37+ hours of no sleep...

Shalom L'kulam! I arrived in Israel early yesterday morning, and it was a very long and interesting journey. I had what seemed to be unbelievable travel luck, not only did my flights arrive on time and luggage come and everything, but my flight to Newark was practically empty, with no one in my row on either side of the plane and no one in front of me or behind me, so I could stretch out. Then, after 5 1/2 hours in the Newark airport, I finally got on the El Al flight to find that there was no seat in front of my lovely aisle seat (aka endless leg room!). And when I thought I couldn't get any luckier, I somehow ended up with 2 empty seats next to me - and the flight was otherwise almost entirely full! Nothing makes a 10 1/2 hour flight easier than having 3 seats to stretch out and lay down on, plus endless leg room when I wanted to sit up. Basically, though, moral of that story = I'm in love with El Al. Even if I hadn't had the luck I had, the personal tvs in coach were awesome...especially since I got to watch 24 and Hairspray...all accompanied with Hebrew subtitles. Not to mention that the bathroom had actual room to walk in and a full length mirror (have any of you ever seen that on a plane, because I certainly have not).

Anyway, the luck stopped there. Let's just say Hebrew U's bureacracy makes GW look like the most organized place on earth (props to GW Housing Program for being better than Hebrew U's!) After landing at 6:30 AM, we went outside to find out that the busses had no more room for luggage and very few seats left...with 20 of us still left to load our stuff! So, the last remaining abandoned bus loners had to wait for another hour or so before another bus came to get us. Then we got stuck in traffic and it took us 2 hours to get from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which is usually only about a 40 minute trip. We finally got here and were basically told "ya, those housing forms you filled out? pointless. Find a group of 5 to room together!" ummm talk about scrambling, especially since all the rest of the people had been there for an hour and already had rooms. Well, we found five of us, and even organized for neighbors. And then we waited...and waited...and waited...for four hours. Yup, GW, there are your props, right there...be proud. We finally get in and they tell us that there are no more empty 5 rooms, so we'd have to split up and join people who were already here. So, my roommates: Courtney from Denver (Nanny - she's friends with the Levin girls), Jessica from New Jersey, and, the previous residents of the suite, Israeli boys Raie and Guy. The guys seem nice so far, and I've been having a lot of fun with Courtney and Jessica, and all the other people I've met here so far. Plus living with Israelis should help my Hebrew a lot, so yay for that! It's a really nice set up though - we each get our own room that is easily bigger than half of my room in the house with a nice sized closet and a big bookshelf and big desk and a full length mirror and everything. There is one bathroom with a shower, and then two toilets (so we have one for girls and one for boys) plus a sink outside the bathroom area, a kitchen, a dining area, and a living room. The view from my room is pretty classicly Israeli, but all-in-all, it's very nice.

That was followed by lots more waiting and filling out forms, and going over stuff we already did, and finally getting phones and...food! Yes, food, for the first time since breakfast on El Al at 4am, we finally got lunch...at 4pm!!! Sigh, ya, it was a long day.

Anyway, I just got back from a campus tour and then a trip to the mall to buy bedding and towels and kitchen stuff. And, of course, kosher Israeli food courts...yum!

This morning there is a group trip to the Shuk to buy vegetables and stuff, and then my suitemate Jessica and I are going to walk over the Kotel. Shabbos I'm supposed to try to go to a minyan I really like here called Shira Chadasha, so it should be a good Shabbos.

Until next time and B'ahavah,
Leah