Spontaneous Day!

I don’t know why I didn’t blog about this earlier, but I had a very fun, spontaneous day a few weeks ago. I had been thinking that I needed to break out of my routine and go explore this country more, but homework and class was preventing that. And then one Saturday (the 15th, I think), my friend Meir, who lives in J-town, but comes to TA often because his brother lives here called me around 1pm. He asked what I was doing.

Me: Not much.
Him: Are you going to be doing anything in the next few hours?
Me: Just reading for the university, but it’s no big deal, why?
Him: I want you to go to this birthday party with me. How long will it take you to get ready?
Me: about 30 min, maybe
Him: How about 10? I’m at Ben Yehuda and Nordau. (literally 2 blocks away...so much less than 10 mins away)
Me: Um...ok. Then let me go so I can get ready!

Exactly 10 minutes later, I was downstairs & getting into his car. Now, I had assumed that this party was in TA. I was wrong. It was in a little kibbutz-like place called Pardes Hana, near the ancient Roman town of Caesarea, which is now a national park. It’s only about a 30-40 minute drive, but in a country this small, that’s about equivalent to driving from Austin to San Antonio for a party. The party was small, just people hanging out in a backyard. I knew a few of Meir’s friends that were there, including the “birthday boy”, Amos, but I always have to concentrate really hard to understand what’s going on because they think I know more Hebrew than I do & so they don’t translate much for me. In reality, these are exactly the kind of situations I need to be putting myself in. Meir’s definitely the most patient of my Israeli friends. He asks me questions or will tell me little things in Hebrew and wait for me to answer in Hebrew. He also doesn’t mind me saying, “Ma?” (“What?”) all the time, he’ll just say it slower or in English.
Anyway, after being at the “party” for about an hour, Meir and I left and took a little detour to Caesarea. It was a Roman port city and a very ritzy beach town has developed around the national park. In fact, if you just say you’re going to go to the restaurants, you don’t have to pay the national park entrance fee. (We were honest.) There are parts of the ancient city, like the aquaduct, that you can visit without paying because it’s just on the beach. Israelis hang out on the beach like they’re not in the shadows of history. I suppose it’s difficult to live in a history-laden country like this, though, and always be impressed.
We didn’t take any kind of tour, just grabbed a few maps and explored for about an hour and a half. It was so interesting seeing all the ancient structures in ruins and just next to the sidewalk without being roped off. I made a comment to Meir about how it because it was so different than what I saw in Greece. He bluntly reminded me that Israel has had a few more wars here and that the Jews here didn’t care as much as the Greeks about preserving Roman Christian artifacts. In fact, the ancient theater now has seat numbers on it and is a pretty hip concert venue.
Afterward, we drove back into TA (which took a long time because there was major traffic) to go eat dinner at the restaurant where his friend, Evyatar worked. I still didn’t want to go home and do homework, so I took him up on his invitation to go with him and Evyatar to their friend Inbal’s boyfriend’s apartment to watch Israeli Survivor. I had met and hung out with them all before, so I knew I would be comfortable. After driving around Givatayim (a suburb of TA) for about 45 minutes because of bad directions, we arrived! It was fun and I was impressed with my ability to figure out what was going on in the show. Granted, all these reality shows are the same and Meir had to tell me about the relationships between some people, but I was happy with myself nonetheless.
We dropped Evyatar off at his apartment first and then Meir drove me home. I got out of the car at 11 pm- literally 10 hours later! Luckily, I don’t have to leave for class until 9:30 on Sundays, because I got up in the morning to finish my reading! That day totally reenergized me about living here. I had becoming semi-negative because of my routine. The next weekend, though, was Purim, a holiday similar to Halloween, but with a very different story and history, but I got sick before the weekend and missed out. Since then, I’ve had 2 non-consecutive totally headache free days. Now, I’m congested with a sinus headache. I can’t wait to go home for the Passover vacation. 12 days...12 days...12 days...

(pictures of Caesarea will be up once I finish my disposable camera & develop it.)

A few thoughts...

I can't believe it's been a month since I've posted anything. Here's what I've been doing: work, university, Hebrew, homework, going to the gym, waiting for buses. I went to J-town 3 weekends in a row for a camp reunion dinner, an Israeli politics seminar, and an Idan Raichel concert (check him out...pretty cool, ethnic/rock music). Oh, and there was a week in there that I had a mild case of the flu and missed work and university. Fun stuff. :\
I went to another seminar this weekend on Israel and the Diaspora and their relationship. It was really interesting. We talked a little about the attack & it was weird (for me) in light of the bombing in Times Square this week (Tues or Wed, maybe?) to think about how my connections have changed a little bit. I felt more affected by what happened in Jerusalem than I did by what happened in NY. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that no one was hurt in New York, but I think a little of it has to do with where I am...
This was the first beach weather weekend! Luckily, the first part of the seminar was outside at a national park and my discussion group at the hotel kept meeting outside. I put my space heater away and pulled out my fan. I can't tell you how excited this makes me!
I don't remember if I've posted this or not before, but the bats in Tel Aviv are HUGE! I did a little research and found out that they are Egytpian fruit bats, which is "a fairly large 'flying fox' type bat with an intelligent looking face. They are particulalry fond of ficus sycamore trees, a tree which is especially common in certain parks and boulevards in Tel Aviv." Apparently there are smaller bats in other parts of the country. Only we get the huge, scary ones. They may have an "intelligent face", but I've only had the scary experience of them swooping around me as I'm waiting for the bus or getting out of ulpan.
I'll be home in 34 days to visit!