One of the great ironies of my life is that I love traveling, but I hate being a tourist. I love seeing new places and experiencing different cultures, but there is a negative side as well: I hate not knowing the local language (and expecting them to know English) and feeling like I'm interrupting the daily life of locals. This discomfort probably stems from my own frustration dealing with tourists in the places that I have lived. Like when I used to live near Mahane Yeduah shuk in Jerusalem: "Excuse me, I'd like to buy some of those oranges your taking a picture of..." (ironically, I love taking pictures of the food in the shuk). Sometimes you can't escape being a tourist, like when we traveled in Africa and South East Asia, but if there is one thing I dislike even more, is being made a tourist in a place that feels like home. Which leads me to the tour of Jerusalem my Haifa-based ulpan took us on this week.
The tour was more-or-less designed for people who have never or rarely visiting Israel's capital city and took us to two main sites: the Old City and the Knesset (parliament) building. The Old City I can navigate with my eyes closed, but I was actually pretty excited to visit the Knesset, even though I had done the tour before, for the off-chance we'd get to see some Members of Knesset strolling around (we didn't). I tried to get past my discomfort of being tourist as we walked down the walled-city of Jerusalem's narrow ancient streets getting honked at my cars that were trying to pass while we chased our speed-walking French tour guide as he bolted ahead of the group. The ulpan had hired four tour guides for the day, each guiding in a different language: English, Russian, French and Hebrew. I elected to be in the Hebrew group - if I had to be a tourist, at least let me practice my Hebrew in the process. When we boarded the buses, the organizers of the trip realized that not enough French speaking students had come and there were many many Russian students. In a last minute switch, the English guide took a Russian group, the Hebrew guide took the English group, which left the French guide for the Hebrew group, which now also included the people who initially signed up for the French group. Our guide informed us that 90% of his work is guiding French tourists in French and that was what he was prepared to do. What we ended up with was a very French-centric tour of the old city in a mixture of mostly Hebrew with a smattering of French. Needless to say, it was a distinctly different tour than I had ever be on before, but I wouldn't do it again.
While the rest of the Ulpan returned to Haifa in the evening, I stayed do something unequivocally not touristy - go to work! That's right, I am no longer unemployed. Thursday morning I got up and went to an office for the first time since the last school year ended and it felt pretty good. The day was jammed pack, meeting all my new coworkers (one of whom is actually an old friend) and getting briefed on all the workings of my new position. By the end of the day my brain was on fire, but I left feeling motivated and happy to be productive. From here on in I will be working from the Haifa office, with a just a few opportunities to be in the main Jerusalem office. Lucky for me, the Haifa office is across the street from my Ulpan, so I will easily be able to continue studying Hebrew as I begin working. Things are looking up!
Next week I promise to give an update on Matt's life as well - should be interesting, he's spending next week on a boat.
Shabbat Shalom and have a great weekend!
Stef and Matt
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