Hello again!! :-)
I'm trying to stay on top of this to the best of my ability... at least this time I didn't wait nearly 2 months. Things are going extremely well--as expected. Classes are reaching the midterm point-- and yet I've done very little in terms of school work (which is nice). A few midterm exams that were on little more than general Israel/Zionism history and a 3 page paper due before Passover. Glorious!
As I'm sure many know... Purim was celebrated a few weeks ago. Purim is similar to Halloween in the sense that everyone dresses up and goes to parties and similar to Little 500 at IU in the sense that everyone drinks... a lot. I spent Purim in Be'er Sheva, Jerusalem and on Kibbutz Sasa in the north where my friend Hannah lives. Jerusalem was crazy... we spent the evening around Kikar Tzion and Ben Yehuda St. There were people everywhere in crazy costumes, Heradi (Ultra-Orthodox) men dancing and singing about the Messiah in the middle of the square, and even a blinged out (rope light decorated, music blasting and guy on the hood dresses as a big clown) van driving through the city. We went to Hebrew Union College for the Megilah reading, which was really nice and after went to dinner and explored the busy area.
The next day I headed up to Sasa to spend the weekend and go to their Purim party. The theme was הישרדות (Survivor) The Israeli version of the show is really really popular (I'm hooked... it's a really funny show) Hannah and I wanted to dress the part... so we went for the beach look... leggings tank tops and srongs as dresses/skirts. It was a really fun party and of course... the rest of the weekend at Sasa was wonderful as well.
Last weekend I headed up north once again to spend time at the University of Haifa with Danny and Gillian from camp. On the way up, I made a stop for the day in Tel Aviv where I met up with Ohad. He works at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art and we spent the afternoon at the museum. He showed me around and I got to explore the exhibits for a while as well as help him set up for a project he was doing that evening with some art students... (really reminded me of camp...) That evening I took the train up to Haifa.
Haifa is a beautiful city, everything was green (which is a nice change from the arid desert) and we spent the two days wondering around the city. We went to Hadar where we shopped at a really nice shuk and had lunch at a cute cafe. Danny and Harrison (a friend from EIE) led services Friday evening and they were followed by a free dinner at the university and a pajama party to watch Ratatouille. ;-)
On Saturday we heading to the Baha'i Gardens... it was soooo pretty, absolutely unbelievable to see in person. That is one place I wish we would've gone to on EIE. We were able to get on a tour and walk down roughly 700 stairs... of course taking pictures the whole way. Gillian had been on that tour 3 times previously... so I made sure to thank her for doing it again for me. After the gardens, we headed to lunch-- pizza in an Arab village near by and then to the beach. It was rather windy and chilly, so we sat in the sand for a while. Hopefully I'll head back up there again when it's warmer. The train station is literally right across the street, so it'd be really easy. That evening we went for sushi dinner and I headed back to Be'er Sheva motzi shabbat.
Like I've said (about 100 times now) I'm having a fantastic time and can't believe how quickly the time is going by! This weekend my friend Rebecca is coming down to Be'er Sheva and the following weekend a friend Tamara from BGU and I are doing a weekend in Eilat! ... followed shortly there after by Passover and my vacations to Barcelona and Berlin.
That's all from here... we just had daylight savings time--so I'm back to 6 hours ahead of EST and 7 before CST. The weather is getting warmer... it hasn't rained in Be'er Sheva since mid February and it won't again until next December. We had a little bit of a heat wave last week... it was between 95-105 degrees for a few days... but now its back to a very nice at least 75 and sunny forecast everyday...so for now... I can't complain about the weather. It does get rather chilly at night and it's lovely! ;-)
I would really like to hear from all of you, keep in touch!
Pictures:
Purim-- http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2408186&l=7ca8b&id=6825807
Haifa-- http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2408197&l=5c3ae&id=6825807
Traci
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