The Scenery to My Natural Treadmill
Welcome to Tel Aviv, Israel. The city that never sleeps…I would admit that I’m ripping that off of NYC but I swear there’s a saying in Hebrew here that means the same thing. And for my first week here I most definitely experienced it firsthand.
To preface the next few months of (hopefully) consistent documentation of my experience in the Holy Land: I spent the second semester of my junior year of high school in Jerusalem on a program with other American (and Canadian) Jews traveling the country. I’ve seen the sites, ridden a camel, been pushed and stared at by the love of native Israelis. But I’ve never done it with freedom. Every second of my high school program was planned, supervised and restricted. Today I have finally been given responsibility for myself and what is going to happen between now and June. It’s overwhelming and incredible and ridiculous.
So to give you all some sort of idea of Israeli culture and what I’m experiencing, I thought it might be easier (and more fun) to describe Israel abroad via a Hot-or-Not scale. Hurrrrr we go!
HOT
American Girls
- I can get into clubs. That is neat.
Europe
- Despite the country’s technically Asian geographic location (and its evident representation via my 25 yr old Chinese suitemate), this country is pure Euro-bred
- Gel in hair, skinny skinny jeans (either gender), overpriced tacky anything
- My lungs will never forgive me for these months of secondhand smoke, and neither will my hair. I smell like a month old ashtray when I come home at night.
Cro Dance Music
- GET OUT OF YOUR MIND
- I almost hope you don’t get that reference.
The Kotel! (Western Wall, Wailing Wall, Holiest Place on Earth…)
- We took a day trip to Jerusalem a few weeks ago with the abroad program. Although it was cold and rainy, most of the kids had never been to the city before and it was great just watching them pop their Jeru cherry. I had seen most of the sites before, but the Kotel made the trip worth it
- A friend of mine here from Amsterdam has been to Jerusalem several times and said it well when he explained to me that he’s been on every single tour a thousand times and can’t take them anymore but the Kotel is different because “it’s a feeling”
- I have never been able to approach the Wall without crying. It’s impossible to describe. Leaning against straight history and religious stability.
- There’s a tradition followed by nearly every visitor of the Kotel in which you scribble down on a scrap of paper a dream, prayer, hope or feeling and stuff the piece into whatever crevice you can find among the stones. Standing against the Kotel, you are literally surrounded by the deepest desires and purest prayers of the country. Tears. That’s all I can say.
NOT
Jaywalking
- This is when I get the most “spotted: American” stares
- For a stereotypically pushy people, it is outstanding how strictly they follow the Walk/Don’t Walk signs at crosswalks
- An Israeli soldier once told me the reason behind the pedestrian mentality is that the second you place one foot in the street when the light is red, a crazy Israeli driver will come out of nowhere and run you over. So far, so good.
Organizational Skills
- This place is a technological hotbed of the world (inventors of the cellphone…no big), but try to buy something at a store and you have just signed up for a year-long endeavor
- Supermarkets–almost not worth fulfilling your nutritional needs
- My university just let me register for two classes held at the same day and time. Mind you, they changed the time of one of the days after registration was over. Didn’t tell a soul. Possibly the first time I have ever missed the first floor of Fanning.
Rush Hour
- It’s approximately 5 hours long
- Honking horns is a simple means of communication (used for traffic as well as getting the attention of any female so much as moving on the sidewalk)
- A friend of mine who made aliya (became an Israeli citizen) five years ago said the following accurate statement mid-rant about his daily commute to and from Jerusalem: “We’re in a country where turning signals are seen as a sign of weakness.”
Although I’m ragging on the country nonstop, it’s partially out of love and partially due to the fact that it’s all Israelis do and it’s rubbing off on me. There’s a reason I came back here and despite its problems, I have a massive amount of love and respect for this place. More to come on why that is. Hotly or notly.
Look Mom, a Postcard
