Just a year and quick click away

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 :)