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 3rd 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
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