Since my last Israel update took me so long to post, I figured I'd try to make sure that doesn't happen again (though with finals approaching I'm not sure how long that is going to last).
I started my journey back from Tucson to Jerusalem very early Monday morning (Passover ended on Sunday night), waking up at 4am to leave for the airport at 4:45am for my 6:30am flight to Atlanta, followed by a flight to JFK, and then a flight to Tel Aviv. Unfortunately, I had to pay $80 for overweight baggage, since Delta just raised their fees and my bag was 12 pounds overweight (you'll see later why this is particularly frustrating). Anyway, my flight to Atlanta was more or less uneventful. I had a few hours in the Atlanta airport, and my flight to JFK was supposed to leave from the same gate as my flight to Atlanta had come into, so I found a comfortable seat and settled down to make some phone calls, and had planned later to get food and recharge some of my electronics for my later flights. After a while, I got up to check my flight, and found out that, due to weather problems in New York, my flight to JFK was going to be late. I immediately started running all over the airport, and eventually ended up at the international ticket counter in the total opposite end of the airport, where we decided to reroute my ticket from Atlanta to Brussels, where I would connect with El Al to Tel Aviv. The Delta agent suggested that I go to the gate for my JFK flight to make sure they were taking my luggage off the flight to JFK and putting it on the flight to Brussels, even though she had sent a message down to the gate instructing them to do so. I quickly rushed to the other side of the airport, where a long line awaited me at the gate. I waited for ten minutes, but then had to go back to the other end of the airport to board my flight to Brussels. When I got to the new gate, I tried to ask them if they could check on my luggage, but they were rude and didn't check.
Anyway, I flew to Brussels and had my own row, so that was nice, and got a little bit of sleep and watched the movie that was shown on all three of my flights, which was pretty annoying since it wasn't a good movie. When I got to Brussels, I bought myself some Belgian chocolates (which I felt I deserved after my long day, and were as good as everyone says they are), and had a Belgian waffle. I then boarded my flight to Tel Aviv, and it was definitely nice to hear Hebrew again. When I arrived in Tel Aviv (we're now at Tuesday at 5pm by the way), I waited at luggage claim until all the luggage had come, and mine still wasn't there. Well, I later found out that my luggage (surprise surprise) had gone without me to JFK, and obviously missed the connection to Tel Aviv, which was the reason I rerouted to begin with. I finally got my luggage two days later, but it just made my 30+ hours of traveling that much more frustrating. I got back to the student village around 8pm, made dinner, and went to bed (even though jetlag prevented me from sleeping through the night).
Wednesday was my first day back at class, and I was pretty exhausted all day long, which was a pretty long day since I had class starting at 10:30am and not ending until 9:30pm, plus a midterm.
Thursday was Yom Hashoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day. Before Hebrew class on Thursday, we went to the Hebrew University International School ceremony. It started with a moment of silence during the national siren, which sounds nationally for both Holocaust Remembrance Day and Memorial Day, and all people are supposed to stand in a moment of silence for it. It was really moving, as was the ceremony. Because it was the international student program, different parts of the program were done in different languages (Hebrew, English, Japanese, Spanish, Russian) with each of us having a packet of the ceremony in English and Hebrew so we could follow along even what was being presented in a different language. It was really cool recognizing the day with Jews (and non-Jews) from all over the world in Israel.
The 6 candles that were lit for the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust
Friday morning I went for my first trip to the shuk since I got back, which was very exciting since I had missed it greatly. After we got back to the student village, my roommate Jessica and I took her blanket outside and sat out in the student village doing work and enjoying the sun (though my back did get sunburned). After a while, some of our other friends came down too, and after hanging out and chatting for a while, we started a game of frisbee, which, combined with the beautiful weather, made it feel very much like summer. Once it got too chilly to stay outside, we went inside for a rest before Shabbos dinner. For dinner, we had a potluck at some friends' apartment. We had a big group and we all brought food and hung out and had a nice dinner, before relaxing with a movie for the rest of the night.
Saturday was a relaxing day and night, and I basically just hung out in the student village getting some work done, and playing Yaniv (an Israeli card game) with my roommates.
Sunday, after a trip to the library for some paper research, followed by class, I went downtown with my friends Amanda, Jacob, and Sarah for a delicious sushi dinner at a restaurant one of our friends had recommended. After that, we went for dessert at a restaurant called Waffle Bar, which served Belgian waffles with ice cream, whipped cream, and chocolate or other sauces and toppings. It was delicious, and I came home stuffed!
Me and Sarah with our waffle
Monday was another day of classes, with Beit Midrash at night. Instead of the normal Beit Midrash program, they had a special event speaker. We heard from a professor at Hebrew University who was a Nobel Prize winner in economics for his work on game theory. He gave a lecture on game theory in the Talmud (Jewish Oral Law) which was pretty cool and interesting (what of it I understood at least).
Look out for my next update soon on Yom HaZikaron (Israel Memorial Day) and Yom HaAtzmaut (Israel Independence Day)!
Lehitra'ot,
Leah
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