Terrorist attacks

So.
There was an attack yesterday.


All I can think about is how different the people here, in Israel, reactions to attacks are compared to those of the Americans.


An hour after a bus was shot out, just a regular bus with citizens on it, it was completely normal for my friend and I to hop onto a bus to go down to the beach and mall.  There was a huge beer festival on the beach that people from all over Israel attend last night, thousands of people, the day of one of the largest terrorist attacks in years, and they didn't even blink.


No cancellations, no paranoia, it's just life here.


Even went out clubbing last night.


No one was paranoid, no one shut down their life.


I guess that's just because the possibility of attack, or of attack itself, is such a reality here that if they were to have the same reactions to such things as America that their society could simply not function.


I mean, buses are the major source of transportation here- if people were to allow themselves to be scared away from using them, could the country function?  Could people still live their lives and get to work and take care of their families and continue to function as citizens?


No.  They couldn't.


Just been thinking- ever since I got here, I've been working and progressing towards what I consider "enlightenment" in my own life.  What I mean is simply never taking myself, or those around me, too seriously.  It's finally a relief to not have the "self hatred" and consciousness of every small movement and thought I did or possessed, terrified that I'll do or say or think the wrong thing.  And the thing is, life hasn't changed for the worse for me at all after simply learning not to care about an extra 5-10 pounds or maybe just having one too many drinks when out with friends- I can just shrug my shoulders, laugh it off, and not make the same mistake next time.  And after seeing these peoples reactions to what happened yesterday, comparing it to America, where we just all seem to freeze and play dead the moment we are threatened, I understood how important this lesson is.


Life is too short, and at times too difficult, to put so much stock in the things that just simply don't matter.


To lighten the mood, here are a few photos from being out at Loft last night.


Enjoy, and love life.


Peace.


-Em

Me and Giulia, my new friend from Italy! (this photo REFUSED to upload correctly...)

10 updates (all I have the energy for tonight)

So, yes, it has been a few days (maybe longer) since I've sat down to blog.
A few updates (there are many, but it's 1 am and I have to be up in a few hours for class, so here's what you get for the night...)
 1- My dermal piercing, the one on my wrist? NO ONE here knows what it is.  NO ONE.  Not the Israelis, Europeans, Americans, NO ONE.  And creepy guys (like the one that FOLLOWED ME around campus today?) seem to think I possess that piercing solely to give them a reason to talk to me. 

2- FINALLY getting used to this heat.

3- Have now officially found, and have figured out how to get easily to, all the three major malls in Haifa.  Important.

4- I can now understand a few spoken words here and there when I creep in on random peoples conversations.  It's awesome.  (AND I can say a few basic phrases myself, in recognition of ones spoken to me!  YES!).  I have discovered I truly enjoy learning Hebrew (the tutor is the best money I have spent here!  Got a good mark on my midterm!!!)

5- I have no roommates.  Officially.  So, I am thinking I might just end up with this entire place, including my bedroom, bathroom, living room area (which I have fixed up nicely with stuff I've found around- see the pictures below) and kitchen all to myself until fall semester in October.  I just call it my apartment.  It's the best to have friends over to study, eat, watch TV, etc! 

6- With two friends, actually made a home-cooked meal tonight!  (well, pasta and sauce, but not bad when boiling water is pretty much impossible and there is no microwave or safe-seeming pots!!!)

7- Been to the beach A LOT.  Love it.  SOOO tan.  Although, I will admit, to anyone who knows me I've got body image issues.  Yes, just like just about every 19 year old girl, I get self-conscious.  It's been a little bit harder here.  Israeli women and girls all seem to be so small, and the Europeans I'm in the Ulpan with are all VERY TALL and thin.  But I'm learning to get over it and not care as much.

8- Got two pictures of Tracy, one of the most admirable people I've ever had the luck of knowing.  Seeing her on my fridge and bulletin board whenever I walk around my apartment (haha) keeps me in remembrance of what really matters in life (see comment above).

9- Enjoying the clubs and night scene.  A lot.  (although, it's not cheap- cutting back on it to save money for stuff I would rather spend it on, see comment #3 in reference to the malls)

10- Ivan is still living in the stairwell.  We think he is a she and that she's pregnant. 

Living Room (ALL MINE)

Living room (ALL MINE)

President Lincoln, Dr King, and Tracy.  <3

Having fun at the pub!

Ultrasound

Ivan is coming for you in the night...

So, as I sit listening to Pitbull and reflect on my day at 2 in the morning (still getting over the jet lag...), I cannot help but laugh.

I got switched to a different Hebrew teacher when they split up the beginner classes to even out the numbers, and I must say, this teacher is a much better fit!  Actual vocab lists, lessons on how to read Hebrew without the vowels, yeah.  I learned more in today's class than I have in the last week!  Not to mention I got a tutor, and I started to slightly catch on!  Score!  Feeling a bit triumphant :)

So, now I can write about the FUN stuff.

Like how two friends and I decided to venture to the Grand Canyon (a HUGE mall in Haifa; totally unrelated to the Grand Canyon in the USA).  Which, while there, I was shown some amazing European stores by previously mentioned friends and had a great time (not to mention I somehow managed to find Bullet for My Valentine guitar pick earrings, which makes me feel a bit better since I'll be missing them at River Riot in September...  who would have thought they would be popular here?!). 

Well, anyways, we managed to hop on the wrong bus back to the University.  And ended up in a less than fun looking, crowded, large bus area.  Where we just managed to board a direct bus to the University.  So, we thought, just maybe this would be a quick drive since it is only about 15 to 20 minutes from the school.  

HA.

The poor bus, as we put it, was equivalent to an over-weight child running with the football team.  The poor thing just didn't seem able to make the journey up the mountain, or at least at a desirable rate.

It took us almost 45 minutes because it was going so slow.

Meanwhile, we thought it was the funniest thing we had ever experienced.

The Israelis thought we were nuts.

So, later that night, Camilla and I decided to give doing laundry a try.  

Take 1:  Combine our clothes into a single load to save on laundry tokens.  We leave to go to a small party at the moadon.  Come back.
Realize we forgot detergent.

Take 2:  I don't particularly care at this point if I use detergent or not, so I proceed to stuff my clothes into the dryer.  Camilla cares a bit more, so returns to her room to retrieve said soap and tries again.
And doesn't manage to close the washer drawer very well.  It is a side-load washer.
Meanwhile, I has been adding a new coat of nail polish waiting for her to finish and my clothes to dry.
Water begins to flood from the washer.
A LOT of water.
Camilla can't get the washer to close, so I, with wet nails, manage it.
And smear black polish on my hands.

Finally, our clothes are considered clean after trying for a couple hours (Thankfully there was a nice party going on that provided entertainment in between tries...)

But that is not all.

We also found out there are HUGE cockroaches here.  

When we were walking up the stairs after take 2 and my clothes were in the dryer, I noticed all these squashed monster bugs all over the stairs.

I found out Camilla has a phobia of cockroaches.  

She starts to scream, and I have to hold her hand to help her get up the stairs.  (This being only a few hours after finding a MONSTER SPIDER in the stairwell about the size of my hand, striped white and black, whom we named Ivan and discovered that I have a supernatural mind-link with)

So we board the elevator, ready to return to our other friends, the fiasco over.

The elevator doors close.

The lights go out.

We scream, and press random buttons of floors and manage to make it out alive somehow.

To calm down the night, we returned to my dorm (which we are pretty sure is haunted...) to enjoy the light humor of Little Nicky.  

Just for your enjoyment, I attached a photo of Ivan.

And the other photos are of the Israelis we saw at the beach the other day.  NUTS.  CRAZY.   
You don't see stuff like that on the beaches in the states, at least that I know of.

Well, I'm off to get some sleep.

Good night!

Ivan

Today was the first day of the Intensive Hebrew Ulpan.
I now have a full-hearted understanding of their use of the term 'intensive'.
My professor walked in, and immediately spoke Hebrew.  I was so unbelievably LOST.
I feel as though I was the slowest in the entire class to catch on; one thing I have noticed, after being in a classroom with people from all over the world from 9:30 in the morning until 2:00, is that the United States is very behind in the language department.
There are people from ALL OVER THE WORLD in this Ulpan; Japan, Korea, Russia, Cambodia, you name it.  All of those students are at the very least bi-lingual.
There is one other American in my class, and we both agree that America's school systems highly under-value the teaching of foreign languages.
Think of it this way:  about 95% of the people in this class are learning another language, in a class that is not even being taught from their first language.

I am sooo NOT at their level.

Anyways, I was also pleasantly surprised at the cost of the text book for the class, which was about $30 or so.  Bought it brand-new, too.  You can't even RENT a text book like this for that amount of money back at UNO (University of NE at Omaha), my home university (and I'm not thinking that's special only to UNO, either...)

Anyways.

Took a tour of Haifa with the Ulpan, which was fun.  Got to meet more people, drive around on an AIR CONDITIONED bus.  The good life.

At this point, I realize how much I have taken air conditioning for granted.

Another one of those things taken for granted is being able to easily transport things to and from home (I have a good 8 or so flights of stairs to get to my dorm, all outside in this ridiculous heat and humidity). 

Well, I still can't get the video to upload, but I'll try again tomorrow.  Until then, here are a few pictures just for you :)

Haifa at night

Baha'i Gardens/Temple

Me and my new home away from home

Haifa

I found this to be ridiculously funny...

Making friends from all over the world!  (NORWAY!)

peanut butter

So, things are still going just fine; but the heat?
Having a hard time with that.
Yesterday, for I am writing this at 6:20 am and NOT the time that it says it's being published, a friend and I ventured out into the city by bus.  Found a shopping center and stocked up on a few things; I was lucky enough to find a fan.
I was actually able to call my room a sauna instead of an oven last night, meaning I could actually sleep.
I hope I get used to this heat sometime soon. 

Just a side note- I was also thrilled to find that they have skippy peanut butter here.
My life just got a little bit easier.

Also, orientation was last night.  They had an Israeli band perform for us, and I hope there aren't any copyright issues here for videotaping and sharing (I'm pretty sure suing everyone for anything is mostly just an American custom... but what do I know...) 

Unfortunatly, I have experienced difficulties while uploading the video.

I will try to re-post it again later!

They also did a wonderful Israeli version of 'Let it Be'.

After that, we had a 2 hour Israeli folk dance lesson.

That was...  interesting.  We will just leave it at that.  Interesting and fun.

Well, I feel that that's enough for this morning.  Gotta go eat some skippy peanut butter.

First night (morning)

I have never blogged before.
Is that obvious?
I tried to think of a creative name; tried to make the page easy on the eyes; perhaps I succeeded.
Perhaps not.

Anyways, this is my first blog post and, as most of you more than likely know, it is also my first night my dorm at the University of Haifa (well, it's morning now, (5am), but who cares for the details..).  The first of almost 365 of them.  Not overwhelming AT ALL  ;)

I was worried about the normal things most people would be, I guess; what if no one likes me?
That fear ended right away.

As a welcome thing, they took us all out to a bar in Haifa to break the ice.

Enough said; we all got along just fine!

Now, after tossing and turning on a bed that I so desperately wished was just a bit softer, in a room that could be at least 20 degrees cooler, I am sitting at my desk typing and looking out at the amazing view of Haifa at night.  I will say, the view from my dorm is pretty spectacular. 

The photo does NOT do the view any justice (my camera doesn't take the best night shots...) but that's the gist of it.

Impressed?

I certainly was.

With everything.  The people, the food, the campus, the life I've been given the opportunity to live for the next 11 months.

With that, I bid you goodbye for I will try to get another hour or two of sleep before I get up for the start of the Ulpan (intensive Hebrew course).

See ya

(btw- the time that it says I posted this remains US central time I believe; I will try to change that to show the time here in Israel)