שלום!
Oh so much has happened within the last two months since I departed to Israel until January!! I finished Ulpan (my seven week Hebrew intensive) and am now on a five week break for the Jewish High Holy Days. The first two weeks of my break were extra special because my Mom came to visit. I was able to show her around, use more Hebrew than I had almost all of Ulpan, and show her what my life is like abroad. Together, we went to the Dead Sea, Jerusalem, Eilat, and of course spent some time in my home base of Tel Aviv. After living in Tel Aviv for several weeks, I am fairly used to Israeli culture. It was interesting to see how my sweet mother reacted to certain things. It was also super special to have my mom in Israel with me because of the High Holy Days. We celebrated the Jewish New Year in Tel Aviv, which is just as big a deal as the new year on December 31st in New York City. It’s a little strange to tell someone “Happy Holidays!” or “Happy New Year!” in September. In addition to celebrating 5778 years since creation, the new year is also a time to ask for foregiveness. We attended a Ross Hashana morning service and a Tashlich service (the traditional ritual of casting away sins by throwing breadcrumbs into a body of water) through the Tel Aviv International Synagogue. Here, I was able to meet people my age rom all over the world who had a reason to be in Tel Aviv. The synagogue is modern orthodox, which is not someone I grew up with, so it was a wonderful experience to completely throw myself out of my comfort zone within something as personal as religion.
Currently, my mother has gone back to America and I am doing the typical study abroad student thing and traveling Europe! I flew to Paris, where I met up with my best friend and roommate at Rollins, Rachel Ware. She showed me around Paris, ordered my food for me in French, and showed me around her neighborhood of where she goes to school. It was really cool to see someone I live with living in an entirely different culture than I have been!! Israeli culture is very different than the French culture. For starters, in Hebrew, you use as few words as possible to say what you need to, while in French you use a lot of fluff to be very polite. It made all the difference traveling this city with Rachel because she taught me things I would not have known otherwise. Since Paris, I have been to Brussels, Berlin, and now Prague. In Prague, I met with a women who lives here and is a czech author that did Ulpan with me at Tel Aviv University. She took me to a local restaurant where I was able to eat traditional Czech food and mulled wine (very yummy!) and then showed me around the city. Again, having a local friend guide makes all the difference.
On Friday, I am off to Vienna, then Bratislava, and ending in Budapest. I am excited to see more of Eastern Europe but I am also excited to get back to my home in Tel Aviv and actually start my fall classes!
I am am posting this at 7 am from Prague so:
בוקר טוב!