, I was beginning to get what I could tell would be soon be a bad headache and my cold I’d started getting the day before we left Tel Aviv had reached it’s high point, I decided to go back to the hotel and nap with meds instead of going to the market at Piraeus. Turns out I didn’t miss much and I woke up feeling much better.
We got another hotel recommendation for dinner and went to a restaurant nearby called Arta. They were very friendly and the food was delicious. I had pastissio, which is similar to moussaka, but with pasta. We also had dolmas: rice wrapped in cooked olive leaves. At the end of the meal, since this was our last dinner, we each ordered baklava. We should have just ordered one. It looked like we had large pieces of pie on our plates. Ali and I wrapped most of ours up to take back to TA. (It actually lasted and was a nice reminder of the trip when I ate it later!)
Monday, we packed up our stuff, left it behind the lobby counter in the hotel (Don’t tell airport security!) and set out to explore some more archeological sites. Ali and Aviel did a very good job humoring my need to see lots of structures that looked very similar. We went to the Temple of Olympian Zeus and got a whistle blown at us as we ignored a rope and tried to get closer to a fallen column for a great photo. My companions found a coffee shop while I explored the Ancient Agora, which was the city center of Athens, with government buildings, temples and a long road that led to the Acropolis. The road, which hosted many actual chariot races, was kept up even through the Roman rule of Greece and beyond. In the agora is the Hephaestion, the most well preserved Greek temple today. It is dedicated to Hercules (his 12 labors were displayed on the front of the temple) and Hephaestus, the god of metal work and another god who presides over pottery.
We realized we were in the same neighborhood as on Friday, so we ate at the same restaurant. I got stuffed (with rice) peppers and fried meatballs, which are not as bad as they sound. :) Aviel really wanted to find the Jewish museum that a fellow Israeli had told him existed near the agora. Most people we talked to claimed it did not exist, including one woman who had “lived and worked in the this area for 7 years”. She and Aviel actually got into an argument about its existence. We finally asked the right person who directed us there perfectly. Unfortunately, it had closed a few hours before we got there. Who closes a museum at 2:30? It wasn’t even Shabbat! We headed back to the hotel and played cards in the lobby until it was time to go to the airport.
When we got there, we were told that we were not on the flight! Apparently, our travel agent at ISSTA (Israeli Student Travel Agency) had originally booked us to leave on the 12th, but changed it to the 10th when she found out the first date didn’t work for us. Problem was that she told us she changed it, but had forgotten (or something!) to validate the change in the computer. Changing the flight wasn’t actually as expensive or difficult as we thought, except for the fact that the check in counter and the flight changing counter were at opposite ends of the large hall and we were running out of time. Now, we just have to bring our receipts into the travel agent and make her fix her mistake by paying us back! (She knows she screwed up because she called me early the next morning to ask me where I was. I was too sleepy to mention anything. We’ll do it in person!)
We got into TA at about 1:00 am and were lucky enough to have Aviel’s brother and sister waiting to drive us home. I will post a link to all the pictures as soon as Aviel comes over to transfer them from his camera, since my is broken. I took some with disposable cameras; hopefully they turned out well. This short trip to Athens left me with a desire to go back and check out other cities on mainland Greece and some more islands. Anyone want to join me???
**There are about 1400 islands of Greece, of which 227 are inhabited (or maybe just 169 as quoted by the Greek Ministry of Press and Mass Media from a 1999 survey quoted in 'About Greece'). Only 78 islands have more than 100 inhabitants. (source: Wikipedia; Greek islands)
I spent my Hanukkah break in Athens, Greece. I have so much to say about it, I don’t know where to start. I will try to limit the "overexcessive" details (keyword meaning there will still be some details) and instead include Wikipedia links to many of the things I saw. Athens is only an hour and half away from Tel Aviv by plane, and we (Ali and her friend Aviel) left in the evening on Wednesday, after the TASP Hanukkah party and my private English lessons. We just checked into our hotel and went to sleep the first night. At the airport in Athens, I was designated the navigator and then realized, as I looked at the map on the train to the hotel, that I can actually read enough Greek to figure out where I am and where I need to go. (For example: ΑΘΗΝΑΣ says Athens.) I thank the Greek fraternity and sorority system that I was not a part of at Texas for this.
After sleeping in, we set out on our first day in Athens. We found a smoke-filled little cafe/bar to eat breakfast in. Almost every establishment in this country could have the words “smoke-filled” in front of it. I am beginning to wonder why we don’t hear more about the European lung-cancer rate. I’d be surprised if it’s not extremely high.
After breakfast (nothing special), we went to a little shopping area in the center of town called the Plaka. We were expecting a little more than an abundance of souvenir shops, and were told by one of the shop owners about the market in Piraeus, a port city, on Sundays. More walking around led us uphill, through lots of cute Greek houses toward the Acropolis (or that’s what the handpainted signs said). They did not lead us to the main entrance, but to a great view. When we found the gate, it was too late in the day. Same for the Roman Agora that we found afterward. So we noted that the archeology sites closed at 4:30 and headed back to the Plaka, where we discovered Starbucks. Seriously. Out of all the coffee shops in Israel, Starbucks is not one of them and we were very cold, so in we went. Prices were about the same as in the States, but in Euros, so it was more expensive. Having a cafe mocha just the way I like it was worth it, though. :)
We ate dinner at a very popular and crowded restaurant. I had beef moussaka & was happy to find that Dad’s is very similar, though not quite as good. If there weren’t so busy, I might have asked for the recipe for him…
Friday, we woke up early and took the metro to Piraeus and got on a fast boat to Aegina, which is the closest island** to the mainland (40 min away, 1.5 hours on the slow boat). We did a lot of walking around and exploring while deciding what to see. Then we hopped on a bus to go to the other side of the island and see the Temple of Aphaea. It was incredible. I was amazed that such a huge sanctuary would be built for one of the gods that wasn’t one of the “main characters”. I couldn’t wait to see one built for Zeus. For lunch, we started walking downhill toward the marina to find a restaurant. Jokingly, Ali stuck out her arm for a ride as a car drove past. It actually stopped!!! The guy was so friendly and gave us his card to call him if we were going back to the port in 2 hours and he’d give us a ride. He also directed us to one of the only open restaurants. Not much is open in the winter season, when only 10, 000 people live there. During the summer season, the man said the island has 50,000!
We sat at a table overlooking the water and ate delicious fish. Afterward, we took a little walk on the beach. We decided to wait for the bus instead of calling our new friend because we had already bought the ticket, but we were misinformed about the time. No one at the marina seemed to have the same answer. At this point, we had an hour and a half to catch the last boat leaving the island. We started walking back to the main road to see if we could find a cab, this time seriously sticking out our arm for a ride. One very helpful man stopped and offered to take us back to the marina where he would call a cab for us. There was actually one already there, waiting to take one person to the port, so we hopped in, too and got to the boat with about 10 minutes to spare! It was the slow boat and we were very hungry when we got back. Upon recommendation by a random person at the metro station, we ate at a restaurant in the Monastiraki neighborhood. I had a Greek salad, which contained a big slab of the best feta cheese I’ve ever eaten and souvlaki, which is just a chicken & tomato kebab with rice or pita on the side. I also had a Greek beer: Mythos. It didn’t taste too much different than a decent light beer, like Amstel Light.
Saturday, Ali and I left Aviel to entertain himself and went to Piraeus again to try to go to another island. We got there a little too late for the morning boats. They run constantly in the summer season, but only at certain times in the winter. We went back to Athens and decided to check out the National Archeology Museum. It was huge! I couldn’t believe how many artifacts and statues had been found. There were a lot of partial statues, but so many were whole and very large. It’s a wonder that they had been preserved so well for so long. There was also a display case of ancient medical tools. Many looked so similar to today’s tools that it made me reflect on what a truly advanced society they had. After eating at a cafe that made us wonder how much “American” stuff the country had before the 2004 Olympics and how much just stuck around afterward (ex: potato chips, Starbucks), we went back to the hotel and took a little nap. We ate in a neighborhood called Peristeri on the hotel’s recommendation. I think our waitress was the only one who spoke English and she was embarrassed by it. But she was extremely helpful in translating the menu, because that was also not available in English. I ordered something they didn’t have so she brought me something that was apparently similar. I don’t know what it was called, but it was turkey and some veggies roasted inside foil. Pretty good!
Aviel learned that the Acropolis, which is normally 12 Euros, is free on Sundays, so that is where we went that morning, before going to the Parliament building to see the special Changing of the Guards. The hill took us a little longer to walk up than we thought, and we stopped to look at the Theater of Dionysus, who was the god of wine, among other things. We didn’t have a ton of time, but we had enough to take plenty of pictures with the Parthenon and the other buildings like the small Temple of Athena Nike outside the Propylaea (the entranceway) and the Erectheon (for Athena, Poseidon and some lesser known gods). The view of Greece was amazing up there! The Parthenon is currently undergoing a restoration project to reverse damage of previous restorations in the late 1800’s and 1930’s, so there was a lot of scaffolding holding it up. It’s still a pretty inspiring sight. The thing that got me about all these temples and ancient structures was the size of all of them. The Greeks didn’t have the motorized machinery we have now and didn’t use metal products. We got to the Parliament just in time to see the Presidential Guards doing their routine with their funny outfits. After the two new guards were in place, we were able to take pictures with them. They are not allowed to move or speak and I was very good and resisted the temptation to take advantage of the situation. Maybe if there weren’t as many people standing around, watching and waiting for their turn. I found out that they get relieved by new guards, without ceremony, every hour.
Because of the rain the night before and in the morning, I was beginning to get what I could tell would be soon be a bad headache and my cold I’d started getting the day before we left Tel Aviv had reached it’s high point, I decided to go back to the hotel and nap with meds instead of going to the market at Piraeus. Turns out I didn’t miss much and I woke up feeling much better.
We got another hotel recommendation for dinner and went to a restaurant nearby called Arta. They were very friendly and the food was delicious. I had pastissio, which is similar to moussaka, but with pasta. We also had dolmas: rice wrapped in cooked olive leaves. At the end of the meal, since this was our last dinner, we each ordered baklava. We should have just ordered one. It looked like we had large pieces of pie on our plates. Ali and I wrapped most of ours up to take back to TA. (It actually lasted and was a nice reminder of the trip when I ate it later!)
Monday, we packed up our stuff, left it behind the lobby counter in the hotel (Don’t tell airport security!) and set out to explore some more archeological sites. Ali and Aviel did a very good job humoring my need to see lots of structures that looked very similar. We went to the Temple of Olympian Zeus and got a whistle blown at us as we ignored a rope and tried to get closer to a fallen column for a great photo. My companions found a coffee shop while I explored the Ancient Agora, which was the city center of Athens, with government buildings, temples and a long road that led to the Acropolis. The road, which hosted many actual chariot races, was kept up even through the Roman rule of Greece and beyond. In the agora is the Hephaestion, the most well preserved Greek temple today. It is dedicated to Hercules (his 12 labors were displayed on the front of the temple) and Hephaestus, the god of metal work and another god who presides over pottery.
We realized we were in the same neighborhood as on Friday, so we ate at the same restaurant. I got stuffed (with rice) peppers and fried meatballs, which are not as bad as they sound. :) Aviel really wanted to find the Jewish museum that a fellow Israeli had told him existed near the agora. Most people we talked to claimed it did not exist, including one woman who had “lived and worked in the this area for 7 years”. She and Aviel actually got into an argument about its existence. We finally asked the right person who directed us there perfectly. Unfortunately, it had closed a few hours before we got there. Who closes a museum at 2:30? It wasn’t even Shabbat! We headed back to the hotel and played cards in the lobby until it was time to go to the airport.
When we got there, we were told that we were not on the flight! Apparently, our travel agent at ISSTA (Israeli Student Travel Agency) had originally booked us to leave on the 12th, but changed it to the 10th when she found out the first date didn’t work for us. Problem was that she told us she changed it, but had forgotten (or something!) to validate the change in the computer. Changing the flight wasn’t actually as expensive or difficult as we thought, except for the fact that the check in counter and the flight changing counter were at opposite ends of the large hall and we were running out of time. Now, we just have to bring our receipts into the travel agent and make her fix her mistake by paying us back! (She knows she screwed up because she called me early the next morning to ask me where I was. I was too sleepy to mention anything. We’ll do it in person!)
We got into TA at about 1:00 am and were lucky enough to have Aviel’s brother and sister waiting to drive us home. I will post a link to all the pictures as soon as Aviel comes over to transfer them from his camera, since my is broken. I took some with disposable cameras; hopefully they turned out well. This short trip to Athens left me with a desire to go back and check out other cities on mainland Greece and some more islands. Anyone want to join me???
**There are about 1400 islands of Greece, of which 227 are inhabited (or maybe just 169 as quoted by the Greek Ministry of Press and Mass Media from a 1999 survey quoted in 'About Greece'). Only 78 islands have more than 100 inhabitants. (source: Wikipedia; Greek islands)
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