Long lost letter: Going to Israel part two

Howdy,

Ok, so our time in Israel: So I arrived at about 9:30am, and more or less breezed through security. The letters that they gave were really helpful. Side note: So Jessica is at risk of being deported (ok, that’s overly dramatic phrasing, but still). Long story short, she was confused and intimidated during the airport security bit, so when they gave her the visa stamp they scratched out the 3 month and replaced it with a 1, so she needs to go get another before the month is over. She was sad and a bit freaked about it, but I’m sure it’ll get worked out sooner or later.

Gal’s grandmother’s house is gorgeous. She has a good amount of land, and a lot of fruit trees. Her house is a flat, one level, two-bedroom house. It’s not what I’d call a huge house, but it has a LOT of space, plus has a number of windows, so it felt perpetually flooded with natural light. She’s an artist and has a huge studio that was probably the biggest room in the house, with her easels and old art all over the walls. She shares the land with one of her sons, and adores spending time with her grandchildren, one of which has a bunny shack with like 20 bunnies of varying ages (I got to hold a baby bunny!!! It was so cute and soft. I also saw extra young, almost newborn babies!!!) . So, I don’t feel that I had too much in the way of jet lag (you know, considering I slept for pretty much the entire trip here and I need sleep during the day anyway). We went out into Tel Aviv a couple of times. First, we went to a harbor shopping area, where there were at least 4 couples taking wedding photos, and had dinner with Gal’s aunt at this Italian restaurant. The next day we went shopping at the Azreali mall, we met up with Viva Zhou (I said her name because I figure you might know her). While we were there, Viva met one of her old friends, who graduated and is staying in Israel on a fellowship. She gave us some tips for while we were here, and told us about this super cheap cruise ($200, 3 days) from here to Greece. I’d really like to go, but I think Gal and Jess are saving it for after the program is over. Oh well.

Fast forward to after move-in at Hebrew U (or, Clubbing - night one): so we head to downtown Jerusalem, Ben something or another (I can’t spell it, also it’s been a min, so I’m actually missing some details on this part). There is already a schism within people in the program it seems: the chill people versus the party people (guess which one we’re in). We started at Bar Nehemia (or something like that- They give out really tasty popcorn!!). Our table started out with cocktail shots, then buy one, get one cocktails, then another round of shots for some. After that we started looking for clubs. We spend about 30 mins looking for a place called Toybar, and asking random people on the streets where it is. Another good side story: so while we were wandering trying to find out where to go, we end up asking this random group of Australians for directions. Turns out, they are mad cool students being led by Gal’s cousin (who didn’t even know he was in Israel until he called). Needless to say, they are our new party buddies. Also, one of them was gay…at one point in our 3^rd bar (after not getting into Toybar for being too young) the boy and Gal went into the bathroom for so long that the rest of us just left the bar and went to go get something to eat…ate, came back and still had to go retrieve them. The boy also came home to spend the night at Gal’s dorm, which happens to be in the Australian Dorm, go figure. Also during this night, Jess and I went into this place called Kings Bar, where we met some British and American chicks who practically rule the place and ended up getting 2 free shots just for being there. I skipped out on the second night out, so you’ll get the story about that from Gal, though apparently there was vomiting in a cab, and one of the Australians, a girl named Juz turned into a sloppy drunk hot mess, and apparently was acting extra thirsty around Zak. Night three, more bars. The first one we went to turned out to be the only gay club in Jerusalem; unfortunately, it sucked balls. Well, Viva and I had fun dancing, but we were the only ones. Honestly, it looked like a dive, and the music was a really odd mix of almost-funk and random kinda trance club mixes. I didn’t care for it that much, but funk holds a special place (though, it’s not really fun unless you have a lot of older black people, or maybe just funk enthusiasts), plus the people on the dance floor were throwing popcorn. Anyhow, we leave, and find this really awesome bar that has been proclaimed as our official spot. Eventually it winds down to just Gal, Jess and I and we ended up at this bar called Putin, which was also really cool. It was like Scandinavian pop, with random rap music (Gangsta’s paradise came out of nowhere, then Gal requested California Love) and rock thrown in; I ended up slow dancing with this oldish Slavic looking dude to No Doubt. I wanna hang out with more Arabs and Ethiopians. I miss people with melanin and have rhythm in their music. I’m not sure if that’s prejudiced or not.

Since these letters are lagging too far behind current events, so we really need to skype.

Abrazos,

Bunni

Long lost letter: Going to Israel part one

So I'd been doing some digital cleaning and clearing of the hard drive, when I came across a document containing 2 letters to a friend back home. They contained fairly high detail of my first few days there, and what traveling was like. As I made clear at the beginning of this blog, I hate writing and it takes me forever to do it. As such, there are only two letters (I was never a good pen pal), that combine a lot of detail into one since they were written days after the events actually happened. Anyway, heres the first one. Enjoy!

Hey Mini,

So this whole internet thing isn’t quite what I thought, so I still don’t have internet in my room. I’m actually typing this at about 1am and will paste this into an email to send to you later (you know it takes me forever to write things). Just as a heads up, this will be a bit long and detailed.

So I’ll start from the beginning of our travels. Our first flight, from Chicago to Istanbul, was around 10:30-45 or so. I was knocked out pretty much the entire flight, so my knowledge is a bit limited on that end. I was awake enough to notice somewhat utilize the TV’s we had in front of us. There were video guides to pretty much every city Turkish Air flew to, there were music options, and there were like 100 or so on demand movies. I used my screen to track the flight of the plane, and watch the very beginning of The Informant several times. Like I said, I was knocked out pretty much 8 ¼ of the 9 hours of that flight, so I missed every single food and drink service. According to Gal and Jess, the food on the flight was amazing though. And they served a tasty wine (according to Jess).

When we landed in Istanbul we started having fun (I was starving by this point, it was 4:30 the next day). Since we all had long layovers, we decided to get a visa and go get something to eat. Let me just state that as a southern-bred (by proxy) American, I’m used to a bit of politeness, and customer service. Not that people were outright obnoxious or mean, but the prime meridian might be the border to “I-just-don’t-give-a-fuck-about-you- stranger” land. There seems to be overall less “thank you’s” and “excuse me’s” over here (same for Israel as well), though nothing worse than a crowded transit station during rush hour. Anyhow, we got a Visa, stood in the long ass exit line for what felt like forever, then managed to arrange a car drop off and pick up to this restaurant near the water, not too far from the airport. By the way, the dude who drove us there was like a real life Turkish Transporter-guy (picture Jason Stratnham, or however you spell that guy’s name, in Turkish hot ). I mean, dude was weaving and speeding through mad traffic; a lesser driver would have killed us. The place was airy, high-ceilings, and actually pretty empty and cheap for as classy as it looked. The food was really tasty and we just hung out there for a few hours until the car came back to pick us up. We would have liked to wander, but it’d gotten dark and chilly so we just stayed put. Plus, there wasn’t too much obvious stuff to look at nearby anyway. Eventually, we get back to the airport. Let me just say that the security at the airport has a totally different vibe (Darn 9/11). Somehow, it has more layers, but seems more straight-forward and laid back. I don’t know/remember how it was in Paris, but there were 3 times you passed through roughly the same security set up: once as soon as you enter the airport, next when you go toward your gate, and then just before you get on your plane.

Back to the story: Gal and Jess had a much shorter layover than I did. WE walked around the airport for maybe an hour after getting back, then they had to board their flight to Tel Aviv at about 11pm or so. So I followed them to outside their gate entry area, and then just sat down with my bags and started to write in my journal. Enter creepy ass janitors. At first dude was nice; he asked me if I was American, what I was writing, did I want to smoke, etc (in Turkish of course, with some gestures and sporadic English words thrown in). So me being me, and confused as fuck, I was all smiles and basically alternating between trying to understand, while repeating “I don’t understand you” and avoiding eye contact. Sometime later, as I noticed the wing I was in had no more travelers passing through (though a really cute Turkish guy running for his flight I assume, made a point of smiling and saying hi to me while passing. Quite nice.) , the janitor friend, Tav, kept popping up more. When two more janitors appeared, and started talking to me with more crude gestures (there were finger and tongue motions), I knew I had to move for real that time. So I wander in a more populated section, before I settled down at this really nice restaurant, with a bomb ass cream of asparagus soup. I almost bought a drink called “lady in the airport” that sounded tasty, but cost 2x as much as my soup (which was about $6-7), and curled up on the couch under my blanket and a flat-screen blasting Turkish Top 100 hits before waking up for my 7:45 am flight. Lo me encanta mucho.

So I realized I’ve crossed the 2 pg mark here in word, which means I’m babbling and it’s time for me to go to bed (I hear the partiers coming home). I promise to be more concise in the next part and actually talk about my time in Israel, which has been pretty fun w/ a bit of crazy.

Hasta Luego,

Bunni

Weekend in Wanderland - Kuma's Corner

My weekend was pretty fun. I keep forgetting to keep a photo log of things while I'm out and about, especially now that I'm back among the camera-less. Someday, when I feel like getting what few pics I did take off of my phone. I'll update this post with pictures. Until then, let my words suffice.

Friday, my friends and I had an adventure on the North side of Chicago. We met after work and headed to western Belmont Ave to check out this place called Kuma's Corner. We heard tell that they have the best burgers in Chicago, so we had to taste for ourselves. When we got there, there was a 45 minute wait, so we headed over to Mr. Pollo for some yucca fries in the meantime (more on that place later). Let me tell you: we were not disappointed. The burger was HUGE -it was a challenge to get a mouthful of all the layers of burger (then again, I'm told I have a small mouth). The meat was also quite juicy and very savory - though it wasn't readily apparent just what it was seasoned with. They have a decent selection of burgers named after different metal bands, with unique topping combinations (the menu states that they put a lot of thought into those combos, and that the chef doesn't take kindly to substitutions). I got the YOB (pronounced like 'job', if you were a quasi-offensive Mexican stereotype), which had red bell pepper, some type of bacon, gouda cheese, and garlic mayo *de-lish*. Did I mention that they have some of the most perfect waffle fries I've ever had? That is an art form. The restaurant itself has this whole tough, metal vibe to it (that is somewhat killed by the distinctly non-hardcore patrons). The interior is small and tough to hold a conversation in over the music (various metal playlists, of course), but the outdoor patio was perfect, barring the mosquitoes.

Though our tummies were going to explode by the time we left, we hopped on the bus and rode over to the eastern side of Belmont Ave. to go to Paciugo Gelato in Lakeview. They also have a few curious flavor combinations. Of the flavors I tried, Key Lime and Texas Ruby Red Grapefruit were the best (*fantastic!*), and Blueberry Cobbler was the worst (*surprisingly bad*). Its good enough to go back to, but I probably won't very often, if at all. I'm in love with and loyal to Yougen Fruz, and I don't have enough of a sweet tooth to handle both(I'll expound about my love of Yogen Fruz & Lakeview a.k.a boystown at a later date).

Anyhow, I gotta go. Ttyl.

Bunni's Favorite Cartoon Animals

Hypothetical #1: You and I are hopping along in the shopping district of whereeva-the-heck and without warning, I freeze. I'm squealing and bouncing all over the place, deaf to the world, making hand squeezy motions and barely audible noises that sound like "I want it"...

The possible impetus: I saw something with one of my fave cartoon animals on it. I have a deep love for these characters, their appearance and their personalties (yes, even the ones that don't talk). Obvious hint: If you're lost for what to give me for my birthday, chances are I will flip a $#!* over pretty much anything with one of these characters on it.

Bugs Bunny - I still have my stuffed Bugs that was given to my when I was two. He's a little dingy now, and his voice box is long gone, but I can't sleep well at night without him by my side

Badtz Maru - That's Japanese for bad azz fuggin penguin. I sleep with a stuffed one of these every night. In a few years, his head will be tattooed somewhere on my body

Felix the Cat - I love him! Somehow, I used to have an old VHS tape collection of his cartoons that I watched to death when I was a kid. You can't imagine how happy I was a few years ago when I found the collection on DVD (in a dollar store! Not that i'm mad it was cheap, but Felix is worth more than a dollar) I've toyed with the idea of tattooing his face on my body as well

Woodstock - He's dear to me. A good friend to snoopy, he speaks nothing but simple wisdom and guidance (in birdspeak of course). Plus, his name is Woodstock. Awesome.

Woody Woodpecker - Okay, so this is one childhood fave I'm scared to watch again for fear that he'd too obnoxious for my current tastes. I found some in a dollar store bin as well, but it turned out to be a mix of other old cartoons as well.