Purim

This morning after our first class, we found little strips of paper tacked to all the bulletin boards and distributed randomly throughout the mailboxes. Each one had "Old Testament Field Trip Exam Clue #[1-30]" written on it, along with a question that will apparently be on our final for that class. Lol. Well, it's a Pass/Fail one credit class, so it's only fair really. But I guess people had been pestering Bro. Brown about the final, so he decided to have mercy on us and give us all the questions ahead of time. Hehe, it was almost like Easter, with all the clues *hidden* around the Center. And the great thing about being in all the same classes with everyone is that one person just volunteered to gather them all up and put them in a Google doc where everyone also collaborates on putting answers, and then you have a ready-to-go, completed study guide. We had our first final yesterday. It was, you know, a final. Mike and I are pretty sure we're getting A's in that class (OT).

So Tuesday night was the Jewish holiday of Purim. Purim commemorates the story of Esther, when the Jews were all delivered from Haman and all that. They celebrate Purim, according to our Judaism teacher, by dressing up (somewhat akin to Halloween for us, but with a slightly more Mardi Gras feel) and getting as drunk as they possibly can. So on Tuesday night we went out into the city to join the festivities. Well, not all of the festivities, obviously. But we definitely dressed up. It was way fun. I went out into the Old City (instead of studying- I actually did not do one thing even remotely academic the entire day on Tuesday, lol) and bought some little black masks, sequins, construction paper, and Elmer's glue. I was actually worried we wouldn't be able to find any of the kind of little paper masks that I was looking for, because the Old City is more souvenir-y, if that makes sense... But the very last shop we looked in had some black ones, so I bought the other stuff to embellish mine with (the other one was for Mike- we're officially together now, btw, for those of you who haven't seen my facebook). And I totally made a butterfly mask, and glued all the sequins on myself (I was excited to actually put my rhinestoning skills to use, lol).

Then later that night, a big group of us took a taxi over to Ben Yehuda street. We were kind of out a little too early, like we were there from 6-9, and things were only getting good about when we left. But there were some jugglers out in the street and they were juggling torches and that was kinda fun. We went and got some brownie pastries, where we met up with a bunch of people from the Center and kinda shifted the groups around. Then we wandered over through the Ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhood, because Ophir (our Judaism teacher) said that Purim is the time that we're least likely to be kicked out, since they're all celebrating. It was kinda cool to see. Definitely looked like a scene out of Fiddler on the Roof, except more urban. Then we went back to Ben Yehuda, and went into a costume shop, which was so much fun!! I found some great props to go with my whole masquerade theme, and we found a better mask for Mike (tho no props, sadly) and took pictures in our improved versions of our costumes. And one of the guys in our group that hadn't dressed up bought a long blonde wig... It was hot. So that was Purim. It was actually really fun. I had a way fun time dressing up, and it was cool to be out and see the celebrations.

Yesterday we went on a tour of the Separation Wall, that fences off Jerusalem from the West Bank. It's kind of a horrible institution, actually, and I'm pretty sure the UN has told Israel more than once that it's illegal, but still it stands. Our guide was a really interesting guy. We've had a lot of speakers on the Arab/Israeli conflict, but I've never heard an Israeli actually acknowledge fault. I mean, this guy is from like, New York originally, but so are a lot of Israelis (from the US, that is). So he told us kind of the history of the wall, and about the problems it has caused in the peace process and all that. He was a really fun speaker, too. Had some really interesting things to say, and some clever jokes that I enjoyed. (Although, I'm apparently not too hard to please- in Tel Aviv they were telling us places that we could go during our free time and Bro. Skinner said, "To get to the beach go west, and if your hat starts floating, you know you've gone too far," and I laughed so hard. I said to the girl sitting next to me, "That wasn't as funny as I thought it was, was it?" And she was like, "...No" I have to admit, I still find it kind of hilarious, though. Maybe it's just the image of Bro. Skinner strolling unconcernedly into the ocean far enough for his hat to start floating... hahaha.) Neway, it was a very interesting presentation. It was also the last field trip that Mike and I are not on the same bus!!! You have no idea how excited I am to switch it up. :)

I think I already mentioned that my computer is back. I finished getting all my stuff from Mike's hard drive to mine, now I just have to finish organizing it all and then I will go over to Hebrew U and post! I promise.