That night, I joined a bunch of the other girls at our leader’s new apartment she moved into last week for a “girls’ night in”. The dinner was delicious, and we were amazed that she had cooked it all in her toaster oven and on her hotplates. She was quite modest about the great spread she set before us.
Most of my life since I entered college I have socialized either with people my age, or those older than me. It was so weird at that dinner to be 6 or 7 years older than almost everyone there. To be on the opposite side of conversations I had with people older than me when I was their age, and debating what should be left unsaid, perhaps. (“Oh my goodness, I remember when I was your age…”, “You’re SO YOUNG!”, etc.).
After most of the “young-uns” had head out for a night on the town, the few of us left had some wonderful conversation. We talked about the various American perspectives on the middle east, our leader's experiences in the military and in the most recent Lebanese war (2006). We talked about some of the history in the land, and talked about the calm diversity in Haifa, and what hope it holds out as a possible example of peaceful coexistence. Some of the girls shared some of their experiences as young Jews in America, and I shared openly with them about my ignorance. They were oober kind to me, and met me where I’m at, happy to explain the most “obvious” things that I simply have not been exposed to, with exceeding graciousness. It was well after midnight by the time I left her comfortable new place and walked down to my little place-of-my-own, trying to encourage all the new information to settle in my mind, and make a permanent residence there.
Thursday, I yet again did not get up early for a run, but did a few sit-ups as a sorry substitute, blaming the late nights for my laziness. :-P
After class, we had planned to go to a Druze village to do some inexpensive shopping, but we postponed it until Sunday when our social director will be able to get us free and direct rides, rather than taking public transportation. Yes, please! Instead, a couple friends and I watched Shrek IV and ate popcorn and chocolate milk. Well, it was meant to be chocolate milk, but what we'd thought was milk either had gone very bad, or we'd bought a yogurt sauce instead of milk...so we contented ourselves with the chocolate powder instead. Ha, flexibility. Watching Shrek--very Israeli? Not so much, but enjoyable, and a movie I’d been meaning to see for what feels like quite some time. We went our separate ways to shower, update our blogs, etc. and then met up again for dinner at a friend’s. (We just learned a new preposition this week that is used similar to the “at” in that last sentence. It is used when you say you are at so-and-so’s. You don’t then say that you are at their house, but by using that “at” and their name, it implies at their residence rather than just with the person. Took us some time to figure out the difference, but it was rewarding when we finally got it. :-))
We met up at my place and then head to a great dinner across the way, with a special main course, of which I’ve forgotten the name. Hmm. It has rice and veggies and potatoes (and chicken, but I didn’t eat that, of course), all in a big pot, with yummy spices, and then you take it out of the oven and flip it over, like a Pineapple Upsidedown Cake. The guys looked pretty cool handling quite a large platter and pot, doing this. Then, just like the cake, it is a matter of slowing slipping the pot off the food without letting it fall apart. It was delicious. And dinner conversation was so cool, made up of Hebrew, English, Arabic, Slovakian, and perhaps some German, Dutch, Spanish, and Irish thrown in here and there just for fun. So much fun to just sit back and listen to it all fly across the table. After dinner we head down to the beach for a festival they were having there (my roommate from DC would be astonished to hear it was a beer festival that I attended, but not shocked to hear I didn’t drink any of it, haha.) We listened to the music, and walked around looking at all the different booths, but only stayed a short while because some of us had to be up early on Friday for our trip to Tel Aviv.
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