Countdown to Vacation

            Well, we’ve finally reached the last week of classes for this semester. By the time I post again, I will have finished the semester and just be waiting for my flight home. It’s finally time to buckle down and study for finals, as well as going to see a few more sights.

            I spent this weekend, though, seeing friends. It was very relaxing, especially since we got an extra day off for Shavuot/Passover. The couple I was staying with took their kids and joined their neighbors in a Shavuot celebration, and I spent a nice evening doing classwork and independent study, with an empty apartment and a real pepperoni pizza to keep me company. It was amazing.

            At Harvard, classes get fairly intense as they conclude, followed by a week of preparation and then several weeks of finals. Here, it’s much more like high school. We watched a movie in my Hebrew class, and we’re having parties in a couple of my classes. We’re still studying, but things are much more relaxed. In addition, my International Law class has already finished our curriculum, so we don’t have classes this week. There are still exams to worry about, but the atmosphere is still very calm.

            Today, for instance, I only had one class, so I spent my afternoon in the old city. I’ve been meaning to visit the Tower of David Museum for months, and now I have. I’m going to miss the preponderance of ruins here; you can always find more. In most places, museums have rocks and relics in cases, surrounded by signs to explain what they are. In Jerusalem, the signs are in the middle, surrounded by the ruins themselves – the walls, the mosaics, the layouts.

            We spent a couple hours learning about Jerusalem’s history, then spent a while walking down Ben Yehuda street. It was 109 degrees Fahrenheit today, and we bought ice cream that tasted very good. I also picked up some Baklava along the way – probably the last I’m going to get for a while.

            My courses have already finished their classwork. In Hebrew, we’ve finished our irregular verbs and are just doing review. In formal Arabic, my tutor and I have agreed to have one last review session. In colloquial Arabic, we’re having a coffee clutch to learn some Arabic slang and hang out. In Palestinian History and Society, we had one last session to talk about the final and options for a permanent solution. And in International Law, as I’ve said, we’ve finished; I just need to turn in my already-written essay.

            I’ve learned a lot this semester. Despite being ready to go home, I’m going to miss all of my classes. I know a lot of people don’t do well in lecture-formatted classes, but I enjoy them, and I’ve gained a lot from my elective classes this year. My language classes, and the practice I’ve had living here, have also improved my Hebrew and Arabic a lot. And I’ve had time to do some independent study and reading as well, including classics and German.

            I’ve also learned a lot about life this semester. I’ve learned about using free time, since I actually have free time this semester. I’ve learned how to buy my own food and supplies, how to keep my room and suite reasonably clean, how to get around in a foreign country with multiple languages, how to plan my own sightseeing trips, and a bunch of other little things.

            But I’ll leave the rest of my ending thoughts for next week. For now, I need to finish studying and check the last few things off my list. Almost there!

Pictures!

This is one of the best selfies I think I've ever taken...

This is the view of Jerusalem from outside my school building (all our classes are in one building on campus that houses the international school).

 This is the building itself.

 This is the promenade at the top of the Tower of David, as well as the view from the railing.

 This is the ruins inside the tower.

 This is a statue of a Crusader soldier fighting a Muslim soldier; it's in front of the exit from the tower.

 This picture kind of sums up Jerusalem:thousand-year-old walls, modern-day trucks, and security barriers laying around just in case.

Thank you to Bekah for all the pictures she took of me!

Final Checklist

           Only a week-and-a-half until finals, and then I’m headed home! It’s been a great semester; it’s not quite over yet, but I’m already starting to miss it. I’m whittling down my checklist of things to do before I leave.

            Quite a few things got checked off my list this week, although I stayed on campus for most of the weekend. Friday was Nakba day, the Palestinian commemoration of the war of 1948, and Sunday was Jerusalem Day, the celebration of the Israeli taking of Jerusalem in 1967, which is still quite the controversial issue. We heard news of riots, tear gassing, and the like, but nothing affected me directly; I was working happily away in my dorm room.

            However, while we didn’t get Sunday off for the national holiday, Monday was a “student day,” since apparently there aren’t enough holidays around here, so friends and I went to the Old City to do a little shopping and check a few things off my to-do list. First up was a trip to the Prayer Center to pick up the Bluetooth I accidentally left there when my parents were visiting. Since I had friends with me, we were able to get a quick tour and spend some time in the prayer room before leaving.

            Next we found the Church of the Redeemer and climbed to the top of their bell tower, which offered an excellent view of Jerusalem. It was a beautiful day, and we could see all the way to Jordan in places. There was also an archeological park under the church which we toured – we’re always up for more ancient ruins. After taking a ton of pictures there, we found a small café in which to eat lunch. I hadn’t had shawarma in a while, and although it was great, there was so much of it that I skipped my next dinner and breakfast. Finally, we grabbed some groceries before heading out. I am really going to miss the fresh fruit prices here.

            It was Tuesday before I felt the school week had actually started, although we did have a Hebrew aural exam today. Aural exams always make me nervous – they’re just listening comprehension, so you don’t have to study for them, but if you don’t know a few of the key words, you’re in trouble. It was much easier than I’d expected, though, so life is good. Also, my International Law class finished our curriculum today, so we don’t have class next week.

            I know that it’s really hard to keep little kids focused on schoolwork right before the summer. The same thing applies to undergraduates. None of my classes have full attendance anymore, and everyone has a hard time doing work. The holidays make it harder – resting is now our normal state. We have another holiday on Sunday, by the way: it’s Shavuot/Pentacost. Yes, we have a holiday on the last week of school. It’s not supposed to make sense; this country is crazy.

            I’m not ready to say it’s a good craziness, but I have grown to love it here. I enjoyed studying abroad in Jordan, but it was nice to have the familiarity and structure of a college environment while still being able to go out and explore – and between actually knowing the foreign language and being in a much more feminist country, exploring also became a whole lot easier. After a hectic year-and-a-half at Harvard, it’s been lovely to sit back and just enjoy life, and work on all the small projects that usually only get done over Christmas break.

            For once, though, despite the relaxed pace, I actually feel like I’ve learned a great deal. My non-language classes have given me a great deal of insight into the situation here, and my languages show marked progress. Over this semester, I’ve had time to increase my knowledge, and also to ponder the big questions in life, like the meaning of peace, and how many tour busses can fit in a traffic circle without getting stuck.

            I’ll be posting two more times this semester – next week and finals week – and then I’ll be offline, but tune back in to hear about by summer study abroad in England. It’s hard to believe that in a month-and-a-half, I’ll be studying abroad in still another country, but first it’s time to stop and savor my last moments here, and then get excited about returning home. Until next week, then!

 Pictures:
Here's one of the views from the bell tower:

 Hebrew University, also from the bell tower:

All those stories about people hanging out on their roofs? Yeah, they still do it.

There are no bad pictures of the Dome of the Rock.

The staircase was very narrow and very windy - at one point, the three of us had to squeeze into a window alcove to let people by.

 This is the Church of the Redeemer itself:

 My camera wouldn't take very good pictures of the ruins because of the lighting (they're located beneath the church, underground).

 The church courtyard was also very pretty.

 It's a German church, so I got to practice all three of the languages I'm learning!

 The cafe where we ate - so much food!

 Grocery-shopping... ish...

Hiking in Herodium

            This past weekend we visited Herodium, one of Herod’s palaces a little south of Jerusalem. We started out bright and early, since we had to get back before everything closed for the Sabbath. We rented a car to get there, which ended up being a hassle – credit cards weren’t working, we didn’t have the right identification, and etc. Luckily, between the three of us, we got it figured out and were soon on our way.

            The second problem came when we realized we hadn’t all brought passports; we didn’t think there would be any checkpoints along the road, but we ran into one. Going in wasn’t a problem; it was getting back into Israel and Jerusalem later that we were worried about. We made it to the ruins without further complications.

            I always enjoy a good hike around ruins, and this was no exception. We saw the ruins of the courtyard, the bathhouse, the guest quarters, and the artificial mountain Herod had built to commemorate himself. The site also contains tunnels from later periods; the fortress was used during the Bar Kokhba revolt, as well as being made into a monastery during the Byzantine period.

            We went through the ruins fairly quickly, then started back to town with the car (we had to return it by 2:30). However, when we attempted to leave, we discovered a problem. As a security mechanism, cars in Israel have a keypad, and you have to punch in the code to start the car. When we’d rented the car, the rental employee had started it, and we discovered that they’d given us the wrong code.

            We figured this out fairly quickly by calling them, but by this time the car had locked us out for a certain amount of time, and so we found ourselves temporarily stranded in the West Bank. While waiting until we could try to enter the code again, we met a nice Palestinian taxi driver who chatted with us awhile and then helped us figure out the right sequence to start the car, and finally we were on our way back.

            However, we were still not fully equipped with passports to get back into Israel. Not everyone is stopped at the checkpoints; the Palestinian buses are always stopped, but as Americans in a rented Israeli car, we were hoping we wouldn’t have any trouble. With the help of a friendly, innocent-looking tourist wave from the one of us who was driving, we were allowed through with no trouble and made it back on time.

            Once we made it back, however, we encountered a few problems, mainly because we’d only had the car for a few hours and had only gone 30 or so kilometers. The rental company employees couldn’t figure out if we wanted to take the car out again or not. We assured them we really had only rented the car to drive to Herodium and back (after our fiasco with the key code, we weren’t stopping again) and were finally able to finish our adventure, which we considered relatively smooth compared to a few of our trips.

            After this we went shopping in the Old City, in the Jewish quarter this time. Because it was almost the Sabbath, fruit was very ripe and very cheap, which meant I enjoyed myself immensely and ended up carrying a kilo of strawberries, several peaches and half a watermelon back to campus with me.

            The rest of the week has gone fairly smoothly as well; things are winding down. My study abroad program hosted a luncheon to get feedback from the eight of us, who turned out to have been the inaugural class. We had lasagna. And tonight four of us got together to have Mexican food (we had a Texan, a Californian Latino, and a Latin American Studies major).  So I haven’t eaten much Israeli food lately. Then again, Israel is largely an immigrant nation; part of its attraction is having so many people from so many different places.

            I know everyone else is finishing school, but I still have a few more weeks left. I’ll let you know what the plan is soon – until then, a belated happy Mother’s Day* and I hope you all have a wonderful week!

*Mothers Day? Mother’s Day? Mothers’ Day? Not sure – the internet consensus seems to be “Mother’s.”

Pictures:

I did actually have shawarma on the way back from Herodium. It was like a shawarma subway sandwich, which was weird but tasted great.

This is just a photo of flowers from the botanical garden. They're blooming now and caught my eye.

These are Herodium:

I should mention that due to the contrast caused by the tunnels and the sun, my camera automatically switched a lot of these photos to the sunset setting, which means they're kind of soft and glowing when they don't really need to be.

One of the nice things about the lack of structure here is that you can climb/sit on ancient ruins, and a lot of the time no one cares.