It's been eight days of walking everywhere, sweating my ass off, and drinking my weight in water, so I haven't really missed the gym, but my brain has missed its exercise! Luckily, today was my first day of ulpan (Hebrew and Zionism classes). At 9 AM, I started with Zionism, taught by Benjy, an English professor (not teaching English, he actually IS English. His accent is fabulous). We discussed the importance of Israel, a brief history of Zionism, and were only interrupted once by raucous local students who share the building with us. The aforementioned student (if you can call him that) opened our closed door (it had been closed for a reason), ran in, and began screaming in Hebrew. Apparently, Benjy gave it right back to him, pointing to the hallway from which this unwelcome intruder had arrived, and after a rapid fire exchange, the student retreated toward the door. Unfortunately, his idiot friends locked him in by sliding a bench against the door and refused to return the furniture to its rightful place. The entire situation was mayhem; not to mention, it had fire hazard written all over it. After about five minutes and some persuasion, the hell-raisers allowed their comrade back outside, and class resumed. There is certainly never a lack of excitement. I only wish I had had Hebrew class first, so maybe I could have understood some of (what I'm sure was) this guy's most eloquent language choices. However, I highly doubt his vocabulary words are taught on the first day of ulpan. Or ever.
After a twenty minute break for lunch (we discovered a schnitzel and hot dog stand right around the corner from the ulpan building. The man behind the counter calls me "Los Angeles." Too bad I'm from New Jersey. This disparity might sway my allegiances permanently to the schwarma place in the mall. At least they know the difference; they call me "Jersey") I entered Level 1 Hebrew. My teacher is Tzippi. She is from Holon. I am pretty positive she taught Ben Gurion. But make no mistakes, Tzippi does not mess around. We started with vowels and personal pronouns, script writing and introductions (in Hebrew, of course!). As it turns out, Hebrew pronouns make those in English look simple, and English grammar is not generally easy. For example, assuming I want to talk about a guy named Joe. I would say "who," the pronoun for "he." If I'm talking about my roommate Talya, I would say "he." So, 'he' is 'who' and 'who' is 'he' and 'she' is 'he' and 'he' is 'she.' Got it? I think I might - I did that sans notebook! Cab drivers and store owners of Israel watch out - Elana is learning Hebrew!
In other news, our apartment is now quite cozy. With the help of the Golf home store (in the mall, above Super Douche and adjacent to our go-to bakery stand) we invested in a Pyrex (very necessary), plush blankets, bath mats and extra pillows. We don't quite rival the Ritz Carlton, but I think we're getting close. Last night, in celebration of our new furnishings, I made chicken cacciatore with pasta for dinner. One of my roommates made Israeli salad (an unlikely combo, I know, but given our current location, much more appropriate than normal, boring American salad!) and we also made some garlic bread. After the crazies with whom I live finished taking pictures of our food (I won't lie, I took one too) we devoured it. Delicious, if I do say so myself.
Gotta run - an hour until an activity led by the tsofim at the ulpan, and I smell like a nasty combination of hummus and public transportation.
More later from a less schvitzy me!
xoxox,
Elana
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