Welcome
back! I’m sitting in my dorm room on a mountaintop in Jerusalem, admiring the
view. It’s been quite a busy week, and it’s not over yet, but I thought I’d
take a few minutes to let you know how it was going. A couple of notes to start
off: one, I’m staying here for the entire semester, until the beginning of
June, and two, the time difference between the central US and Israel is 8
hours.
My jet
lag isn’t as bad as could be expected, probably because my schedule wasn’t that
normal in the first place, so even though I haven’t settled into a routine here
yet, I also don’t have to get out of my routine from the states. The plane ride
over was very nice – I’d never flown Turkish air before, and they give you
three meals and a whole variety of accessories. Besides that, the flight wasn’t
that full, so I had three seats to curl up and nap on during the 11.5-hour
flight to Istanbul.
Sarah
picked me up at the airport, and I stayed at their apartment for the night. The
morning was a little hectic because of the two little ones and a meeting Josh
and Sarah had to get to, but Sarah was able to take me to Jerusalem and drop me
off at campus (all before ten in the morning). I filled out all the forms, got
my key, found my room, and started settling in. There was quite a bit to worry
about yesterday – not only settling in, but finishing my placement test,
signing up for trips outside class, and all the other little things that go
with moving in.
The
scenery around Mount Scopus is breathtaking enough that even if it weren’t
Jerusalem, I would love to stay here. It’s about a 15-minute walk from my dorm
to the other side of campus, where my classes are, but it’s a very nice walk,
and the weather is beautiful right now. There’s also a really beautiful
botanical garden en route.
In case
anyone’s worried, by the way, you have to go through a bag check, id check, and
metal detector in order to get onto main campus, and only staff and students
can get in without prior notification. Basically, imagine that all of Israel
has the atmosphere of an airport in the States: no jokes about terrorism, no
unattended bags, etc.
Anyway,
by noon yesterday I was exhausted from so many unfamiliar situations and people
and trying to worry about so many things at once. When I’d gotten everything
done for the morning, I went back to my room, locked the door, closed the
window, wrapped up in a blanked and just lied there in silence for half-an-hour
or so. I don’t know how extraverts relax, but sometimes I just have to lie down
by myself and think, or I hit a shutdown point. Anyway, after that I felt my
energy coming back and headed out for the rest of the day.
The main
event of the afternoon, outside of several other errands, was orientation. I
usually find orientations disorienting, since they usually involve trying to
take in a ton of information and cultural/security warnings in the space of an
hour or two, but this one wasn’t that bad. And afterwards, the leaders took a
group to go shopping for kitchen utensils, bathroom supplies, food, and etc. I
don’t think anyone got everything they wanted, but it certainly helped for
immediate needs.
I also
got to translate for the first time. We went to a bagel shop yesterday and,
since most of our little group didn’t speak much Hebrew, asked for an English menu.
The waitress explained (in Hebrew) that the English menu wasn’t right, which I
translated, and we ended up with Hebrew menus. As it turned out, what people
wanted wasn’t on the menu anyway, but it was nice to know I could translate if
needed.
And the
week isn’t over yet. The weekend here is Friday and Saturday, but I have my
first class in a few hours. And after class, there’s an overnight trip to the
desert in which I’m participating, that lasts until tomorrow evening. And then
there will be time to rest and recharge, and get ready to start classes and
start exploring Jerusalem and Israel. I’ll let you know how it goes next week –
I’ll probably be posting Tuesday or Wednesday, so stay tuned! Oh, and hello from
Jerusalem!
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