Wednesday afternoon, we had internet. Wednesday night, we didn't. Here's the post that was supposed to go up Wednesday night.

Well, I guess I lied, and I have my laptop on the 11th. They surprised us by being organized enough to get us everything at the same time today right after we got here. But let's start with this past week before I get to where "here" is.

Last Thursday morning, we left Agron for the last time until May, and headed towards Ein Gedi. Pretty much every day on this tiyul there were options of hard hikes or easy hikes/other activity that didn't involve hiking. I did the hard hike each day. The first day was Nachal Tzafit in the Ein Gedi area. On Thursday night, the entire group stayed at Bedouin Tents. We slept in the tent, and had great Bedouin dinner and a bonfire.

Friday morning, we started early, and left to do a hike in the morning, and then got to Kibbutz Ketura in the Arava Valley early enough to do get ready for shabbat and relax for a while. We had a little program at night about the tour, and then shabbat dinner, a tisch, and sleep.

On Saturday, we had the regular shabbat morning, but then we walked around the date orchards of the kibbutz. At night, I went to a bonfire that we had with Israeli teenagers, and then hung out with other Nativers. Sunday morning, we did an intense hike up the mountain behind the kibbutz and then spent the afternoon at the Kasai Dunes, sledding down, and tackling each other in the sand. At night, we had a talk with the woman who is now the shaliach (Israeli representative) in New York working with people like Bogrei Nativ. After that, everyone hung around in the cafe until it was time to go to sleep.
Monday morning we drove down towards Eilat and we hiked on the Tzafit National Trail. It involved a fun rocky ascent and then a nice cruise down into the Eilat mountains, with a view of Eilat and Aquba (Jordan). After the hike, we checked into the Hotel in Eilat, and hung out for a while. We were supposed to go on a boat on the Red Sea for a tour, but because of bad weather, they changed the programming. I ended up staying around the hotel and playing guitar with Ben, and then meeting Sarah, Bobby, and a few others on the boardwalk for dinner on the beach.

Tuesday was the intense day. We woke up at about 6 and went to Har Shlomo, the tallest mountain in the Eilat range. In the freezing wind, we hiked and climbed up what could only be described as craggy rock peak after craggy rock peak, using ladders and railings drilled into the side of the mountain to get up to the top, only for it to be too cloudy to see anything. You are supposed to be able to have an amazing View of Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia.

After the just as intense climb down the valley of the mountain, we went back to Eilat, where we were supposed to do water sports, including Banana Boating, tubing, and kayaking. After Monday and Tuesday's hike, I had hurt my neck and didn't want to go on a banana boat or tube, and it was freezing cold out anyways, so I opted to sit on the beach with a group of people and watch everyone else get cold. After dinner, a group of us hung out on the boardwalk, and then went back to the hotel to relax.

Today was transition day. We got up early, packed and got ready to leave the hotel. Everyone was in the middle of saying goodbye to each other, and then we got rushed onto the bus, only to see each other again in 2 hours and start saying goodbye over again. Today was when the three groups split, and Yerucham went to Yerucham, Be'er Sheva to Be'er Sheva, and we came to Kibbutz Ein Tzurim, where we will be for the next three months. The parking lot of the rest stop we all had lunch at was filled with a lot of hugging and a few people crying as we all said goodbye and were forced onto our respective buses. At this point, almost everyone has skype, so it will be fairly simple to keep in touch.

We got to the kibbutz at around 3, and our room was done unpacking and settled in within 2 hours. Elkana came in a car with all of our laptops that had been stored in the office back in Jerusalem. We had our first dinner at kibbutz, and Bobby and I went exploring around the local area, even though it’s going to be hard to recognize things in the morning because we only saw them in the dark.

The Caravan we're living is a little run down, but it's not too bad, and our room itself is nice. We need to do some decorating, and make the place more comfortable. We're thinking of going to the mall in Ashqelon on day coming up and pick up some stuff like more lights and maybe chairs for the common area of the Caravan. I'm in a room with Bobby and Matt, and the other room in my caravan is Aley and Ben Morse, not one of the Ben’s I was with first semester. We chose our rooms and they gave us the caravan set up that we requested, so everything worked out pretty well. I'm a bit tired from all of the traveling, so I'm going to go see how Sarah's unpacking is coming along and then go to sleep.

Enjoy Abraham Lincoln's birthday tomorrow
Robert

Sunday, December 14, 2008
Midterms Completed, Kibbutz Visited
I made it through last week, and after last night  I think I'll make it through this week. I was up until the wee-hours of the morning, finishing my Sociology midterm paper. That's right, MIDTERM. In DECEMBER. My paper was due by email at 10:15 this morning, so I finished it about 6 hours before, and now today in class we are receiving our final paper assignment. There are really only 2 weeks left of classes, but because of the schedule and the way my teachers have been assigning papers, it feels like we have at least another month or two.

This week, I have no out of class work besides reading, allowing me to sleep, and sleep, then eat, and then go back to sleep.

The past few days were nice. On Thursday, after finishing class, having dinner, and going to a capella rehearsal, I went with a group to the science museum located at the Givat Ram campus of Hebrew U. Part of Hamshushalaim, the cultural festival, was an open house at the museum, which is now my favorite place in Jerusalem. The entire place is a giant toy, with almost all hands on exhibits, including a room of Rube Goldberg style devices. We also got free tickets to a performance at the museum that was supposed to be about the brain. It was a one-man interperative dance that was supposed to relate to the idea of Pavlov's dog experiment, but I still have no idea what the hell was going on.

Chabbat was a closed shabbat, but it was an exciting one. On Friday, we had to wake up early, but they took us to go see Kibbutz Ein Tzurim, the kibbutz we'll be on in under 2 months from now. We got a tour and saw the options of where we will be living. It looks like we will be in Caravans, which are like trailers, with two bedrooms, a commmon bathroom, living room, and kitchen. They're really nice, and it gives us a lot of freedom to choose roomates because you don't have to necessarilly be in a room with someone, but you can be in their caravan.

After the kibbutz, we went to the beach in Ashdod for lunch, and then back to base in time for shabbat. Saturday morning, after going to Pelech for shul, we all were invited to Avishai's house for kiddush.

Last night, I started, and finished, my sociology paper, after much of the usual distraction and procrastination.

But this week will be a good one. Today, at about 4pm, Aley's mom and step-dad arrive, aka, my other parents are here. I'll see them tomorrow after class, and according to Aley who seems to think he's in charge of their itinerary, I'll be joining them much of the time that they're around Jerusalem. Either way, It will be nice to see people from home, beginning the month period of having family, Aley's or my own, here in Israel.

Speaking of people from home, I never mentioned it, but I saw Donna Yellen and Toni Band last thursday. They're here on a program for a week, and Donna ran itno some other Nativers in Super Sol, asked about me, and the next thing I knew, I got a phone call telling me to come accross the street. They left early this morning, but I saw Toni again yesterday on my way back from shul.

I've said it before, but I'll try to keep the blog updated a little more frequently, but these past two weeks have been absurdly busy. Hopefully I'll have a little more freedom now that the rush of work is over.

Shavua Tov
Robert

Monday, September 8, 2008
Actual Work
-Shalom
-Shalom. Ani Shelli. Mi atah?
-Ani Robert.
-Ne'im me'od.
-Ne'im me'od.
-Me'ayin atah?
-Ani me'America. Vi at?
-Ani me'Yerushaliyim.

Hello. Hello. I'm Shelli. Who are you? I'm Robert. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Where are you from? I am from America. And you? I am from Jerusalem.

This was the first thing I that came out of my mouth in the first five minutes of our first Ulpan class yesterday. Here, the schooling week goes from Sunday to Thursday, with Friday and Saturday acting as the weekend for Shabbat. We woke up nice and early yesterday morning, davined, ate quickly, and made our way to the buses and off to campus for our first day of class. I'm in The Alef Level 1 Ulpan class, which is beginners Hebrew, for beginners. The class itself is very easy because most of the vocabulary and the conversational work we have done so far, I already know. The real advantage of the class is that growing up in public school and never going to a jewish day school or remaining in a Hebrew class majority of my life, I have little to no experience of reading and writing Hebrew in script, as opposed to the block letter style, and especially not without vowels. This class starts from the beginning, but everything we do is written in script and I have not written out a single vowel (which helps not only with pronunciation, but what the actual meaning of the word itself is) in my notes. Example, the word for "king" and "salt" have the exact same spelling, but different vowels. However, now I will be able to recognize which word it actually

So therefore, even if I already know and have used the word I'm writing, I'm writing and reading it differently than I've been taught in the past, and therefore, am learning what I want to learn. Make sense? In addition, because it is a very rudimentary class, many things are taught verbally, improving conversational skills. And I don't really mind. The class is really there for the purpose of familiarizing yourself with the language. I'm planning on entering a college level Hebrew grammar course once the semester starts in October.

Shelli is one of our teachers. We have her Sundays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. Our other teacher, who we had today, is Fabio. Not Fabio the model with the ridiculous hair and lousy TV commercials. He's an Argentinian Jew who made aliyah. Shelli likes to teach using the workbook we have for the class, and she teaches a lot of the class using English as the primary language for giving directions, etc. Fabio on the other hand, only used English today when he was asked a question, such as "what does that Hebrew word mean?" He gave out directions in Hebrew, and responded to us in Hebrew. I found it to be very helpful. He's also a young guy and is very energetic and into what he is teaching. He's now our teacher for Mondays, Tuesdays, and he co-teaches with Shelli on Wednesday. And apparently every Tuesday, we will be watching a movie in Hebrew. Our class is four hours everyday, so even with the movie, we still have time for other work. In fact tomorrow, we have our second quiz in the first 3 days of the class. It seems like every day we will be quizzed on what we learned the day before. No complaints. Just means a lot of studying.

Because of the work, I've been, and have been planning on, staying in on school nights. Last night, I ended up just playing music with some people once we all finished our work, and tonight, I went out to dinner, but came back to spend the rest of the night looking over notes and doing homework. That's the major difference between the Hebrew University students and the Yeshiva students. We have homework almost every night, but 3 days a week, we're done with class at 2. The yeshiva students have class from 9 to almost 6 or later depending on what they're taking, but they have no homework and no tests. Not that bad a deal.

In addition to my Hebrew class from 9-1, 2 or 3 days a week depending on the schedule, I have a history of Jerusalem class, taught by two people. The lecture part of the class is done by David Keren, the director of USY in Israel. He runs the pilgrimage programs and the youth activities, but not Nativ. So half of the class is in the classroom, done as a lecture, is where we take most of the notes. The other half of the class, we are split up into two groups, and he go on tours, hike's, walks, and any other field trips they can do here to get us to experience Jerusalem's history. Today, we went to a lookout of the old city and the surrounding area on the top of Mt. Scopus. My teacher for this field trip part of the class is named JJ, Jacob Jonah. This Wednesday, we're going to the city of David to do a water hike through the Gihon Spring, the one natural water source in Jerusalem that was one of the reasons for David choosing to establish his kingdom here in 1000 B.C.E.

Anyways, that's pretty much my life at this point. I need to stop filling all of you in on this information and get back to studying. I have a quiz in the morning, and if I don't get to sleep at a reasonable time tonight, I may fall asleep in class again. Turkish coffee is good when you need to wake up, but not that good.

Laila Tov,
Robert