The Hebrew classes continue and there are parts that I enjoy, and parts that I don't. Our class has grown by 4 more people to 13, and has become more diverse, which I wasn't sure if it was possible. Our class is represented by people originating from Canada (me), USA (2), Australia (3), Mexico, Uruguay, Latvia, Sweden, France, Russia and Gibraltar. We improve our Hebrew by listening to the news and reading the newspapers and having discussions and debates. This aspect is interesting because we actually have meaningful discussions about current events. The only bad thing is that we start every day off about talking about the news. Listening to the news and flipping through the newspapers here is like a competition in how much bad news they can fit into a one minute radio clip or 30 pages of a newspaper. All the news is about Iran, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Hezbollah, etc. (If your not on top of these subject, there isn't really anything good to say about them). The domestic news isn't much better talking about raising taxes, messy politics, and all sorts of other social problems in this country. Even the weather forecast is rarely favourable. I'd say the best news in the last few weeks has been Israel's disappointing performance at the summer olympics, where we didn't win single medal.
The food has remained of the same quality, which is getting old and doesn't fit my usual diet. My diet is heavily based around meat, chicken, cakes and other types of dessert. Here I get one serving of meat or chicken per day and the closest thing that we get that comes to a dessert is a piece of fruit on occasion. They did however surprise us with a special meal of good pasta. The only problem is that we only get surprised once a month, so now I have to count down from 60 meals (2 per day) until I get another meal I can look forward to.
In the afternoons, there is a lot of free time. Its often too hot to be outside, but once it stops being scorching hot outside, I try and go for regular runs and stay in shape. The neighbourhood of Jerusalem that I live in is very hilly so when I go running I get a great workout going up the hills. There is also a soccer field just outside the ulpan, and a ping pong table inside. Some might consider Shesh Besh (Backgammon) a sport in this country, and I spend a fair amount of time playing that as well.
Many people have celebrated birthdays in the last couple of weeks. I was the first one in the group here to celebrate my first birthday as an Israeli. Many of us went to the Jerusalem Wine Festival, which was a ton of fun. There were what seemed like 40+ different wineries where you could taste all the wine you could handle.
Yesterday I went with a few people to go get a free souvenir that they were handing out to all Israelis. I'll get to what it is later, but on the way back to the ulpan we had a funny encounter with a middle aged man on the bus. He saw the 'souvenir' that we had got and asked what we need it for. One of the girls with me said that she thought it was important to have. To which the man said to his wife "see, the new immigrants are smarter than we are". I made a joke and said that I went to get it because it was free, to which he said "even we (native Israelis) don't care enough to get it because its free". He then asked me if I knew who Doris Day is. When we didn't know who she was, the man to sing "que sera sera, whatever will be, will be...". Immediately I recognized the tune and started to laugh.
So what was the free souvenir? My own personal gas mask! Yep, only in Israel does everyone get a free gas mask (assuming you want to spend the time getting one). I feel that the attitude "whatever will be, will be" its quite representative of the situation in Israel and how people feel about constant threat of war. I went to the mall where they were handing them out, and all I had to show was my ID card and they gave one to me. I already knew how to put one on from my days in the army, but the people that were handing them out saw that we were new immigrants and said bruchim haba'im (welcome) and said jokingly now we are more Israeli because we now own and know how to use a gas mask (they did show us how to use it). The mask came in a box with a carrying strap with the following instructions written in Hebrew, English, Arabic, and Russian:
"DO NOT OPEN!
Opening this kit may reduce its effectiveness!
Storage instructions:
1. Keep in a cool, dry place away from sunlight
2. Keep away from children.
Open this kit only under clear instructions for the rear command."
The box my gas mask came in
