OPA! Spring Break in Greece

My trip to Greece started at 3am, when we took a sheirut from the Student Village to Ben Gurion Tel Aviv International Airport for our 7am flight to Athens.  We waited in line for a long time, until we finally got up to the front of the line, where we were asked a series of questions by Israeli security, as per usual.  I got questioned about my passport, which, when delivered back to my house after getting my student visa, had gotten caught in a bush and poured on during a rainstorm, which made it look slightly messed up.  I explained to the woman what happened, and she told me it sounded like a "dog ate my homework" story (apparently that phrase translates to Israel too).  When we finally got up to the check in line, they asked me when I was coming back to Israel, since my ticket wasn't round trip, so I explained to them I'd be coming back after going to the US.  They told me I needed my paper ticket for my trip to the US to show them, which I obviously didn't have because my ticket was an eticket.  Well, after much arguing, they finally let me go because I was with 4 other people who were flying round trip (2 other girls from Hebrew U who were on our flight had gone with us).  Anyway, after we got through passport control, we made a quick stop at the airport Michal Negrin store (where I did NOT buy anything), and then went through security to our gate.  I slept most of the two hour flight to Athens, seeing as I hadn't really slept all night, but was obviously exhausted when we landed in Athens.

However, there was no time for that, because had a full day ahead of us.  After we through customs and got our luggage, we took the metro to downtown Athens near our hostel.  After we dropped our stuff off, Jordana was really tired and wanted to stay in the hotel for a nap, so Amanda and I went and got lunch.  We went to a restaurant near our hotel, and discovered that in Athens, every restaurant has someone (usually an owner) standing outside the restaurant trying to convince you to come to their restaurant, immediately going into a whole shpeel about what they have on their menu or the deal they would give you.  We finally settled on a place, and shared fried cheese and mushrooms, and each had a Greek salad (which apparently doesn't have lettuce in Greece).  We also stopped at the nearby Starbucks, which they apparently have in Greece, since they did not have any in Israel, which was a nice caffeine pick-me-up to make it through the rest of the day.

 

Me enjoying Greek fried cheese

After lunch, we went back to the hostel to get Jordana, and then went to the Acropolis.  We didn't really realize that we would have to climb all the way up a tall mountain to get to the Parthenon, which would have been much better if we weren't on very little sleep at the time.  Anyway, we took our time slowly walking up, while looking at and taking pictures of the different ruins as we walked up.  By the time we got to the top we had seen some gorgeous views, but nothing like the views and ruins that met us at the top.

On the way up the Acropolis - overlooking the city

View from the Acropolis - Hadrian's Arch, Temple of Olympian Zeus, and the 1896 Olympic Stadium

Theater of Dionysos, located on the path up to the Acropolis

View from on top of the Acropolis of the Stoa

The Parthenon (sadly, covered in scaffolding as all of Europe seems to always be)

Amanda and I in front of the Erechtheion's maiden columns

View of the Temple of Olympian Zeus from on top of the Acropolis

After getting a bit lost on the way down the Acropolis on the other side, we finally arrived at the ancient Agora (marketplace).  There, we saw ruins from the ancient city center, as well as the Stoa, which houses many sculptures that are thousands of years old.  We also saw the Church of the Holy Apostles of Solakis, an 11th century Byzantine church, and the Temple of Hephaestus.

Church of the Holy Apostles of Solakis

Me standing between some of the pillars of the Stoa

Some of the sculptures in the Stoa

Temple of Hephaestus

After a rest and a snack at a cute little cafe, we continued on to the Roman Agora, which contained more ruins.  We then headed to the marketplace and looked through some of the stores.  There we saw a store where I later purchased worry beads, special strings of beads that we saw people everywhere playing with.  I think they originally had some religious significance, and they may still, but mostly there are just a traditional Greek thing now (I think?).

Roman Agora and the Tower of the Winds

Worry Beads!

Well, by this point, we were pretty much EXAUSTED, so we headed back to the hostel for a nap before dinner at the restaurant next door.  The street our hostel is on is a very busy touristy street with lots of restaurants, and it was fun to sit at our outside table and watch the people go by.  After that, we called it a day, and went to bed after a LONG day of sightseeing to prepare for another.

The next day we started in Syntagma Square (Constitution Square) and the sights around that area.  We walked through the National Gardens, and then saw the Zappeio Palace, a beautiful but reasonably modern palace.  After that we headed to the old marble Olympic Stadium, which was the host of the first ever Olympics in 1896.  After that, we went to the Temple of Olympian Zeus, famous for, among other things, its recently fallen column, and Hadrian's Arch. 

National Gardens

Zappeio Palace

Inside the Palace

   

Me in front of the Olympic Stadium

The Temple of Olympian Zeus, with a view of the Acropolis through it

Hadrian's Arch

We went from there back to the main square, where we saw the Changing of the Guards in front of Parliament.  The guards are there guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, which we were upset to find was covered by a drape and some scaffolding.  However, the Changing of the Guards ceremony was really cool.  The guards wear traditional Greek costumes, with "pom-pom" shoes, and do this crazy tap-dancey march during the changing.  It was REALLY cool, and we got a great view right up front, and right at the edge of the path they made through the people to enter the area.

Guard in front of Parliament

Changing of the Guards

Changing of the Guards

After that we went to the Banaki Museum, which had all kind of ancient artifacts, traditional Greek clothing, and displays of entire rooms from pre-modern Greece.  After that, we went walking around Plaka, the area our hotel was located in.  We went off the beaten track and got to see some really cool churches and cute little houses along narrow streets.  After our later afternoon rest at the hotel, we went to a restaurant with a roof top garden that had a view of the Acropolis lit up at night.  It was a gorgeous view!  It was also a somewhat interesting dinner, as I ordered fish and was given, well...a fish - head, tail, fins, scales, and all!  I did actually eat it, which I was proud of myself for (even though I didn't eat it until Amanda helped me take away the way too gross parts).

Cute house in Plaka

The roof of a little church in Plaka

Our view of the Acropolis from dinner

My dinner...

On Sunday we woke up early, packed our bags, and headed over to the port to catch a ferry to Aegina, an island about an hour ferry ride from Athens.  We got off the ferry of the port of Aegina, and then took a cab across the island to Agia Marina, an area on the other side of the island where we would be staying.  After checking into our hotel, which was about a minute walk from a beach that is apparently very busy during the season (which, as we found out, hadn't started yet), we walked around the town and ate lunch at a restaurant at the edge of the cliffs overlooking the pier and the water.  It was a gorgeous view, and the food was pretty good too.  After that, we decided to go to the beach, even though the weather wasn't great, but we didn't think it would be better the next day and we had planned on beach time (it turned out it was better weather the next day, but unfortunately we had sites to see and ended up making the wrong decision scheduling-wise, but oh well!).  Despite the clouds, it was still fun hanging out on the beach, and the sun did come out towards the end.  We sat on the beach for a few hours, read, and relaxed.  While we were sitting there, a ferry came into the port at Agia Marina, so we got to watch it come in too.

Me and Amanda with the view of Agia Marina from next to the table we ate lunch at

 

Beach by our hotel

After we got back from the beach, we walked around the town and through the shops, and then went back to the hotel to rest and hang out for a little while.  At night, we went out to dinner, and finally realized how much it really was the off-season, because not a lot of restaurants on the main street were open and the ones that were weren't very busy.  We came to the conclusion that most people who came to the island either stayed on the other side of the island or only came for the day, which we probably should have done, but hindsight is 20-20, right?  Anyway, we had dinner, and then headed out to one of the local bars and hung out there for a little while before going to bed.

The next day, we had breakfast at the hotel, and then went to the main site on the island, the Temple of Aphaia.  It was all the way on the top of a hill in the middle of the island, and had a gorgeous view of the island as well as beautiful temple ruins.  It was really cool because we could all imagine people in ancient times coming from around the island up to the hill to worship their goddess.  After that, we went back to Agia Marina, and had lunch at the restaurant we had lunch at the day before (where I had stuffed tomatoes which was really yummy and very adventurous for me considering my picky taste and usual dislike of tomatoes).  Then we got our stuff from the hotel and headed back to the port of Aegina, where we hung out at a cafe (where I tried Greek coffee) and walked around the pier until our ferry left to go back to Athens.

At the Temple of Aphaia overlooking the island

Temple of Aphaia

View of the island from the Temple of Aphaia

Stuffed tomatoes!

Port of Aegina with a church in the middle

Street next to the pier in Aegina

Church right next to the ferry docks

Our ferry from Aegina to Athens

View of the island from the ferry

After we got back to our hostel in Athens, we changed and went to meet up with Amanda's friend who is studying abroad in Athens this semester.  On the way to meeting him at the Olympic Stadium, we got to see Hadrian's Arch and the Temple of Olympain Zeus at night, which was really pretty.  After we met him at the Olympic Stadium, we were able to go up to the top of the Stadium and go inside, which we didn't think we were allowed to do.  It was really pretty in general, but especially at night.  Then he took us to a local tavern, where we paid 10 euro for them to bring us all kinds of different dishes.  I was able to try some traditional Greek dishes that I had seen on menus but was nervous to order them in case I didn't like them.  Anyway, they were REALLY good, particularly tsatsiki, a Greek dish made of a special Greek yogurt, cucumbers, and dill.  It was really good, and I ended up having it a few more times before I left.  It was really cool meeting one of her friends, and the dinner was really fun.  It was also good to get some information from someone who had been traveling in Greece for a while, and he was able to help me work out my plans for my last day, during which I would be on my own.

Olympic Stadium - view from the top at night

The next day was kind of crazy because it was Amanda's last day in Athens and she was leaving that night, and Jordana had to register for classes in the middle of the day, so we had some splitting up and rearranging throughout the day.  We started out back at the flea market area to do some walking around, and Jordana and I went to see Hadrian's Library, which was another collection of ruins.  Then we went to Kerimakos, the most important ancient cemetery in Athens, where we saw tombs of ancient gods and the path that was taken on the way to Plato's school.  After that, we went to the Hill of the Pynx, where we saw some ruins, Old Athens Observatory, a few churches, and an AMAZING view of the city.  For the first day, the weather was actually nice and clear, so we were able to see really far and the city seemed to sparkle.

Hadrian's Library

Church at Keramikos cemetary

Keramikos

View of the city from the Hill of the Pynx

View of Parthenon from the Hill of the Pynx

After that, I went and met Amanda at the National Archaeological Museum.  Unfortunately, it was closing MUCH earlier than we had originally thought (ie 3pm instead of 7pm), so we had to forgo our lunch break until after the museum and rush through the museum a little faster than we would have liked.  It was still really cool though, and we got to see lots of different artifacts from various areas in Greece.

Various vessels in the Archaeological Museum

Jewelry at the Archaeological Museum

Sculptures at the Archaeological Museum

After dinner, we said goodbye to Amanda, and then Jordana and I hung out in the hostel for our last night together.  The next morning I woke up early and after dropping my stuff off at the hostel that I was staying at for my last night, I went to the central bus station and took a bus by myself to Nafplion, a city about 2 1/2 hours outside of Athens and the first capital city of modern Greece.  The bus dropped me off in the middle of the town, and I quickly found a travel agent to get a map of the city from.  I had been told about a gorgeous view from a fort called Palamidi Fortress, so I asked the travel agent what would be the best way to get up there, and he suggested taking a cab.  After taking a cab up the to the top, I found my way into the fortress to see one of the most gorgeous views I have ever seen in my entire life.  There was a fabulous view of the water, which sparkled in the sunlight underneath a very clear sky.  Between the clear sunny weather and the perfect breeze, I just sat at the top of the fortress looking at the view for a while.  After that, I walked around the ancient fortress, which was also really cool and beautiful, covered in small purple wild flowers.  When I was done, I walked down the 999 steps from the top of the fortress to the center of town.

View from the top of the fortress

View of the peninsula from the top of the fortress

View of the town of Nafplion from the top of the fortress

Me on top of the fortress

In the fortress

The fortress

View on the way down from Palamidi fortress - Peninsula with the other smaller fortress of the city

When I got down from the fortress, I found a cute little cafe with seating in a park in the main square.  I ordered my last dish of tsatsiki while in Greece, along with a basic lettuce salad.  It was really good, and a nice relaxing lunch enjoying the beautiful weather.  After lunch, I walked around the town for bit, looking at the different sites and going into some of the shops.  I also went to a worry bead museum, which was a small museum set up by a man who had been collecting different worry beads from various time periods, countries, and religions.  It was really interesting to see all the different styles of beads and to learn about what they meant to different people.  After that, I found a little tourist train that you could get on to take you all around the town and it explained all the different sites.  Unfortunately, the train was full of very loud Greek teenagers, so I really couldn't hear much of what was being said on the loudspeaker, and the explanation also said everything in Greek first and then English, so by the time the loudspeaker said the information in English, we were already passing the site.  It was still pretty cool though, and I was able to make sure I saw most of the important sites in the city.

War Museum, located in the first military school

Cute house in Nafplion

A church off of Constitution square in Nafplion

View down one of the streets

Church by the dock

View of a castle in the middle of the water from the dock

The train I took around the town

A lion carved into the side of a cliff in memory of Bavarian soldiers

Main square of Nafplion

Parliament building, housed in the first high school building

View of Palamidi fortress from the town

After I went on the train and walked around the town a bit more, I went and got my bus ticket for a bus about an hour later.  While I waited, I went to a cafe close to the bus station, and had a delicious chocolate crepe and some coffee while people watching along one of the main streets.  Then I took the bus back to Athens for my last night in Greece.  When I got back to Athens, I grabbed dinner at a local coffee shop, and had a relaxing night in my room and went to bed before getting up very early to go back to the US.

My travels back to the US were fairly simple - luckily my flights were all more or less on time, and I made all my connections (from Athens to JFK to Salt Lake City to Tucson), and spent the night at a hotel near the airport.  I had a big room with two queen beds to myself, and it was very nice to be staying in a hotel with very comfortable beds and American showers after staying in hostels all week and in my dorm in Israel.  The next morning, I met my family at the airport, and then went to our hotel in Tucson for Passover.  I'm not going to go into too much detail about Passover, but it as a nice blur of eating, relaxing, sleeping, and praying.  The seders were nice and much better than I expected, since I was expecting it to be very difficult without my grandfather.  I also got a lot of rest in VERY comfortable beds, and it was nice to see my family, though I did experience a little bit of US culture shock.

Overall, I had a very nice break and was able to see a new part of the world while having some time for relaxation as well.

Look for more updates soon!

-Leah

Tzfat, Purim, Tel Aviv, and Kibbutz Channaton...plus, of course, classes, field trips, and days/nights around Jerusalem

Hey readers!

So I know it's been a RIDICULOUSLY long time since I last wrote, and I apologize - between classes, work, midterms, touring around Jerusalem, spending time with my fellow students, and every day life, it's been difficult to find time to update. Anyway, I'm writing now from Athens International Airport (and, probably from the plane as well seeing as I only have about a half an hour until I board). I'll update later about my last 6 days in Athens, but now for your reading pleasure: the last month in Israel.

Last I updated, I was about to leave for a weekend in Tzfat. After a bus ride that, with stops, was about as long as a flight from Detroit to San Diego, my roommates Courtney and Jessica, my friend Amanda, and I arrived in Tzfat late Thursday night. At the bus stop in Jerusalem we had met a group from a yeshiva in Jerusalem who were also going to the same place we were - Assent. Assent is basically a secret Chabad house (in that it doesn't advertise itself as Chabad, but very obviously is when you get there). Since we had missed the dinner that everyone else was having, they got us leftovers and told us to eat quickly because the night's lecture was about to start. We had signed up to go there on a weekend program, in which they were supposed to be lectures about Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism), Tzfat, and Purim, in addition to Shabbat prayers and meals, and some touristy activities as well. Well, the lectures ended up being mostly about Purim, and how we are supposed to wipe out Amalek (mini-lesson in Judaism: when the Jews were wandering through the desert, a nation called Amalek attacked the Jews from the back - where the children and elderly were. Because they were so immoral and attacked the most innocent and weakest part of our nation instead of attacking the soldiers, the Jews were commanded to "wipe out Amalek". Haman, the villain of the Purim story, was part of Amalek, and anyone after him who tried to wipe out the Jews - ex. Hitler - was presumed to be part of Amalek). Anyway, by the end of the weekend we were pretty sick of hearing about Amalek, but luckily the first lecturer didn't really speak at all about Amalek, and stuck more to Kabbalistic ideas. He was a really good lecturer, but unfortunately, he only spoke one more time over the weekend. I should also mention that Molly Mardit from JAMD, the same person from my high school that I had seen at the Carlebach Moshav about a month before, was also at Ascent for the weekend, and we just so happened to be put in the same room (again!).

Anyway, the next day we decided to skip the morning lecture and the group's tour in order to do some of the touristy/shopping stuff that the schedule did not allow for otherwise. This turned out to be a very good decision, since, due to pouring rain, the program changed what they were doing, and ended up taking a bus to a nearby town instead of doing the things they had planned on doing in Tzfat. This way, we got to actually see Tzfat (the city we had come to see after all, even if it was by means of walking in the POURING rain on slippery cobblestones). We went to the famous Tzfat candle store, some Jewish book stores, the workshop of David Friedman (a famous Kabbalistic artist who speaks to different groups about themes in Kabbalah that he uses in his art), and some of the famous synagogues in the area, as well as the different artists shops (Tzfat is famous for its artists colony). Unfortunately, some of the synagogues we had wanted to see were closed, but we at least got to see the Ashkenazi (European Jewish) Ari synagogue (the Ari was the man who wrote the book that modern Kabbalistic study is based on). We also went to the Tzfat cemetary, where we saw the grave of the Ari, as well as the graves of several high school students from Tzfat who had been killed in the crossfire in the 1970s after being taken hostage by the PLO while on a field trip. This was particularly interesting for me since I had learned about the hostage situation a few weeks before in my Arab-Israeli conflict class. At some point during the day, we also had lunch at this really cute vegetarian restaurant, which was really more like a room with 2 or 3 tables with a house style kitchen attached to it and two women cooking some items from their menu. During lunch, they were also baking whole wheat chocolate chip muffins, so obviously the whole "restaurant" smelled amazing the entire time we were there, and we had to have a muffin before we left.

Tzfat, all nice and overcast/rainy

Noah's Ark, made into a candle at the Tzfat candle store

The hand-carved ark at the Ashkenazi Ari Synagogue

It cleared up a little bit

Pretty amazing flag picture, if I do say so myself

The cemetery for the Tzfat students who died in the PLO hostage situation

Friday night, we went with the group to a local synagogue for services. While it was fun it first, it had to have been one of the longest Friday night services I have ever been to in my entire life. It lasted over 2 hours, and that was with us leaving early. The program hadn't left until just a little bit early, and we were all going to host families for dinner, so we all felt really bad because we were so late, but we didn't know where we were going and had to wait for them to take us there. When the four of us were finally taken to our house for dinner, we were met by a very large, Sephardic (Spanish/Moroccan Jews) Chasidic family with AMAZING food and an absolutely fascinating story. The father was a kosher butcher working in South America, and he only comes home for the holidays, so the mother ran the household. Her oldest daughter was there with her husband and two kids - a girl who was probably about 3 and absolutely adorable, and a baby who was only a few weeks old. There was also a teenage son, a pre-teen daughter, and two younger sons. She also had a daughter who was about our age, who had a very fascinating story. We saw her with a baby at first, and we didn't know whose baby it was because she was clearly not married (she didn't have a husband there and her hair wasn't covered, as is customary for orthodox married women to do). Later, though, we found out that it was her baby, and that her story was very unusual considering that she was raised in a very religious household in a very religious town. She had apparently been married and divorced, but her baby was not with her ex-husband, but rather with a boyfriend who had moved to Miami right before she found out she was pregnant. She was supposed to go visit him in Miami, but when she told him about the baby, he had said he didn't want her to come and didn't want anything to do with him. Well, once the baby was born and he saw how cute he is (he's about 3-4 months old), he asked her to come, so she told us she was going to Miami soon. Anyway, we stayed at their house for about 3-4 hours, talking with the daughter and the mom over dessert and tea and ended up going back to our program late. Once we got back, there was some storytelling and singing, and then we went to bed.

The next day after lunch, there were some more lectures, some rest time, and then a walking tour of Tzfat by the Rabbi who had given the lecture the night we got there. It was really interesting, but we were unfortunately rushed through it because it started late and we had to get back in time to finish shabbos. After shabbos was over, we caught the first bus back to Jerusalem.

Well, the next was Purim week, so in addition to having a three day weekend the next weekend, we basically had an entire week of celebrating. On Monday night, which was technically what should have been St. Patrick's day (but it was moved by the Church to earlier because of Easter, but we pretended it hadn't been), we were invited to a movie night with some people from first semester. That was the first night my friends and I started hanging out with this group of people from first semester, some of whom it turned out are roommates with some of my friends who are also just here for the spring. Anyway, I'm really glad we've been able to branch out and mix first and second semester people, because it's really hard since they had a whole semester without us and we had all of Ulpan without them, so when we were first making friends they weren't there for us to make friends with.

Tuesday night was the Hebrew U Purim Party, which was just down the street from our dorms. It was pretty fun, especially since it was a party where we basically knew half the people there (almost reminded me of a Phi Sig party lol). They had also hired all kinds of performers, including belly dancers, people on stilts, etc.

Us dressed up to go to the Hebrew U Purim Party - Jessica as a Bunny, Amanda as a Butterfly, Marissa as a cat, and me as Princess Leah --- get it???

Two of my friends dressed up as Elliot Spitzer and his prostitute

Thursday night was the actual Purim night, and it was really cool seeing how they celebrate it in Israel. For Megillah reading (when the story of Purim is read from a scroll in synagogue) I went to the Great Synagogue in Jerusalem. It's a gorgeous synagogue that I went to when I was here with my dad, but I figured this would be a perfect time to go because, unlike on shabbat and most other holidays, I could go and take pictures of the interior. Plus, I could enjoy Megillah reading with Israelis. Well, the synagogue was as beautiful as I remembered, but because it is so big, it didn't seem very full, which was kind of disappointing. There were a bunch of kids and some adults dressed up though, which was fun, and the person who read the Megillah read REALLY fast so we were done in no time at all. After Megillah reading, I went out with a bunch of people downtown, and it was absolutely crazy. Everyone on the streets was completely wasted (as it is a commandment to be very very drunk on Purim), with people drinking on the streets and spraying party foam on random passersby. Music was playing in Zion Square (the main square downtown) and all down Ben Yehuda street. It was crazy seeing all the people dressed up and all the police and soldiers just standing by watching the craziness. It was lots of fun, and one of the girls we were with ended up getting into a rap battle with some random guy on the street that was kind of bizarre but also really hilarious.

The outside of the Great Synagogue

Inside the Great Synagogue

Zion Square on Purim night

People dressed up on Ben Yehuda Street

Friday and Saturday day we got a little bit of rest from Purim until Saturday night when Shushan Purim (the special Purim for cities that were walled during the time of Joshua) began. On Saturday afternoon, Jessica and I (with Amanda for a little bit) sat out in the student village and enjoyed the nice day while doing some reading. After Shabbat ended, the thee of us went out downtown for Sushi, and then came back to the Student Village where there was a Purim party right outside my dorm in the middle of the Student Village. It was pretty convenient, and a lot of fun. They had a costume contest, and the winner, who was dressed up as a Hookah, won a free airline ticket to Europe.

Hanging out in the Student Village

Party in the Student Village (that's my building in the background)

Me and my roommate, Jessica, at the party in the Student Village

Party in the Student Village

On Sunday (Shushan Purim day), Jessica, Amanda, and I went to the Old City. After a stop off at the Kotel, we walked through/around the city until we got to the house of Jeff Seidel, a pretty sketchy guy who runs a Jewish Student Center on campus that runs programs in an attempt to "frum out" (ie make more religious) anyone they can through fun trips and programs. Anyway, he had a Purim Seudah (the festive Purim meal) that was open to all students. About 20 or so students were there, and there was really delicious food and LOTS of alcohol. It was weird because Jeff (and his 16 year old son who looked 12) kept pouring people drinks and telling people they weren't drunk enough (though I guess it is a mitzvah, right?).

Purim Seudah at Jeff Seidel's

Monday it was back to classes. Then, on Tuesday, we had a dinner in our apartment for all the "regulars" who hang out in our apartment, because my roommate Courtney's boyfriend was visiting from Colorado for his spring break, and she wanted him to meet everyone. It was a lot of fun, especially since we had all been so busy lately that our apartment hadn't been as lively as it usually was, so it was nice to have everyone back there again. It was also obviously nice to meet Courtney's boyfriend, especially because we had heard so much about him, and knew how anxious she was to see him.

Roommate picture: Roi, Guy, Me, Courtney, and Jessica

Unofficial roommates picture: Marissa (our next door neighbor and Guy's girlfriend), Me, Jessica, Thai (Courtney's boyfriend), Courtney, and Amanda

During my Israeli Legal System class on Wednesday, we went on a field trip to the Israeli Supreme Court. We were given a tour of the building, during which the tour guide explained the architecture of the building, while reviewing some of the things we had learned in our class about how the Israeli court system works. We also got to sit in on one case, which was being heard by three justices, one of whom was the first Arab appointee to the Supreme Court, and another of whom was the Chief Justice. The case was also unique because of the criminals being tried was representing himself, which is apparently very unusual. We also got to see a few interesting features of the Israeli court system. First, all of the lawyers wear black robes like judges do in the US. Also, the lawyers from both sides (prosecution and defense) both sit at one round table, which each side getting one side of the table. Also, in the case of a criminal trial, the criminal sits in a special booth that only has one exit, which is into the back halls of the court through which they are led to and from jail. However, there are no doors through which they can get out into the courtroom. It was really interesting to see, especially having spent so many weeks learning about the court system.

The hallway of the courtrooms

The courtroom - judges's bench and lawyers table

The courtyard outside the courts

After class on Thursday, my friend Amanda and I went to the Old City to do some shopping in the shuk and to go see the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the church built on the location at which Jesus is believed to have been crucified. It was a beautiful church, with lots of different little chapels. It was also really interesting to see the people who were worshipping there, and how they acted at the part of the church where Jesus was crucified. It really helped me connect with the idea that Jerusalem is so important to many different religions. After we left the church, we saw people doing Via de la Rosa, walking through the 12 steps of the cross, where Jesus was brought and humiliated on his way to being crucified. A lot of people were doing Via de la Rosa for a few weeks because it was right around Easter, and since it was just the week after Easter, a lot of people were still doing it. It was really cool to see, especially because it was something I was so unfamiliar with. The group was carrying a large wooden cross while singing prayers, and at each "station" they would put down the cross, say some prayers, and then switch who was to carry the cross.

The Church of the Holy Sepulcher

Lamps that hung over the rock where Jesus was laid after he was crucified

Picture in the main entrance to the church

One of the many domes in the church

The altar in one of the chapels

A prayer and incense ceremony in the main corridor

Where Jesus was crucified

People doing Via de la Rosa near the Church of the Holy Sepulcher

View of the windmill/German colony from along the Old City walls

Thursday night we went out to eat downtown, and then went to a bar with some of our first semester friends. It was a really chill bar that was like a Turkish/Arab style bar, with low couches and cushions all along the walls. It was a lot of fun and nice environment to hang out after a busy week.

Friday morning my roommate Jessica, along with my friends Amanda and Jordana, and I got up early to catch a bus to Tel Aviv for the weekend. We planned to spend a nice weekend on the beach, and that was exactly what we did. It was a really fun weekend, and was basically spring break part one.

After we arrived on Friday and dropped our stuff off at the hostel (which was a block away from the beach), we had lunch and then went to the beach for a few hours until it got a little chilly out. After a much needed nap, we had a delicious dinner and then took a walk all the way down the beach, which was really nice. After that, we went to Max Brenner's, a chocolate restaurant which was DELICIOUS!

The next day, we spent a long day on the beach in the sun. It was perfect beach weather - not too hot, but not too cold either. We got lots of sun, read/napped on the beach, then had lunch at a restaurant right on the beach with our feet in the sand. After lunch, we moved down the beach a little bit for a change of scenery. We stayed most of the rest of the afternoon, took a break in a nearby mall in the evening, and then went back to Jerusalem. It was a perfect, relaxing weekend, and I got a great tan!

The Tel Aviv beach

Me and Jessica on the beach

Amanda, Jessica, and I at dinner

Footprints in the sand at night

Me and Amanda at lunch on the beach

The following weekend I went on a shabbaton at Kibbutz Channaton, the only Conservative (Judaism) Kibbutz in Israel. It was mostly students (undergraduate and rabbinical) from JTS (the Jewish Theological Seminary), but it was nice because it gave me the chance to hang out with some of my JTS friends that I hadn't seen in awhile and meet some new people I hadn't met before. We left very early Friday morning, and headed up north. We stopped for about an hour or two at a Druze village, where we walked around and did some shopping, and I had pita with labaneh (a kind of sour yogurt cheese spread) and zatar (a Middle Eastern spice) which was delicious! On the way out of the town, we stopped at another pita place on the side of the road, so I shared a thin pita (almost like a crepe) and chocolate spread with one of the other people on the trip. When we got to the kibbutz, we were supposed to have time to go swimming in the kibbutz pool, but it was WAY too cold, so we ended up just hanging out until shabbos. Friday night we had services, and it was really nice to go to a conservative service again with women being able to participate and men and women sitting together. After services we had dinner in the kibbutz dining hall, and then went and had a learning program. After the programs were done for the night, a bunch of us hung out in the room I was staying in and just hung out and played scrabble. It was a lot of fun and a nice time to catch up with people

The next day was a pretty relaxing day. After lunch, we had another learning program, and then took a tour of the kibbutz. Because the kibbutz is a dairy, we spent most of the tour with the cows. After climbing up to the top of the kibbutz (which had a great view) we went to see the different cow pens. There was an area for the regular cows, an area for the pregnant cows, and an area for the baby cows. We saw several VERY pregnant cows, some cows that were less than a week old (and even one that had been born earlier that day and one that had been born just a few minutes before we saw it). There was also a separate "cow hospital" for the cows who were sick or had recently given birth. After that, we went to the milking area, where we saw the cows being milked with very sophisticated machines. The kibbutznik who was giving us our tour explained to us that the milking machines are able to detect almost immediately if there is something wrong with the milk, so that no bacteria-infected milk gets mixed up with the milk that the kibbutz produces. It was really cool seeing the cows being milked and learning about the whole process.

After the tour, we relaxed by the pool for a little while (I went in for about a minute, but it was FREEZING!), and hung around until Shabbat was over. At the end of Shabbat, we had dinner, evening services, and then havdallah. Afterwards, we quickly went back to our room, packed up our stuff, and headed back to Jerusalem.

The view outside my window at Kibbutz Channaton

The next week was a very busy week, between a two-day Hebrew midterm and getting things done before break. That Thursday was the last day of classes before break, and when classes were over, I met with Jordana and Amanda, the two people I went to Greece with, to plan our itinerary. Then I packed and got ready to leave for Greece!

My next entry will hopefully come soon...look out for a Greece update!

With lots of love (now from Tucson as it took me several flights/layovers and a few days in Arizona to finally finish this post),

Leah