Hey from J’lem

I am in the middle of the Summer Ulpan… (still not sure what Ulpan means in Hebrew) at the HU. It is has been great fun and Hebrew is a snap… and every evening Arabs, Jews and Christians and even Atheists join together in song and dance.

It is hard to believe that 3 weeks have gone by already! Today marks the middle of the Ulpan (at least today we wrote the midterm today). I have learned a lot since being here:

1. A 110 V clothes iron gets hot quickly when plugged into a 220 V outlet. You can iron a hemp shirt left damp in the dryer for 2 days in a flat 60 seconds. The secret is to always keep the iron moving and to make good use of the steam function. Its a good idea to keep a window open nearby to toss the flaming shirt if you run out of water or absent mindedly (my spell check says that isn’t word?) leave the iron rest in one spot for more than a few seconds.

2. Don’t be offended if the man behind the falafel stand looks at you like your an imbecile. If someone ordered a hamburger in your country by pointing to different pictures on the menu and saying, “There is a meat, there is a bread, there is a salad and there is a pickle” and then asks “How much to pay for the dog?” well, you’d probably look at them the same way.

3. Pedestrian walks are optional. You have better odds playing Russian roulette with a derringer than you do with Israeli crosswalks. It is best to understand that the white lines painted on the road are a memorial to former pedestrians who thought they had the right of way.

So it has been a good 3 weeks and I am grateful to be here.

I will write more later and post some pics soon.

PS – If you came across this blog by Googling “mindedly” please leave a comment. I would love to hear from you.

2 thoughts on “Hey from J’lem”

  1. Robert tried to explain to me the physics behind plugging in a 120 volt iron to a 220 system. He said the word “hot” quite a few times! Dad

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  2. Hot is right! I think it would have caught on fire if I had left it plugged in for long. I guess I thought that when I bought a travel iron, I would be able to use it outside NA… not sure what I was thinking.

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