Yet another snow day means I actually have time to update!

Hey everyone! It's been a little while since I've had time to update my blog, but luckily we had another snow day today, so I have a nice free day :-) More on that later, but for now, I'll try to remember as much as possible about the last week.



Monday after Ulpan I met up with my cousin Sarah and her two kids, three-year-old Bracha Tehilla, and 8-month-old Akiva Tuvia, in the Old City. We went to the Temple Institute, where Sarah had done her national service after moving to Israel. It was really interesting to see where she had worked, and also to see what they do there - basically they have been working to recreate all the tools, etc. from the Temple so that they can be used when the third Temple is built. After that, we met up with my friend Becca, who goes to Hebrew U with me and also went to school with Sarah and my cousin Joseph in Maryland. It had taken us a long time to go through the Old City, and Sarah had to catch a bus home, so she quickly took Bracha over to the Kotel for her birthday, and then we headed back to campus.



Grandma Barbara and Aunt Michelle...enjoy:

Bracha taking a break from our long day, eating a cookie

Sarah and Akiva

Me and Akiva in front of the Kotel


Bracha, Sarah, Becca, and Akiva

Later that night, I went to dinner at this REALLY good Italian Restaurant downtown called Luigi's with one of my friends. It was an amazing restaurant, and I definately plan on going back there again. Then we went and met up with my friend's Israeli roommates at a club called Constantine, where a bluegrass band called Holler was playing. They were really good, though not entirely my style. After that we met up with my roommates and a bunch of our friends and some of their friends at another club called Layla, where they apparently have big parties for Rothberg (the International School at Hebrew U aka my program) every Monday night. I never really thought of Monday night as a going out night, but there were tons of people there. It was pretty crazy, and I wasn't feeling very good, so I didn't have the best time, but I'm sure we'll go back some weeks.

Tuesday we went to Me'ah She'arim, a very religious neighborhood of Jerusalem. There are lots of stores to buy Jewish books and other Judaica, and we walked around a bit. The weather was pretty rainy and gross though, so we didn't stay for too long, and I didn't find the book I was looking for (I got a siddur there last time that was really nice and I got my name engraved in it, and I wanted to get a matching Tanach but I couldn't find the right color). I'm definately going to have to go back another time.

Me'ah She'arim

Wednesday and Thursday were pretty uneventful. Wednesday I spent hanging out, and then studying for my Ulpan test on Thursday. Thursday we were planning on going out, but after a LOT of napping since we hadn't slept much all week, the weather was still pretty gross and rainy, and definately not going out weather. So, we forgoed our singles Valentine's Day dinner and a night out in Jerusalem for a quiet night in.

Friday morning we left bright and early at 6am for Mitzpe Ramon with about 90 other people from the program for the weekend. Mitzpe Ramon is in the southern desert of Israel, so we were expecting much warmer weather than Jerusalem. It wasn't really hot, but it was definately beautiful. We started off in Sde Boker at Ben Gurion's grave. There was a gorgeous view, and we hung out for a while taking pictures and learning a little bit about the Negev (the southern region of Israel).

Mike (as the map of the state of Israel), Jacob, Sarah, Jessica, Me, and Courtney at Ben Gurion's grave

We were originally supposed to then go on a hike to the ancient city of Ein Ovdat, but because of the rains that had been all over the country (not just Jerusalem apparently!) the day before, they were worried about flooding. Apparently any siginificant amount of rain in the desert can cause some flooding because the sand in the desert doesn't absorb the water well. So, they had to have us do a different hike where there was less risk of flooding, but they still wanted to show us the view from where were going to hike, and the ruins of the ancient city. So we went to an overlook for another fabulous view, and then to the ruins of Ein Ovdat.

Me, Jordana, and Jessica sitting in the cliff of the viewpoint



Courtney, Jessica, and I overlooking the abyss

The gorgeous view

Me at the ruins of Ein Ovdat

The rest of the day/weekend was fun. It included a hike through the desert, another hike to a some beautiful outlooks over the Ramon Crater, an archery course (they don't do golf courses here because it uses too much water, so instead they do long term archery), and shabbos. The Ramon Crater, or Ramon Machtesh was absolutely gorgeous, and the views were just continuously phenomenal. Basically what happened was, thousands of years ago, there was a lot of water there, and it slowly eroded into a huge "crater". Technically crater is a misnomer because it only refers to things created by meteorites or earthquakes, and these types of craters created from water erosion only exist in Israel and the Sinai, so there is no English word for it, just the Hebrew word Machtesh.

Anyway, it was beautiful. some people got up to watch the sunrise over the crater, but I didn't go because it was really cold and I needed at least one morning to sleep in, but I at least got to watch the sun set over the crater twice which was beautiful.

Me overlooking Machtesh Ramon

Archery

After Shabbos ended, we came back to Jerusalem. The bus came in just in time for us to go out, so a few of us went down to Ben Yehuda Street. First we went to this cool bar that seemed to be mostly Israelis, and played a mix of Israeli and American music. It was a bit too loud there for us to hang out and talk, so we went next door to a bar called Mike's Place, which is a very touristy American bar. We hung out there for a little while, then headed home.

Sunday was the beginning of the last week of Ulpan, which we are all anxiously awaiting the end of. After class I went to the shuk at Machaneh Yehuda with a few friends, and stocked up on lots of fruits and vegetables.

Yesterday (Monday) we had class, and then I went with two friends to the Museum on the Seam, an art museum on peace and coexistence. It was really interesting, and some of the art was really cool. At night, I had my first session with my Chevruta (study partner) for the Torah study program I am doing through the Hebrew U Hillel. The weather was starting to get really gross, so my chevruta, Atoosa, agreed to come study with me in the dorms instead. She was really cool, and it was a fun environment to learn in with everyone hanging out in our room (and Courtney and Roi singing their snow day song as snow was expected that night). We were able to get through the first two parts of the portion we are learning (Korach, my papa's bar mitzvah portion), but I did find myself longing for my BDB (a biblical lexion that we used at JAMD in high school, which came to really be our best friend as our teacher told us it would be). After I finished studying with Atoosa, I went with my roommates's over to one of their friends apartments. We had a poker tournament, and I came in third (which made me the last one to not win any money...oh well!). The game lasted a really really long time, and we were all counting on their being a snow day, so I came home about 3am (yikes!). Well, thank god we actually had a snow day, otherwise I would have been SO tired this morning. They sent us a text message around 6:15am telling us that classes would start at 9 instead of 8:30, which seemed VERY lame, and then at about 8 they texted us again saying classes were canceled. We were all very excited, and I slept in really really late. This afternoon we cleaned the apartment, and then we are talking about going downtown for dinner seeing as there's barely any snow on the ground (gotta love Jerusalem's reactions to snow). It's funny though because apparently it never snows more than once a season, and this is the second time it's snowed (even though it was in the 50s all week, and even earlier yesterday). Oh well, pretty crazy weather here!

Anyway, I guess that's all for now. More updates to come later!

<3 Leah