The Beginning of an Adventure:

Sunday was the first day of classes. My schedule:

Modern Hebrew: level Aleph (which means I’ll probably have to be here for three years)

o Meets Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday

Akkadian: first year

o Meets Monday and Thursday evenings

Readings in the Book of Jeremiah

o Meets Tuesday afternoon

Chapters in the Archaeology of Jerusalem in Biblical Times

o Meets Wednesday evenings but has a tour in the morning!

Languages of Ancient Egypt over Four Millennia

o Meets Tuesday evening

A Bibliography: A tutorial (not sure what this is exactly)

o Meets every other Tuesday morning.

I’m excited about these courses. They should be very interesting. I am allowed to audit one course each semester for free. I think I might do that. It would be awesome to take advantage of the time I am here. I just have to decide which one. I am supposed to have a year of Biblical Hebrew under my belt before taking the Jeremiah class. I talked to my advisor since I actually have none and she said to give it a try.

All of my teachers are great. My two Hebrew teachers are hilarious. They use minimal English – none if possible – and are wonderfully animated. They use enthusiasm and hand motions to teach new words. It’s a lot of fun. All of the professors are so knowledgeable. They just chill in their chairs talking a mile a minute. I am going to have to get back into the swing of writing non-stop for hours on end! My right hand was ready for the weekend. I am a little worried about my Languages of Egypt professor though. He would kind of trail off in the middle of a thought (or even a sentence!) then pick up somewhere else.

It is weird taking classes from professors with strong accents. Nicklis, I finally understand your pain! It is going to be interesting. Also, before a student is allowed to graduate from the Rothberg International School with their master’s, he has to pass Hebrew level Vav. That’s the sixth level. So, most students take at least a year before even coming to the school. This adds another level to the teaching process.

Example: Akkadian. (Which I found out is the language of Babylonia began during the time of King Sargon and was derived from the Sumerians.) While the classes are actually taught in English, transliterations can be written in either English or Hebrew and (because apparently knowing a million languages is common) examples will be English, Hebrew (modern or Biblical), or Arabic words. It gets confusing trying to translate the Akkadian use of a Sumerian word through the medium of Hebrew transliteration with Arabic examples!

My Jeremiah professor through me for a bit of a loop during class. She was giving a quick overview of Jeremiah, who he was, what he did, etc. She was talking about how lonely Jeremiah was – even his family had disowned him. Here she points out the window and interposes, “You know they live in Anata, just northeast of Harhazophim here.” (That’s the street that passes in front of the school.) Wow. This is gonna be awesome.

(I have also spent a retarded amount of time this week trying to get stuff done. Going from one place to another to find something, trying to talk to the librarian who kept shushing me, sitting for over two hours at the Cellcom booth trying to get a sim card – only to find out my phone is locked and won’t unlock, trying to get my internet connected in my room only to have each party tell me it is the party’s fault. On and on! These people do not understand the concept of “customer service.”)

I found out that two of my roommates are strong bible-believing Christians: I-li, from Taiwan (above), and Jisong, from Korea. Both are in the Middle Eastern Studies degree. I-li took me to King of Kings on Sunday. A much needed dose of praise, worship, and American accents. I attempted my first supermarket trip on Friday before 3pm. (Everything shuts down around 3:00 on Friday for Shabbat.) I found peanut butter and jelly, cereal, and milk! I even got OJ.

It is actually easier than you'd think. J They have a lot of American products, so after you find what you want in English, then you look around the vicinity for the Israeli brand. It's cheaper and the same thing! (More or less...) Jisong made us all dinner on Saturday: a spicy Korean chicken dish. We got the hook up! :-P I got a huge portion. She figures since I am so tall I must eat a lot. (My slightly above average height has become more apparent since moving here. Though there are quite a few tall Israelis, the average is maybe an inch shorter than me and most women are much shorter.)

It is so obvious that God has been watching me and protecting me. I do not think I could have made it through that first week without God's strength. He is so amazing. Lord, I regret that it has taken me moving halfway around the globe for me to completely rely on You again but thank You for being there.

No details will accurately capture the extent of the feelings. I keep going between overwhelming feelings to a calm on the other side. Too much! Sensory/emotional overload! So I just focus on small bits, block out the big picture. God has done so much with keeping my sanity in sight. He has kept me functioning and just prioritizing and working through the steps of everything that needs to be done. Looking back I have no idea how I made it without constant calling to Mom and Dad! Mom… I think I've come to the conclusion that when/if I settle down, it's gonna be right down the road from wherever you are living, okay? (Or at least where they speak my language!) This completely independent thing is not all it's cracked up to be!

I realized this was not going to be such an easy trip when we landed. First of all, the flight was already delayed an hour and my layover was only an hour and a half, then the tower sent my airplane to a non-existent gate so we stopped in the boondock equivalent of the tarmac and took shuttles back to the terminals. Then I was stopped because flights to Tel-Aviv are only allowed one carry-on (something that was failed to be mentioned online anywhere.). I had to check my other bag but there a little lady in front of me who was also having her carry-on checked. She did not speak a word of English though and could not figure out why these crazy people were taking her bag. Once it was finally my turn, I had been bumped. My flight left without me! The next flight I could get on did not leave until 10:30pm (it was currently about 9am). BA checked me into a day hotel and gave me free meals. I was able to get about 4 hours of sleep and a shower before meeting Sonia for dinner. She had also gotten bumped and we became friends in the passport line. We went back through security, waited a few hours, loaded up. This is me waiting:

I got upgraded to business class! That was cool. I’ve never been in anything besides coach. Again, the actual flight was smooth, easy, and good food. I watched a couple movies and chatted with a couple flight attendants (British accents are awesome).

When I landed it dawned on me that I was all on my own. It was also 4:30am. I’d never done this before. Wheee! I got a SmartCart, then got my bags (that order is important), got an international calling card, got some Shekels, and found a vending machine. Now the plan was to have arrived the day before, whereupon I would call Linda at the University and she’d tell me what to do. Since it was 5am and she’d gone home, I winged it! I found a shuttle that would take me and my bags to Jerusalem, Mt. Scopus, Harazaphim. The sunrise drive was beautiful. The early morning mist softened the landscape and gave it a hint of mystery. I met a French gentleman who was taking a quick visit around Israel before going to S. America to teach small children how to read and write Spanish.

The shuttle dropped me at the entrance to the dorms so I had no idea where I was or what I was supposed to and no way of communicating. Thank God that another student, Lee, had gotten off the shuttle also. She was able to speak decent Hebrew and English (she was Korean) so she helped get everything sorted. We then cajoled the guards into watching our bags while she showed me around the campus. We had to wait until 8:30 for the offices to open. Lee took me around the main campus for the next hour and half. I was overwhelmed and quickly lost, but it was apparent right away that the campus is beautiful! And built on a hill so there were soooo many stairs. By 8:30, I was sufficiently worn out but I was able to get registered, get my bags to my dorm (took a cab because the dorms I am staying in are about a 15 minute walk from campus – too far for me to manhandle those heavy bags!), and got moved in. I was supposed to be back on campus before 1pm to speak with someone who would explain my insurance. I decided to walk. After walking around for about an hour, I gave up and decided to take the bus. I had asked for directions a few times and kept getting the same answer, “uhh…straight, yeah yeah.” None of the roads even go straight! Once I found my way back to my dorm, I hopped a bus. I rode it for a while until I saw something that said Hebrew University. I exited and spent the next half hour-ish wandering around what ended up being the wrong campus. The people on this campus had never even heard of Rothberg! So, I gave up, got a taxi to Café Aroma which I knew to be located right near the entrance of the main campus. The taxi then takes me to the “Center” (between the Old City and New I guess) and drops me off at the Café Aroma there. Ugh. All I wanted to do was get back to campus so I could call Mom and Dad and let them know I was alive! Grrr! I then wondered around asking all the bus drivers if they went to “Harazaphim.” I wasn’t sure exactly what that was but I knew it would take me back to the general area of my school. Finally, I found one that did. I was falling asleep on the bus. Instead of taking me to campus, it took me back to my dorms. Three hours of trying and I never found the right spot. At least I made it back to my dorms and didn't end up in Haifa or something. I finally begged the office in the dorms to let me use their phone, called Mom and Dad. They said I sounded drunk. I was slurring my words and thought process was glacial. I honestly do not remember many other details of the day. It is such a fog. I had only slept 4 hours in the last 48 and I don’t think I ate anything until the next day. But I made it.

Home Sweet Home.

On the way back we flew over the 2^nd largest house in America, belongs to the guy who stole the plans for the Hummer.

Nicole and I grabbed some roasted corn then wine tasted that afternoon at the Duck Walk Winery in the Hamptons. We got a bottle of Boysenberry fruit wine and another one called “Gadsby Red.” We met up with Carrie for dinner at World Pie. Initially it was good, then *drumroll* we found … THE bug. Not the small gross-but-understandably-around-food type but the upside-down-legs-splayed beetle type. They bought us a round of wine to pacify. “Get ‘em drunk, maybe they won’t tell everyone else!” After finishing the wine, we strolled the West(?) Hampton area to sober up a bit before driving home. And, in good ol’ New York fashion, we stopped at the Starbucks for coffee.

Impromptu photo shoot!

Nicole and Jackie took me to the airport on Sunday.

Thank you, girls, for a positively awesome weekend/pause before continuing my trip to Israel. It was much needed.

You also have to see a picture of Carrie’s adorable little pet:

Lots more pictures here!