Alas! My study abroad program has officially begun and I am lovin’ it. For the first time in a while, I feel like I’m in the right place in my life. I was quite nervous the day before the program began but moving in and meeting everyone went way better than expected! My roommates are wonderful: a dancer from Venezuela, 2 more dancers from the US and a philosophy student from Germany. All great gals. I think that the culture shock has sort of settled due to the fact that I’ve been in Israel for about a month already. Although, after moving into the dorms and studying on a new campus, I’ve noticed some differences from my old lifestyle that make me miss America just a tiny bit. On campus, they don’t provide places to recycle as often as they did in Bellingham. It was too disturbing to watch my roommates put paper, plastic and cardboard into the trashcan, so I made a separate bag for recycling and will have to figure out where I can drop it off. In general, the respect and care for one’s environment is a huge difference from what I’m used to at Western and is what probably shocked me the most. Other things like how Israeli’s can be rude, loud, personal and forward are all already familiar concepts to me.

Jerusalem is an interesting place to study abroad. Specifically where the school is located, we are surrounded by a mix of orthodox Jews and Arabs from nearby villages (which makes for a great food scene). The campus itself is beautifully filled with botanical gardens and ivory stone walls. Each classroom has the some of the most amazing views of either the Dead Sea or of the Old City, perfect distractions during Ulpan. Yet, a week in the capital is enough for me and I suspect I’ll be escaping to West Israel almost every weekend.

Our madrichim (RA’s) did a really nice job of hosting welcoming activities where we got to meet everyone in the program. After going on some adventures with other students, I’ve found that I’ve become the one that has to order at restaurants, find the right bus stop and bargain at the market, since for them I am the closest thing to a local. I’ve noticed that when I’m around my Israeli family and friends, I feel very American and very foreign. However when I’m with the other international students, I feel like a confident and knowledgable Israeli. Then as soon as I walk into the doors of my Ulpan classroom, I am suddenly the awkward person who can sort of speak Hebrew but doesn’t know any grammar.

The first month of the program consists of Ulpan (Hebrew language intensive) and then a Gaga dance intensive in the afternoons. I thought the Ulpan would be easy breezy for me since I was born here, however, I was wrong. On the first day of Ulpan I was in Aleph 1, the level that is designated for those who have never spoken a word of Hebrew. After spending 2 hours on the alphabet, I decided to talk to the director of Ulpan because I wasn’t feeling challenged enough. I spoke to him in Hebrew and he had me read a few lines from the textbook. He simply stared at me and replied, “you are a very interesting case…” What he meant was, it was very odd that I could speak Hebrew but not read, write or know basic grammar. I assumed I would be put in either Aleph 2 or 4 but instead he sent me to level Bet, a class where most of the students have done Hebrew school for over 10 years. The first day gave me the worst headache as I struggled to quickly learn to read and write while the teacher gave lessons on different grammar rules. After a couple days, the class became less daunting and I’ve been really enjoying learning Hebrew. It was actually one of the aspects that I was most excited about and I can’t wait to see how much my Hebrew improves by the end of the course.

My favorite thing thus far is probably rebuilding the connection to the place I was born in. And also the food. The food is amazing, I can’t stress that enough. Sometimes I believe that peace in the Middle East can be achieved through admiring and appreciating Israel’s conglomerate of different cuisines. Anyway, as I go about my day in this country, I sometimes imagine who I’d be and what I’d be doing if my family had stayed in Israel. An immense feeling of gratitude usually follows as I realize that I’d currently be serving in the Israeli army had I grown up in Israel. All in all, the more time I spend navigating through Israel and interacting with people here, the more I feel at home. Although, I’ll feel more at home when I’m able to speak the language without messing up verb conjugations and male/female adjectives.

As far as researching before the program started, I think I researched enough, maybe even too much. I was so worried about not fitting in or about making the wrong decision that I researched the program almost every day. I wished I had been less worried about the whole study abroad experience but it also made me realize that in situations like this, things will usually work out better than expected.

UPDATE: I wrote this blog post about a week after the program started and didn’t publish it until a week later so I thought I’d give a quick update. Ulpan is going better than before. I feel like I haven’t improved as much vocabulary as I would have liked to, however I’m learning grammatical rules that I never knew existed! Over the weekend I went camping near Sde Boker and explored around the Negev with the adventurous Niv Yaffe. Today we had our first Gaga class (my first EVER) and I really enjoyed it. Again, I was very nervous to try Gaga as I had no idea what to expect. It is basically an hour and 15 minutes of nonstop guided improvisation. It was explorative, aerobic and fascinating and I’m actually happy we have it 4 times a week. For the next few weeks my days will consist of Ulpan for 5 hours in the morning and then dance for 3 hours in the evening. Somehow we will manage to sleep, eat, study and breathe in between. Also I found a place to recycle for those who were concerned. Here are some pics from the past few weeks, להתראות!