For better and for worse, our lives are starting to fall into a routine - which means less craziness in our lives, but also fewer crazy stories for you all. Nevertheless, there were still some noteworthy things that happened this week.
Since the country more or less runs according to the Jewish calendar, university classes don't begin until after all the fall holidays have ended (plus a couple added weeks of recovery), which means that Matt started school this week! While he has already been working for many weeks leading up until now, starting this past Sunday (which, for those who don't know, is the first day of the work week here), Matt has been spending his days on campus. He will be auditing a few courses, but for the most part will be researching and writing from his very own office (well, his work-station within the larger lab). Matt is also getting to spend more time with his advisor and the other students in the department. While casually discussing the deal he got on buying his new beard/hair trimmer and how he was excited to go home and try it out, Matt's advisor chimed in "No! We need more bearded people like you in our department. You have to keep it!" I guess Mr. Lion-Face is sticking around for a while...
The start of the academic year also meant the start of Ulpan for me (Stef). Ulpan is an intensive Hebrew course designed to bring people to fluency (or at least competency) in the language and for new olim (immigrants), it's free! I made a promise to myself that I would look earnestly for work, but if nothing came up, I would go to class and work on my Hebrew instead (until I get a job, that is). Ulpan brings together a wide range of people. The majority of my classmates are Russian immigrants, second comes French and then a smattering of North and South Americans and a few random other Europeans. The mix of nationalities means that the common language we all share is Hebrew so we are forced to practice our Hebrew even during the breaks from class (except that almost everyone also speaks a little English). Being in class has made me begin to think a lot about language acquisition and language barriers for immigrants... but more on that another time.
This week also brought our first overnight guest to our new apartment! We worked really hard to make sure the guest bedroom was livable, the living room was presentable and the apartment was generally clean (which has been hard to maintain with all the dirty boxes coming in and out). When we finally had the apartment looking respectable, we got a phone call from the air-conditioner repair man, who we had been expecting for over three weeks now. Our air-conditioning until is on the wall above the couch. In order to access it and fix it our entire living room needed to be moved. The once tidy, organized living room now had couches and tables strewn about and the floor under the AC unit was covered in built up dust and dirt that fell out of the unit when it was opened. The cover and filters of the AC unit also needed to be cleaned and the process of washing them in the tub lead to water and dirt dripping everywhere. All our previous hard work was for naught! And of course, in the middle of all this, our friend calls to say she'll be at our place in 15 minutes. Thankfully we got most everything back together and as the good friend she is, she didn't judge us for our slightly less that pristine apartment.
Having a friend in town gave us a nice excuse to go out and explore a bit of Haifa. We heard that there was going to be a big street party in a neighborhood called Hadar, so we headed down to check it out. When people have described Hadar to us, the two most popular things to say are 1. there are many Haredim (ultra-orthodox Jews) and 2. it is the up and coming place for hipsters. This lead us to dub Hadar - "the Brooklyn of Haifa." We had been in Hadar a couple times before, mostly to shop at the shuk (the open air market) and we had seen the Haredim, but we had yet to encounter the hipsters. But, at the street festival, we found them. There was performance art (namely a guy walking around slowly wrapping his whole body is masking tape), jugglers, street art (literally, painting ON the street), music of all different varieties, food (none kosher, sad face) and of course beer. People set up tables selling their art, second hand clothing and funny elf-hats. People in wild clothes were dancing on the dumpsters or standing completely still like statues. All in all, we had a great time, even when in started to down pour.
Rain, in this water-starved country, is a blessing and we have been having many blessings this week (some of these blessing have been leaking into our laundry room window and waking us up in the middle of the night). The rain has also brought some cold weather for the first time since we arrived. Finally the sweaters and socks are making an appearance! After the rain let up, we continued our Hadar adventure by riding the Carmelit - the world's shortest and most inclined subway. The Carmelit only has 5 stops and because it goes straight up and down a mountain side, functions more like an elevator. The subway cars are even tiered to make sure the riders can sit straight without feeling like they're falling forward or backward. After taking the Carmelit all the way down and then all the way back up to the top, we got out to go find some food. As we were exiting the station we met a stranger who was visiting his great-aunt and was in Israel for the first time. We invited him along to dinner and he accepted - its so easy to make friends!
Now that the cold has set in, it seems a bit ironic that we finally have a working air-conditioner, but lucky for us, it also works as a heater! The rain has continued to come all week and while we're learning to see rain, like Israelis do, as a true blessing, we are hoping for a little respite so we don't get soaked as we walk around this Shabbat.
Shabbat Shalom and have a great weekend,
Stef and Matt
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