Sunday School Begins

A Combination of 5s
For the first five months in Israel (unless an opportunity arises and whisks me away) I am staying in an absorption center in Southeast Jerusalem in a neighborhood called Talpiot Mizrach. There are people here from all around the world - 34 countries that each speak languages. I have new friends from Brazil, Austria, France, Venezuela, Russia, Ukraine, Italy, Canada and the US&A. Quite an eclectic bunch and even more interesting when Hebrew is the common language denominator to communicate with one another.

For five hours per day for five days each week and for five months this year I will have intensive Hebrew lessons in order to improve my Hebrew abilities to a near-fluent level. Three days each week I have conversational and topical discussions with Mira; the other two days we will learn and review more grammar with..another teacher I haven't yet met. Already at a conversational level with a strong grammar background, I placed into the highest Hebrew level available here. That's a great thing since it shows that my Hebrew is already very good; it's a bit scary though because I'm not sure if I'll have a 'cap' on what I will be able to learn here. I will just take things one day at a time and see how things go until my vocabulary book is filled up.

Things I Don't Understand

Sunday in Israel is a business day. It's a nice thing to be able to get things done on a Sunday and be productive. That's how I look at it at least. I remembered from a previous ego-buster that the banks and post offices have odd hours, to say the least. Enter Exhibit A. After thinking that the bank opened up again at 4pm, I was sorely wrong in that it was closed on Sunday. For the US, fine. For a normal business day in Israel? Not cool. Even more difficult is attempting to remember the time of day the bank is open - it can't be as simple as 9-5 of course - and which days it is open at such times - since the hours very each day of the week. It seems like pulling teeth to get them to work - pretty ironic for a bank whose name translates to "workers' bank," don't you think?


The bus system is actually pretty great here. I'm a big proponent of public transportation and an even bigger fan of self-propelled transport. In the sad absence of my bicycle, I have been walking quite a lot every day. Yet when trying to figure out when the bus is about to come on the nifty schedule boards at many stations, I have trouble understanding everything except the words and numbers. That is to say, they could be written in any order or combination and I would derive the same void of information. If someone can explain this to me I'd very much appreciate it.

As a personal contribution to funny signs around the world, I thought my family in Chicago would especially appreciate this. Given the number of parking tickets we have had to pay and fight, it's interesting to think that you can just acquire parking tickets without any hassle at all.

The fun lives on - cheers to a good start of the week and beginning of round two of Sunday School!