Scattered Impressions

I can tell it’s been a good weekend because I just slept extremely well on a tile floor for over 10 hours.

In fact, the only thing I can think of that went wrong, per se, is that my wallet was either stolen or lost. But I was at least smart enough to have essentially nothing in it—whoever has it now has my old-school Washington ID, some cash, and the bank card I have since deactivated. The stuff I’m gonna miss the most is really going to be the little sentimental bits of nonsense that everyone throws in their wallets, along with basically the only pictures I had from everyone back home. (David, if you can find another Frisbee senior pic…)

But other than that, I’ve been to one amazing club in Haifa, and down to Tel Aviv. We took a train down on Friday afternoon and ended up doing something I never thought I’d do in my life: night swimming in the ocean.

The water at the Tel Aviv beach is just unbelievably warm. It’s one of those warms where if you told me how warm it was, I wouldn’t believe you. I didn’t think the ocean got that warm.

Body surfing at night to waves you can’t see is incredibly fun.

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The people here have been incredibly cool. It’s an amazingly dynamic group of about nine to fourteen people that have all been very patiently teaching me as much Hebrew as I can absorb in one week. My (phonetic) vocabulary so far:

Shalom – hello / goodbye
Bavakasha – please / you’re welcome
Sli-gha (I know that’s now how it’s possibly spelled, but I can’t guess any better) – excuse me
Hako BeSeder – It’s all good
Ken – yes
Lo – no
Ani – me (like Spanish “yo�), also can be attached to things:
Ani Rotse ___ - I want ____
Atta Rotse ___ - Do you want ___? (there are some gender changing things here, but this is the main point)
Layla - night
Tov – good
Po - here
G’vina – cheese
Ifshar – something along the lines of “to make possible,� it’s for phrases like “with cheese� when ordering I guess.

I still don’t know any numbers, but I’m sure I’ll get there.

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I can understand why Jacob and Ben love Israel. So far it’s been an amazing place with amazing weather. When I look out from the cliff on which the University of Haifa sits I can see the curved bay of the city and the beautiful ocean mere miles away. Look north and you see Lebanon. I haven’t been to Jerusalem yet but the two cities I’ve been to have been so amazingly modern in stark contrast to the sheer significance of the land in history.

Jacob is of course in a good place himself. He’s here with a good number of good friends, one incredibly entertaining “fat, noisy British guy,� and a very cute Swiss girl who speaks with a British accent when she’s angry. I can only hope I find as much happiness in Brighton over the next few months, and at the same time I can understand why going back home is going to be difficult. I’m sure I’ll feel the same way.

But it must be different to live here than to vacation here.