Israel 2013: Ramblings of a post-ulpan-ee

Well, I finished my Hebrew final a little over an hour ago. Even though my brain is wanting to find a corner to sit in to suck its thumb and think of a happy place, I realized I needed to update my blog. Unless I get a few extra minutes by breezing through Israeli security at the airport in the morning (one can always hope), this will be my last post from Israel. Wow.

I am already packed, except for my carry on items, and I need to strip down my midget bed and turn in my keys. Unfortunately, they expect me to lock my bedroom door as well, which means I will be sleeping on the blue squeaky couch tonight. That's ok, I will have some amazing scenery outside the living room window. I've been very excited to be heading home, yet today when I left class, I realized it was for the last time. Tuesday the 23rd marked my 6th month of living here, and needless to say so many things have become familiar. I sat in the garden for a few minutes but my growling stomach and headache forced me to leave my bench. Later my friend and I walked to French Hill Falafel, but they wouldn't open for another hour....waaahhh!! So I'll be having falafel for dinner. I called for my sheirut (shuttle) to the airport, and I have to be at the North Gate by 4:45 AM. My plans for the rest of today: clean, finish packing, turn in keys, say bye to my neighbors, and then relax. Oh and sleep would be nice; I hope to sleep some during the 12 hour plane ride, but I don't want to sleep too long; by the time I arrive to my parents' house after flight #2, it will be midnight Georgia time (7 AM Israel time), and I will be more than ready to get some shut-eye, thus hopefully eliminating jetlag and my body will naturally be on its normal time zone.

On Thursday, I got to chat with a familiar face: Professor Norman Stillman, who is director of the Judaic Studies Program at OU, has been in Jerusalem for over two weeks for a conference. After receiving an email stating he was going to be on campus, I walked to the Rabin Building and quickly spotted him among the small crowd. While speaking with him, he introduced me to his friend Professor Maman, who is the head of the Center for Jewish Studies at Hebrew University. Very cool!

I'm having a hard time organizing thoughts at the moment, so I will share the random ones:

Did you know Jerusalem is the 23rd (some say 14th) most expensive place to live in the world? It outranks every US city. By a long shot.

The reason meat is expensive here is because of kosher laws; the animals have to be killed in a certain manner to be kosher/clean/fit for consumption; you can read the nitty gritty in the Old Testament.

Turkey recently released a bird that was suspected of spying for Israel; after x-rays revealed the bird was not "embedded with surveillance equipment", it was set free. Well, that's nice.
I guess there was no evidence of "fowl" play?

I will not miss hearing fireworks/gunshots/explosions in the desert (IDF training).

We have metal detectors and bag checkers on campus because of a bombing attack at the cafeteria 11 years ago (see pics).

I've been waking up every morning between 4-5 AM and have not used an alarm clock for over two months.

I will greatly miss my coffee creation at the Aroma Espresso Bar...half iced coffee with blended Oreos and half iced chocolate (iced=smoothie/shake, none of that ice cube nonsense).

The bottled water here is kosher for Pesach (Passover), in case you need to know in the future.

Mt. Dew is not available in Israel.

I haven't had milk in over 3 months. Or cookies for that matter.

Living in Jerusalem and travelling across Israel has been an experience that is more amazing than I or anyone could convey with words and/or pictures.