Into The City

The international school ranks are starting to swell. Not everyone here is American either. In the program are people from Canada, Germany, South Korea, the U.K., Denmark, Hungary, and one guy from India. It truly is an international school. What has really surprised me is that not everyone in the program is Jewish. I guess I'm just shortsighted, but it never occurred to me that non Jews would want to come for a long term program in Israel.


I went to Shabbat evening services Friday night. Haven't done that in college for years. It was an orthodox service and not well attended. We did not have ten men there. Of course, had I been counting the minyan we would have been straight. There were 4 times as many women in attendance. This just reinforces that I'm definitely not headed in that direction. I just don't like the mechitza.


Still no hot water, although I'm hoping I can get that fixed tomorrow. I did pick up a little produce in the shuk this afternoon so I can feed myself. The day trip was pretty cool. The Baha'i Gardens are as beautiful as I remembered. It was much warmer in the lower parts of the city than it is on the Carmel. I went cheap for lunch, falafel from a stand in the Wadi Nisnas neighborhood. I tried out a little Arabic with the shop owner. It was forced and I'm sure my pronunciation was not very good but he smiled anyway. All in all it was a nice first Shabbat in Israel. Tomorrow is orientation and class registration.