The Weekend

Sorry its taken so long for me to write. My internet has been really spotty and I haven't really done too many interesting things lately.... Ulpan is starting to take over my life. Next week it goes from eight to one every day of the week (and i thought it was overwhelming now), so that should be interesting. 

This weekend has been my first to just relax and stay in Jerusalem in quite awhile. It has been really nice. Friday we went to an English-speaking rally for one of the candidates for Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu (right-wing). I think we were the youngest people there by about fifty years- I’m not exaggerating.  He talked a lot about how he was the only candidate who would not give try to make friends with terrorists and keep Israel strong. It was pretty convincing, I thought. It was funny though, because he was the most stereotypical politician you can possibly imagine. Huge fake smile and fist pounding. He even said, “and I promise to lower taxes” with a completely straight face. But however suave he was, he was also extremely candid. He didn’t read his speech and people from the audience shouted things out and he would respond to them in the course of his speech. It was so different from what we are used to seeing in the US. I guess in the states you just assume that the people running for President have some secret way of figuring out how to best solve all of our problems. The whole bit becomes really abstract. But here you get the feeling that everyone knows that no one knows what to do, so the politicians have to reason with people a lot more. They are much more humble and tentative about their policies, but at the same time much more egotistical and overbearing in their personalities. It makes for a very strange mix. At any rate, he was from the conservative party so we got a very interesting viewpoint on what the best way to solve Israel’s problems is. He wants to be hard on terrorists and not give any territorial concessions to the Palestinians- the only way to reach a peaceful solution is to stop looking weak by giving away territory.  Although a lot of what he said made sense, it also seemed a little unreasonable. Yes, everyone here wants terrorism to stop. But the problem is how to make that happen. He didn’t really go into that much.

After that we went and got waffles at a waffle bar. They were pretty delicious. Mine was topped with cinnamon cream cheese. Then we went and saw some live music- a Balkan folk band with an accordion and flute among other things. It was pretty fun.

 Yesterday we spent the day just walking around Jerusalem. We started out by having breakfast in this really awesome little hole in the wall restaurant in Rahavyia.  This is such a cool neighborhood. It is the neighborhood that was built once the Old City started to get too crowded, so it is one of the oldest places in Jerusalem and because of that, it has a lot of trees. It is so pretty. There are all these little apartment complexes with flowers in the window boxes and colorfully painted doors. There are little book shops and restaurants and tailor shops and things like that all over. There is tons of graffiti and art all over. It’s so awesome. I plan on spending a lot of time there this semester. Anyway we got breakfast and it was soo good. Lochs and homemade bread still warm out of the oven and Israeli salad (tomatoes, cucumbers, red peppers and mushrooms/olives) and scallion scrambled eggs and fresh squeezed orange juice and goat cheese. All for about 30 shekel. That’s like eight bucks. And I was full for the whole day. After that we wandered around for the afternoon and just watched people and sat in the sun downtown. We decided to go to the old city and the Kotel for Shabbat. That was pretty cool. There was this one group of kids our age who were just running around and singing and dancing and jumping up and down and they grabbed up and we got swept into singing and dancing and jumping around. It was so fun, even though I was a little confused about the hand motions to a lot of the songs. We also got to go up to the wall. Almost every women we saw brought two things: tissues and a prayer book. There were also a TON of men there who are the ones who actually get to sing and dance. Women are not supposed to. Some one told me that this is because women are considered closer to God so they don’t need as many physical reminders of their connection. Men have to dance and sing and do many rituals (like wearing kippas) to be reminded of their connection to God. So it is a sexist religion, but just not in the way you think. That’s also why men and women are separated at the wall, because the men are weak willed and easily distracted by the women. I’m not sure if this is exactly the truth, but its pretty interesting at any rate.

 Then I came home and fell asleep- my roommate is gone for the weekend so I can have my room all to myself- pretty luxurious. Hope you are all well- love!