Getting Settled

The days are going by in a blur, and I can't tell if it's because things really are going so fast or because I am so jet-lagged. I've taken Tylenol PM for the past two nights, but I'm just not sure it's making a dent. The first night, I slept until 2 in the afternoon, and last night I didn't sleep at all. There must be a happy medium.

So first things first, as soon as I did wake up the other afternoon I went to the dorm office to settle my account. It turns out only the morning people can handle such responsibility, so I had the nice guy there arrange my internet instead. I then headed out to the nearest shopping center, and then the next closest, to buy two big pillows and 20-some hangars. Once my room was arranged, I felt comfortable to go out and headed straight for the Merkaz Ha'ir, the City Center. This is the most touristy area of modern Jerusalem, home to Ben Yehuda an open-air pedestrian street with various shops from cheap Judaica to specialty stores like Steve's Packs, Kikar Zion, where no-goodnicks tend to hang out on the stairs of the bank, and lots of good restaurants. I spent hours exploring every new store, hunting for old ones, and in general being baffled by the huge amount of building and upscale shops that are going in all over the place. Boutique hotels, shmancy jewelery, bistro restaurants.

I then headed over to the Mahane Yehuda Shuk which is exaclt what you think of when you imagine a Middle Eastern produce market. I used to live just around the corner from this place and I was a little sad to no longer be living in my dream apartment. I went to visit it and the arrows that used to lead all my visitors to the hidden treasure are all but rubbed off. While walkign around the shuk and visiting my favorite spice man, the dairy store, and the upscale boutiques that are slowly hedging in I got to thinking. I realized that while Israel and New York have a lot of commonalities (rude people, very neighborhoody, outsiders generally fear for their lives) in New York I am never touched. It is just an absolute taboo and I would be shocked if a stranger were to knock into me. Even when ignoring each other in NY, we generally don't ignore each other's personal space (unless it's on a subway, in which case all bets are off). Yet, in Jerusalem I can be walking in a straight line far from everyone around me and somehow three people will manage to bump into me. I'm still deciding which I like more.

Speaking of bumping into people...
Last night Naomi and I got together again for a late dinner after watching the hannuka shel ha'gesher ha'hadash (the dedication of the new bridge at the entrance of Jerusalem) from afar. I have to say this is the first time I've heard "hannuka" refer to anything beside the Jewish Holiday with the same name and it kind of thrills me. It makes me feel like history is continuing on, though the new bridge, which actually be in working order until 2010 is less a miracle.
Anyway, we went back to the City Center to go to one of my all time favorite restaurants, Tmol Shilshom. As we wlaked there I felt like I was going to meet someone I knew, and I told Naomi this. Just then we entered a narrow alley and walked past a man who I didn't even glance at. Suddenly we heard "Kinneret?" and I turned to see a shaggy-headed Lutz! LUTZ!!!!!!!!!

Lutz is a friend from about 5 years ago when I spent the summer at Ben Gurion University in Ber Sheva. I was supposedly there for ulpan (intensive Hebrew language study) but I acutally spent all my time in the pool with German boys. Sigh, those were good days. We had kept in touch briefly after that summer, but I had missed him when I went to visit Germany that next year and we didn't keep in touch after that. It turns out he is in Israel for the year doing work for his PhD on anti-Zionist Israeli-Jewish groups of the 1960s. There's a show stopper.

So today I arranged to do more errands, namely paying for my room which is no little task. It involved me walking from my dorm to the university (a near cross-Sahara like expedition in the late morning), finding the appropriate office (took about 14 requests for directions having understood none of them) and eventually locating a bank which would not issue me money so I could not pay. I then sat at home waiting for internet, which after an hour was set up with the help of the actual internet guy, his boss on the phone, and my flatmate. And TADAH! I have internet!

Once free, I headed towards the City Center in hopes of participating in the Jerusalem Gay Parade. These were dashed due to a really obnoxious driver who talked in very fast Hebrew who I eventually understood to mean that the bus lines were all different today because of Ultra-Orthodox protests against the parade. I was just about to sit down in defeat when a woman asked if I was Kinneret. Though I didn't recognize her at all, it was Noga, an old friend of my sister's who had once stayed at my house when I was 15. It turns out she was heading to the parade as well, and so we went together, catching up with each other as we walked. We were just in time and we joined the group and walked from Independence Park to the Liberty Bell Park. Last year the parade had been so viciously protested that it hadn't been able to make it halfway down the route and the paraders had to be completely surrounded by police. This year the Ultra-Orthodox kept their protests to their own streets, burning tires which we all mused would only poison their own neighborhoods. I had been to the Love Parade in Tel Aviv, which was pretty much a Gay Parade in th sense of small clothes and glow sticks on the beach. This parade was less fun, but more purposeful, and it as fun to walk next to Noga and meet the many dozens of Jerusalemites she knows.

Tonight I grabbed some cakes from Neuman bakery on Emek Refaim and headed to a dinner party at Lutz's in Rechavia. It was a simple Israeli dinner; fresh pita, hummus with olive oil, fresh Israeli salad, and lots of red Galil wine. The conversation though was strictly European salon. There was a Danish woman, a German woman, a Polish woman, and Lutz, all of whom are studying for their PhD in Israel and non of whom are Jewish. I find Europeans who are fascinated by Judaism fascinating, and apparantly they are intrigued by my own fascination as well as my identity. The conversation centered around Jewish socialism vs. the Polish communism one woman's family had endured, a young Australian man's growing up only speaking the Yiddish language, and other topics along a similar vein, always with new films or books to read tacked on. I loved it.