Apologies, gentle readers!

So I haven't posted in several days. I know, I know. I've been very naughty and promise to reform my reticent ways.

Really though, I haven't had a whole lot to say. Although one would think that living in Israel is the source of daily adventures, I must inform everyone that most of my time is spent in classes. The classes are interesting, but a reiteration of said classes in blog form is NOT interesting in the least. So, if it's demanded, I shall publish a transcription of my classes in this forum, if only to prove that sometimes it's better not to have an update at all.

So, today I actually have something interesting to say: I did laundry. Two loads of it, in fact. It was really nice, and now my clothes are all clean. That's my update for today. Happy now, Dad?

Alright, I'm kidding! I did actually do laundry, as I was down to one clean pair of underwear. But the real interesting part of the day was the artists' exhibition at night.

WUJS has three tracks. I'm in the "main" track, but there's also the Peace and Social Justice track (or as I often call them, damn hippies) and the arts track. So tonight, the artists unveiled the beginnings of their works. The visual artists all had displays, the dancers danced for us and the writers read their works.

I played violin as background for one guy's poems. They were Shabbat poems (they sounded like something out of the Siddur, as if he was the reincarnation of Yehudah Ha-Levi or something). I played three tunes to three different poems: a L'chah Dodi, one of the many tunes to Y'did Nefesh and a commonly-known tune to Yigdal.

The really amazing part of the experience was realizing the level of talent that exists in this program. It's hard to imagine that these people have created such amazing works of art. It's really cool.

Now that I've finally updated, I can make one promise: there will be no more updates until AT LEAST this coming Sunday, and probably not until Monday. We're heading off on a trip, a shabbaton really, to a kibbutz near Eilat. It should be fun.

Cough, cough

So, as per my last post, I had my room to myself for five days. How did I spend it? Being sick, of course! If there's a better way to spend free time, I haven't found it yet. (Catch the sarcasm?)

So my time is almost up, and I've been pretty much unable to enjoy myself. How unfair is that? Next time I get a really bad cold, I want it to be when I DON'T have time to enjoy myself. Did I get to go to Be'er Sheva this week? No, I was too busy coughing. Did I get to sleep this week? No, I was too busy blowing my nose. It totally sucked.

Luckily, I wasn't the only sickie that got left behind. The two guys in the room next to me also stayed back from the tiyul, and we spent three days being sick together. They're both pretty cool, so at least I had some entertaining company.

My working theory right now is that I either have the hantavirus (thanks for the suggestion, Danny) or consumption. Either way, I'm kind of hoping it goes away quickly. I'm supposed to have my first voice lesson tomorrow evening, and I'm fairly sure it's just not going to happen.

So that was Betsy's weekend update. Scintillating, wasn't it? At least it'll be hard to catch my germs over the internet!

Five days with my room to myself...

So I get to be roommate-less for about five days, and at the moment I think that's pretty cool. There's nobody here being overly cheerful. I think I'm going to enjoy that.

Last Thursday, I left for Tel Aviv at 5:00 p.m. I spent the weekend at Janie and Moshe's house, and had a very nice time. When I got there Thursday evening, we spent almost two hours speaking only Hebrew. I kept a list with all of the new words I learned, because I would never have been able to remember them. After two hours, I started to get really tired. It's difficult to have to puzzle out ever sentence somebody says to you, and to figure out how to respond. So most of the rest of the weekend, we spoke a mixture of Hebrew and English.

Janie and I went to a music store on Friday morning, and went home with a pretty good haul. I got a crappy folding music stand, a book of Kreisler and Kreisler-arranged songs for violin, a piano book and a manuscript book. I also bought Suzuki Violin book one, as a present for a friend. He seems to be very happy with the gift.

After the music store, we decided to go swimming. The pool was in a beautiful facility in Tel Aviv, where they actually change the pool from indoors to outdoors for different seasons. Swimming was fun, as well as being good exercise. After that, and a bit of time in the hot tub, we ate salads upstairs from the pool.

Later, Janie and Moshe invited some friends and their little grandchildren over for dinner. I played with the kids, speaking a mixture of broken Hebrew and broken English. The little girl, about eight years old, seemed to understand me fairly well, but her four-year-old brother had a harder time figuring out English. The next morning, they came to the beach with us, and the little boy had a blast with Janie and Moshe's fluffy little animal (which seems not to be a member of the canine species). When it came time to go home, the little boy cried because he didn't want to leave the dog!

The bus ride home sucked, hands down. I almost ended up having to stand for two hours, from Tel Aviv to Be'er Sheva. Fortunately, somebody eventually gave me a seat (after fourty minutes). The ride from Be'er Sheva to Arad was much better. Apparently, most people don't want to go to Arad, and that's perfectly fine by me!

I had my first violin lesson on Sunday, which I think went fairly well. I've been invited to play with the conservatory's string orchestra, which meets on Friday afternoons. I'm definitely going to check it out this week. I hope it'll be fun.

Later that night, most of the group here went to a film festival in Be'er Sheva, at Ben Gurion University. Nobody will guess what the film was about. Need any hints? It was about Ben Gurion (the first prime minister, not the school). Actually, it was a fairly interesting movie, if a little overacted. It detailed the political and personal difficulties Ben Gurion experienced in the time leading up to his declaration of Israel's independence.

Yesterday, the only interesting thing that happened is that I went to the shook with a few of my friends. It's a pretty cool place--- you can get a lot of stuff very cheaply. Unfortunately, it's only open on Mondays. After that, we got hamburgers for dinner, which weren't half-bad. Of course, they weren't half-good either. At least they were more edible than the food we get at the mirkaz klitah for lunch!

That's it for now, everyone...stay tuned for more updates!

Oh, for a clean load of laundry!

So, our laundry facilities have been broken since I got here, and apparently for several weeks before as well. Last night, we got word that, amazingly, the laundry was up and working. Many people rushed to toss a load in, but I decided to wait until tonight.

Charlotte was talking to people online and I was bored, so I decided to try to figure this new-fangled laundry thing out. She said that the guard at the door knew how to work the machine that gives you cards (so that you can pay for the laundry).

I went downstairs with a big hamper, and found the guard surrounded by five or six of the Ethiopian teenage boys who also live in the mirkaz klitah. I asked him how to work the machine, and each and every boy jumped up and offered to help me. I was escorted by the entourage of teenagers to the machine, where I offered six shekels (the initial cost to get the card) to the guard, who attepted to put the coins in the machine.

The machine, of course, didn't accept the coins. Within a minute, after several tries, the boys all started offering up fistfuls of coins. Shekels were flying by me so fast, that I no longer had any idea if ANY of the money was mine, let alone where my original six shekels were!

Finally, one boy picked up a five-shekel piece and spun it into the machine, where it stayed! The digital display registered the amount. The boy's objective: to get one more shekel into the machine. Again, the coin popped out, and everybody began offering up money.

After another minute or two, they evidently got the last coin into the machine, because somebody handed me a card. I was standing back, watching the pandemonium unfold, as they asked me for more shekels to put money on the card for use in the laundry machines.

By the end, I had no idea whose money was on my card. One member of the financial circus informed me that there were ten shekels on it.

As I turned to get my hamper, one of the boys swung it up in his arms and ran down the stairs with it, depositing it in the laundry room.

And guess what? All of the machines were full!

Thus ends the saga of Betsy's first attempt to do laundry at the Mirkaz Klitah Yafit in Arad. Hopefully, a sequel will be forthcoming, because I'm running out of clean clothes here!

Tuesday Seminar, once again

Well, it's another Tuesday, and that means it's time for another issue of Betsy's trecks around Israel. Unfortunately, there will be no pictures for today. My camera seems to have slept in. Ok, fine, I forgot it in my room when I grabbed my backpack and all this morning.

Today, we went to the towns of Netivot and Sderot. Both were development towns that were started around the same time. They're extremely close to one another as well. The difference between the two? Sderot keeps getting pelted with Kassam rockets, and Netivot does not have that problem. An illustration, of a type: in Netivot, we went to see the town's old Sephardic synagogue. In Sderot, we saw a trauma center and stacks of spent Kassams outside of the police station.

Actually, Sderot's situation is very sad. It looks like a nice little town, with lots of high-tech industry, stores, decent-looking homes and even a college. But it's in crisis because the rockets, while not accurate in the least, cause a lot of economic and psychological damage to the town. Essentially, in the ten years that Sderot has endured these attacks, it has transformed into something very different indeed from Netivot.

In other news, I went to the mall today and did NOT get strip-searched. I feel that this is some sort of victory for me. Actually, everyone I interacted with today was helpful (with the exception of the surly check-out ladies at the supermarket). Perhaps this is some sort of bizarro-Israel. I'm flabbergasted. My purchases included, in part: a humidifier for my room, plastic flip-flops and folders for my music and ulpan materials.

I have some of my music lessons set up at this point. In fact, I start piano lessons tomorrow afternoon. I'm not sure if I'm excited or nervous, but at least we've managed to find teachers who all speak English to some degree or another. I'm fairly hopeful about this.

Stay tuned for the next installment of ADVENTURES IN ARAD!

Shabbat in Arad

Well, it's Friday once again, and this week I'm staying put at the Mirkaz Klitah, like it or not. Most people are sticking around, partially due to a very strong security advisory on travel. Due to recent events in Gaza, security has tightened a bit...or at the very least, certain influential people around here are a bit worried about the possibility of terrorist attacks. So, having nothing better to do, to tell the complete truth, I decided to stay here.

Yesterday my ulpan class took an impromtu trip to the desert. It's kind of weird to consider the fact that I only have to walk for five minutes to be in the middle of the Judean desert. The desert is beautiful, but it's just so empty.

I now have internet in my room, but the situation is far from ideal. Israel's cable monopoly lead us to believe that we would be able to connect two computers to the internet simultaneously with just the modem they provided. Of course, they were wrong. If they didn't intentionally lie to us, then it still says little positive about their customer relations.

I'm finding that Israel is very backwards in many aspects of capitalist and consumer culture. They have consumers, but no consumer values to assure the quality of products and services. Businesses here feel no impulse to help people get the best products possible. I find shopping in Arad extremely frustrating because of it. No, I don't care that there are no baggers at the end of the supermarket checkout line, but I definitely care that the clerk has no interest in checking me out quickly, efficiently and politely. Screw the problems with national security! A lack of good business, in my opinion, is a fundemental dilemma in Israeli society.

Also, I thought the desert was supposed to be so great for asthma and allergies, right? Well, that's not true if EVERYONE SMOKES. I've had more asthma attacks in Arad in the past three weeks than I had in Milwaukee during the past year. This is such a beautiful country. Why do people need to ruin the air with the smoke and the scenery with their disgusting cigarette butts?

Tonight everyone who stayed in Arad is getting together for a pot-luck dinner. I think it will be a lot of fun. I'm bringing some pasta with tomato sauce (my specialty---I can boil water with the best of them). Who knows what we'll do afterward? Maybe watch a movie or just hang out. I love the fact that the bars are closed on Shabbat, because I generally can't go into the bars (once again, the smoke). So tonight, everyone will be here with me.

That's it for this Friday evening. More another time.

Culture shock, or "stop touching my butt!"

I had a request, I believe from Kelly, to post some pictures of my living situation in Arad.


This is my part of the main room of my apartment. The rest of the apartment contains another bed and desk (my roommate's), a really ugly (and smelly) little bathroom and a tiny kitchen. Note that I bought those sheets and blankets to try to brighten up the place a little. Also note that the tiny strip of green that you see under the pillow is the actual thickness of my mattress. And the little board above the bed? Why, that's the only wall decoration we're allowed! So I put my Cinnamon pictures up there.

So after the fun of yesterday's trip to Jerusalem, today has been fairly crappy once again. I got a package from home which included my checkbook, a lot of music, my cantorial school application and a lot of water. I'm pretty sure I hadn't ordered water with that stuff. Especially since my application was completely ruined. Now I have to wait until they send me another one.

Then, I walk into a store and the anti-theft sensor beeps. Note that I walked INTO the store, not OUT of it, in which case it may have been physically possible for me to steal something. But instead of ignoring the beeping like they do in stores in the States, some crazy employees make me empty out my pockets. When that didn't work, they nearly strip-searched me. What was it? Apparently a little tag that I forgot to snip off my pants. And I refused to buy the pen and folders I went there for. When I refused to buy anything, they suddenly offered a "sorry." Not so much good enough.

Really, there are some things I like about Israel and some things I hate. Like WHY are people allowed to smoke everywhere? It's disgusting. It makes me cough. I think smoking should be generally illegal, indoors or out...but it's so much worse when people are smoking in the middle of the mall or next to my table in a restaurant.

It would be nice if I could go home at night, and come back here during the daytime. That would be an ideal arrangement. Any chance of moving Milwaukee closer to Arad?

Pictures from Jerusalem

This is the obligatory Kotel picture from the old city of Jerusalem. No, I have no idea who any of those people are. They were just in the way.


This is the entrance to the Cardo, an old Roman street in the old city of Jerusalem. When Jerusalem was liberated in 1967, it was apparently well underground. After lots of digging, it's once again a street.


A little way down the street, there's a menorah in a glass case. I'm not sure why it's there. Maybe it's good feng shui for ancient Roman streets.



There are lots of little shops along the Cardo, which we were unable to stop and look at. The street has been covered, although it was open during Roman times. Today, there are living quarters above it.



The obligatory old city picture with the Dome of the Rock in the background.

The Sunday blues (formerly Monday's, but this is Israel)

After spending a lovely weekend at Janie and Moshe's house, I woke up to dingy weather at 6:00 this morning to catch a bus back to Arad. After a hurried breakfast, Janie and Moshe took me to the bus station and dropped me off. After waiting for what seemed like several years to have my luggage searched before entering the station, I had to try to figure out where my bus was.

There were a ton of platforms and one little board that showed destinations and platform numbers. And there were a lot more destinations than could fit on the board at once. I watched it go through all the names twice, never once seeing Be'er Sheva. So it was up to me to search for it. And it was a seriously frustrating project.

By the time I found my platform, I had missed the bus that would have gotten me to Be'er Sheva in time for the transfer that would get me to Arad at 10:00. Complicated, isn't it? After a 90-minute ride, I got off in the middle of a very rainy desert town and started searching for the platform that would get me to Arad. After finding it, and two of my program-mates as well, we acknowledged that there was no way we would make our 10:00 deadline. And it was true. We didn't get back to Arad until 10:10, and it was 10:15 by the time I was at the mirkaz klitah gates. Therefore, the first half of ulpan had to be a write-off this morning. I made the second half, with time to unpack included.

Lunch was disappointing as usual. And an aura of depression has surrounded my whole day. Why? I really don't know. I feel lonely here. I can't even explain why. At first, I was unhappy with my surroundings, but now that feels like the least of my problems. But when I'm asked why I feel so sad, I don't even know how to answer. I like the program. I like the people here, even though I'm not particularly close to anyone. I just want to be happy here, but for some reason I'm not. And I'm just as confused about it as anyone else.

As for my weekend, I enjoyed being with Janie and Moshe. They took me to the beach at sunset, and to a beautiful park near their house. I got to see my second cousin Michal for only the second time, which was nice. And I met Moshe's sister, her husband and their children, and they are all wonderfully nice people. But I still didn't feel like myself. I didn't feel happy or upbeat. I can't muster up my usual silliness.

Ok, I need to stop depressing myself now. Hopefully, my next post will be a lot more happy.

To Tel Aviv I go

It's Thursday night, and after a long week in the smelly mirkaz klitah, I am looking forward to spending a couple of days away from here! Tomorrow morning, I'm boarding a bus to Tel Aviv to stay with my mom's cousin and her family for the weekend. Do you know what this means? I'll have a real bed! I'll have food that isn't week-old chicken swimming in rancid grease! I'll be with people who have known me for more than two weeks!

Really, today wasn't a bad day at all. This morning, we had a talk on "Zionism 101." I could only stay for half an hour of it, but what I got to hear was interesting. Then, I had rehearsal for our Yitzchak Rabin memorial service. Basically, it was a process in which about 20 people stood in the front yard of the mirkaz klitah and yelled in four different languages.

After the disarray of rehearsal, we pulled off the real memorial service fairly admirably. Everything was read in all four languages, drawing out a 1o-minute presentation to 30 or 40 minutes, but it wasn't too horrible. I played Hatikvah (Israel's national anthem) on my violin.

After lunch, we had ulpan. Amonth other things, we played with puppets. I had an elephant puppet that I named Dumbo. It was incredibly funny. We all made up the craziest stories for our puppets!

Now, I'm trying to decide whether to leave WAY early tomorrow or just early. More after the weekend.