O Little Town of Bethlehem

Considering I came to Jerusalem to study Arabic, I'd been looking forward to officially crossing the wall and checking out life in the Occupied Territories. However, due to safety concerns it really hadn't happened yet. With Christmas approaching though there was one place I really wanted to get a chance to visit: Bethlehem.

So this past Saturday Noah and I walked down to the Arab bus station in Jerusalem and I dragged him onto the bus headed to Bethlehem. Despite being only a few miles away it's actually difficult to get to considering the whole border and checkpoint phenomenon. Still, before long we were getting off the bus in Palestine. Only a short taxi ride stood between us and the epicenter of Bethlehem.

And what a taxi ride that was. Within a minute of climbing in the cab Noah leaned forward and sternly told the cab driver, "you're not allowed to speak in English; she needs to practice her Arabic", which launched into one of the most fun and stressful conversations I've had in colloquial Arabic yet.

There's not a whole lot in Bethlehem, but it was a fun place to experience. Obviously the big tourist attraction is the Church of the Nativity where Jesus was supposedly born. I'm really a terrible religious tourist when it comes to places like these. Thousands of pilgrims show up to squeeze in these places and become overwhelmed with emotion and have these spiritual moments of meaning. When I enter these locations I feel overcrowded and annoyed. Furthermore with most of the important Christian locations in Israel/Palestine being owned by different Catholic denominations, I really can't explain a lot of what's going on any better than my favorite Jewish travel buddy can.

Still, making an unusual team to take on the Arab city, we spent our day checking out the sights in Bethlehem.

Outside the Church of the Nativity.

Standing inside the church.

Noah inside the church questioning what he's doing there.

Noah and I outside the church.

At one point we ducked into a little falafel place for a bite to eat and accidentally ran into a bunch of Noah's friends from his university. It's crazy how small this place can be sometimes; we spent our afternoon enjoying good food and chatting in a mix of English, German, and Arabic. I was in my element.

Lunch candid.

My favorite part of Bethlehem was how it finally felt like Christmas season. Walking around Jerusalem there's absolutely nothing that points to it being the holidays. I miss the Christmas music, lights, and festivities. Bethlehem had it all and then some. Granted, you would expect the birthplace of Jesus to have a decent amount of Christmas spirit.

Finally a Christmas tree!

Overall, it was a really fun day trip and a nice break from the usual culture of Israel. Plus when we left it was dark enough I got to enjoy Christmas lights on our drive back. A little Christmas wonderland in the middle of a country that's perceived to be anything but.

Sitting on a ledge overlooking Bethlehem.

Adding a little Color to my Week

Usually Tuesdays tend to be rather long and tedious. It's the middle of our school week and generally just full of lectures and homework. This week it was even more ominous because we walked to our 8:30AM class through hot and gloomy weather. 

With perfect timing the weather began to pour as our teachers assigned more and more work. One teacher announced there would be a quiz the next day. However, the mood didn't last. As the rain passed so too did the gloomy Tuesday atmosphere and my day became more, well... colorful.

We got blessed with this amazing view out our classroom windows from Mount Scopus a little before classes finished up. It was really cool to see the entire rainbow stretching across the area viewable from our little mountain.

I returned home from school anticipating a long afternoon full of studying, however, this new mood just wouldn't leave. My whole apartment got dragged into our decision to just enjoy the evening and soon books were long forgotten as we got  more creative with our night.

Living in an apartment full of art students is really a blast. What better occasion than a Tuesday night to just break out some paint and let loose? I spend all day at university surrounded by foreign language and politics, there's nothing better after that than coming home to a community of artists and friends.

Way more fun than studying.

One of the masterpieces accomplished last night.

Friends who finger paint together stay together.

Compensating with an early morning and a few cups of coffee over vocabulary review was well worth another fun evening in in Jerusalem.

Weekend Trip to Tel Aviv

I apologize for being so scarce in updating my blog lately. When I'm not busy I'm usually trying to use my few blocks of free time for some more adventuring out and about in Israel, but I keep forgetting to save time to actually share updates on them! This past weekend I finally got around to exploring Tel Aviv. Thursday a bunch of my fellow Arabic classmates, Noah, and I all headed back to Jaffa. We decided to take advantage of the 84 degree weather in December.

A pretty view of Jaffa beach and the city.

Noah and I in Jaffa. (Photo credits to Kati.)

We spent the day leisurely enjoying the markets and cafes around Jaffa before heading to the beach. We really hadn't intended on swimming, but the weather was amazing so we found ourselves spending our afternoon in the Mediterranean.

A rare sighting of Arabic students enjoying free time.

(L to R: Simon [Australia], Theresa [Germany], Kati [England], myself, and Lisa [Netherlands])

At the end of the day most of the group headed back to Jerusalem but Noah and I had booked accommodations to spend the rest of the weekend in Tel Aviv. We met up with Noah's friend Roi who showed us around the city. Including the best place for ice cream ever.

Roi and I take our ice cream very seriously.

Although we hadn't actually met Roi until that weekend we became fast friends. Without his help we would have been horribly lost and missed out on so much of Tel Aviv. Plus we got to enjoy Shabbat dinner even away from our usual Shabbat at the student village.

Saturday we lazily made our way to brunch before enjoying a little more time on the beach. We took our last day in Tel Aviv as leasurely as possible filling our day with louging seaside and sampling some more restaurants before finally heading back to Jerusalem.

Another beautiful beach in Israel.

I can't believe this is what I'm doing with my "winter".

A beautiful sunset on our last evening in Tel Aviv.

A little sun and a lot of good company is definitely a great way to end the week.

Thanksgiving might be American, but food and family is universal.

Since the fourth Thursday of November isn't a holiday in Israel we had class. However being a Thursday, it was a field trip day. This week we went to Abu Ghosh, an Arab town west of Jerusalem. First stop was the town mosque and then we got to visit the elementary school that's associated with it.

One of the residents of Abu Ghosh giving us the history of the mosque.

Melanie and I inside the mosque.

The first grade classroom in the school.

The second part of our day trip consisted of what we were told was going to be an Arabic cooking class. What the teacher really meant was she was about to unleash 15 international students in an operational restaurant's kitchen. We entered the restaurant and were immediately beckoned into the back. After a little awkward shuffling around to fit all of us in, production began. There was little explanation and a lot of activity. Commands and questions went back and forth in Arabic and English as students began chopping ingredients, preparing food, and frying falalel. It was productive chaos as students began doing anything and everything in the kitchen. Activities included just as much coffee drinking, socializing, and hummus spilling as it did anything productive, but I think both the restaurant workers and students had an immensely enjoyable time out of it. And in true Thanksgiving style, it ended with an absolute feast worth of food.

Frying falafel.

Hanging out with chef master Taisub in the kitchen.

Jasper cooking potatoes like a boss... and getting in some practice rounds before being on potato duty for Thanksgiving dinner.

Kitchen selfie with the restaurant owner's brother and my classmates.

After our first feast we all returned home to work off our lunch feast by preparing for Thanksgiving dinner. Although there are plenty of activity options for a Thursday night in Israel, I decided that I really wanted to just enjoy some good food and company so I opened an invitation for people to come over for Thanksgiving dinner at my apartment. The only catch was everyone had to bring some sort of food. After all, I had dessert covered.

الأميرات all dressed up for Thanksgiving dinner.

My part of the pot-luck. Three pies and spice cookies with pumpkin dip.

My abroad-family dinner.

From the left is Jasper, Taisub, Melanie, Nora, Lisa, myself, and Teresa. Noah's behind the camera per usual.

Our Thanksgiving feast consisted of salad, mashed potatoes, pomegranate seeds, pad thai, chicken wings, and lots of dessert. Honestly, I'd take Taisub's pad thai and chicken over a roasted turkey any day... he knows how to cook! Our dinner was blessed in a variety of languages and religious traditions before dinner continued in the same way. Noah was outnumbered 7 to 1 by Arabic students and so more often than not Arabic slang was being thrown around the dinner conversation. Overall though it was a great holiday and it's hard to be anything but thankful about a day full of food- Arabic, American, and otherwise.

To all of my family, friends, and sisters back home - I hope you had a great holiday and I miss you all! And to all of my friends here in Israel (at dinner and otherwise) - it's hard to be homesick when I have you as my family here abroad, I am so thankful to have you all as a part of my study abroad experience. I hope you all enjoyed Thanksgiving as much as I did!

Anything is Possible with a little Guesstimation and a Bottle of Vodka

Wednesday night was an important turning point in my week. Midterms were finally over الحمد لله‎, and the following day was Thanksgiving. Additonally, the weather was extremelly bad. So, there was no better use of my night than to hang out in my kitchen and prepare for Thanksgiving: in my personal family's style.

That means pie.

It's not Thanksgiving in my household without at least half a dozen pies in the house. Pie baking usually begins days before the actual Thanksgiving meal. Personally, I could survive without the turkey or the traditional side dishes, but the pies aren't food; they're tradition.

Baking in Israel comes with it's own set of challenges. The supplies in the grocery store are different, and not always labeled in English. Also, there's no such thing as a pie pan in Jerusalem. I would know, I looked. Additionally, my apartment keeps kosher, so I would have to prepare and bake everything so that it remains kosher (and so that I don't "un-kosher" any of the kitchen utensils in the process). 

But first things first, I had to gather my ingrediants. I headed to the grocery with my very American list and some Google translated notes on what words to look for to varify certain ingrediants. Despite having to shop in a foreign grocery store, the real challange didn't appear until I returned home. I had no way of measuring what I bought.

Conversions were necessary. Most things in the store are measured in grams. All of my mother's recipes are in cups and teaspoons. So, I needed to determine a cup. That's where the vodka comes in. A few days ago one of my roommates had a friend over who had brought along a small bottle of vodka. Finishing it, he left it here in our kitchen. Vodka is imported and therefore the label is in English, so, I could verify the bottle I held was 200 grams. From there it's all guesstimation and mental math. A cup is roughly 228 grams. That's just around a bottle and a quarter bottle of vodka. So, I filled the bottle with water ~1.25 times and emptied it into a regular drinking glass and suddenly I had myself a measuring tool.

The roughly 228 grams of water next to the 200 gram vodka bottle.

The first test was the most intimidating- and possibly the most crucial. I had to make the pie crust using only my vodka-guesstimated measurements, a bowl, and a fork. It would be hard to find a more "college" approach to the baking process than that. But let me tell you... I succeeded.

Bringing family traditions to Israel: homemade pie crust. 

The pie crusts rolled out into my make-shift pie pans (aka cake pans I bought at the shuk).

The most exciting moment of my baking was during the pecan pie. After I poured out the Karo into my "measuring glass" I noticed the bottle came with an easy measure feature. Although a waste of having to repour the corn syrup, it was insanely validating learning that my makeshift vodka-bottle-derived measurement system was actually rather accurate.

Proof that I'm a domestic goddess.

And of course, the night ended with pie (or rather, pies plural; plus cookies and cookie dip). Afterall, tomorrow's Thanksgiving and there's no reason to skimp on the options for caloric intake.

My pecan pie.

The finished pies. The pecans on the left and the apple pie with a crumble topping is on the right.

Picturesque Beaching

"It's not the occasional class that I'm going to look back on and remember fondly once my study abroad semester is over... I'm going to remember all the adventures I had," is what I said to pretty much anyone who would listen this past Saturday to try and rationalize my decision. My schedule on Sunday consists of Arabic classes, but I wasn't planning on attending those classes this week. Instead, hours before I'd even have to be up for class, I boarded a bus headed to the beach.

Noah is an art student at Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design and this past Sunday his photography professor had set up a class trip to go spend eight hours photographing a small local fisherman's beach north of Tel Aviv which I was invited to attend. It was a tough decision... Arabic class or a free beach trip with my friend. أستاذة آسف (sorry professor), but I tagged along with my little Sony point-and-shoot camera to go hangout with Noah and his photography class for the day.

Our location for the day.

It was a small local beach which was rather removed from civilization.

Hanging out beachside for the day.

It was a really nice day. My favorite summary of the trip is actually a list from a follow-up Email from Noah's professor Yosaif. He describes the contents of the day as:

"Consider this wishlist for a foto excursion at the beach in the chilly end of November:

Powerful clouds that have personality and offer soft light

waves and strong motion to make the ocean exciting

a beach where a warm cozy bus is always a ready refuge

sunny highlights on a grey ocean

a fisherman's tent (including fishermen) for Minna with tea, atmosphere and a cozy place out of the rain

a totally private beach and shoreline

high hills and cliffs nearby to look down at the ocean

a good early morning rain to wipe out all the footprints

arriving to the beach the second the rain stops

a warm sunny day for relaxation

warm weather for swimming

safe water without strong currents

water warm enough to enjoy a good swim

enough visual stimuli to make everybody happy

the color of the sunset over the variety of sand and water formations on the shoreline

coming home safely with the same number of people who left.

We did pretty good."

We had everything from overcast skies, to sun, to a light drizzle, to a full blown thunderstorm. A whole season of weather within our short collection of hours onsite. We got to swim, sunbath, take shelter from the ocassional rain cloud, and take pictures through it all.

A picture Noah took of me in front of the Mediteranian.

One of my favorite photos I took during the trip.

A picture Noah captured of one of the fisherman's huts.

When on a mostly deserted beach for an extended number of hours, people tend to get acquainted. During the first intense patch of weather as we counted our numbers while attempting to stay dry in the bus we realized we "lost" someone. Noah's professor alluded to the end of the story in his Email... once the weather cleared we learned that rather than taking shelter with our class in the bus, the missing girl had ended up sitting with the fisherman in their tent over a cup of tea!

People became more comfortable embracing the sparse locals on the beach and even more stories pouring in. While standing in a group I got pulled into converation from a local man who had been a sailor when he was younger. He recalled stories of accompaning shipments everywhere from Panama, to the United States, to the Soviet Union. He could tell me the history of every single location around the beach from Biblical times to explicit details regarding what had progressed in his lifetime. He described one point in his life when he remembered coins from the DDR (East Germany) washing up all over that local beach. He warned me in urgent whispers of the power of wealth while just a little further down the beach a few students were tucked into a shack with some of the fisherman distilling whiskey with them.

Noah happened to capture a picture of the man I described talking to while he was walking along the beach.

All in all it was a great trip. I may not have had a Thanksgiving break this week, but I did get to enjoy a long and fun day at the beach even at the end of November. Sababa.

A Day Off in Jerusalem

Every two weeks my schedule works out so that I have a Thursday without classes. Faced with a whole day of possibilities without the usual weekend crowd, I try to be productive but also enjoy using the time to get out of my usual bubble of academia in East Jerusalem. So, in my usual day off fashion, I took off late morning headed to the train station. Today's destination was Damascus Gate.

Every time I've come to the Old City before it had always been on a day when the Arab residents were protesting something regarding Al-Aqsa mosque. Finally, instead of walking through streets of locked metal doors I was immersed in the chaos of the Arab market. I wandered through the busy streets full of vendors, tourists, and locals just trying to pick up any slight pieces of Arabic conversation I could while scoping out a good destination to spend my morning.

One point while I was walking the Arabic going on all around me became overshadowed by the noise of loudly sung hymns. I looked around and quickly noticed a large swarm of pilgrims flooding the street lead by a group of foreigners carrying a large cross. As if walking around the Muslim quarter signing hymns wasn't stand out enough, they all wore neon yellow vests reading "march for peace" and were carrying olive branches. As much as I could tell some of the marchers were having an immensely spiritual experience, I didn't really want to be associated with the swarm of foreigners so I ducked into a smaller side street where I preceded to watch more neon vests walk by while listening to the Arabic commentary by the other gathered observers.

As I loitered, one Arab man came up to me and encouraged me to 'go back and join the others'. At which point I promptly turned on my heels and walked into the local Arab cafe right near me and displayed my finesse at ordering a drink in the local dialect of Arabic. To sort of combat the locals commentary of how much I didn't fit in, I decided to do exactly the opposite and made myself at home. Nursing a cup of tea I was eventually embraced into the daily on-goings of the cafe. Nearby shopkeepers streamed in and out asking for refills on coffee or tea. A local joined me at my table and proceeded to work on his finances while getting into heated discussions with his friend who worked at the cafe.

The location of my tea break.

My company in the cafe. Even conversations about paychecks and taxes sound poetic when handled in Arabic.

My afternoon consisted of finding a sunny spot in my apartment to curl up and get cozy with my Belief and Ritual in Islam class readings. Surrounded by A History of the Arab Peoples by Albert Hourani and nearly deteriorated pages of Helmut Gätje's The Qur'an and its Exegesis I got a productive head start on my midterm papers while actually just procrastinating my Arabic homework.

In reality, the 'productivity' was just a cover to make me feel okay about taking the entire night off too. After (his) class Noah and I headed straight for Cinema City to catch the new Hunger Games movie and afterword we joined the mass collective of students at a "cultural rave" downtown. Part art fair and part public concert, we loitered amongst the crowd while Arabic, English, and Hebrew lyrics competed with heavy bass to fill the streets.

Noah and I in the theater before the showing of the Hunger Games.

Adrian and I at the cultural and music festival. The art instillation behind us is a giant elephant.