shtei safot, lughtein, BILBOOOL!!!!!!

So, as I've already began to inform you all, I have begun the second part of my year of discovery: the West Side of the Jordan River. I sit in my dorm room at the University of Haifa after my second day of ulpan, a word for an intensive Hebrew language program. If it's enough indication, there's a word for everything as you can tell by this last definition. However, it's in no way as confusing or crazy as Arabic because after you get to a certain depth with the language, all of the words are just like English but given Hebrew accents, like ambitziyot (ambitions).

I've met a bunch of new people, very nice, some of them I've even bonded with in a nice and deep way. I can tell that a lot of people feel the awe of first coming here after a while or at all, and I am happy for them. However, I do not have my eyes wide open and I am not shocked so much so that I feel like this is more than just a continuation of my life--which is good. Of course I still marvel at the greenness of the city and the beauty of the sea, but I am also proud to say that I feel capable of living a real life here as opposed to just feeling a part of my program and having it laid out for me. I'm gon' take my prize!

So I started an apartment search, which alone is a really interesting process. The first person I call... she's in my class! A very cool girl, and whether or not her apartment (which would be perfect) works out for me, I at least made a nice friend. We chatted for hours, looked at photos, talked about everything, our lives, our experiences, hung with her other roommate who lives there who's a guy from Russia who also seems pretty cool, and we ended up making dinner together and enjoying each other's company well into the night. So I'm really excited about that and hope for the best in terms of the apartment working out. But in case, I am looking at a few others. Here's where it gets a bit less convenient and a bit sillier...

I was chatting away to Rasha online, HOW I MISS JORDAN!**, and I made a call to a number from one of the ads I found. Hebrew was not working out so well... I kept translating in my head from Arabic and realized I was speaking like someone who's either an infant or clearly not competent in the language at all, and I don't think I'm either of those. So we spoke a bit in English, unfortunately (fail #1), then I couldn't completely understand her name (fail #2), but it's okay because we have an appointment set up for tonight at 7 (success!). After that, I made another phone call to yet another girl who happened to be working. The Hebrew flowed like it was my step-mother tongue, yofi! She gave me the number to her other roommate because she was at work, and I'm waiting for her to call back because she didn't pick up.

My cold is going away, I'm sitting around and taking an easy afternoon, and I'm going to figure out this stuff now because a) I should figure it out as soon as I can so that I can get the money back for housing for after the ulpan, and b) it's exciting to have these fun little adventures that could actually become my daily reality.

And I bought my favorite snack food the other day... PRUNES!

--Avraham

**So the program in Jordan is starting to take speed for the Lanugage Program students, and everyone's figuring their stuff out there. It's weird to know it goes on without me and that some of my friends are still in familiar places with people that know and love us. I miss them, and I hope to visit after the ulpan, but for now I can just hope to rely on updates and stay in touch. Guys, I know you're reading this, when you know I'm coming there better be some mansaf waiting for me!