Good Times

I am loving Jerusalem so far. On Wednesday, we purchased a lot of things for our apartment, including food, which means that I now do not have to eat out all the time, even though it seems like I have many excuses to eat out since I keep meeting up with people. I also got a set of drawers, which means that I was actually able to put my stuff away, which means that my room is clean! I will definitely have to take pictures in the next couple of days.

One awesome thing about Jerusalem is that it has great nightlife, even for people like me who don't really like nightlife. On Wednesday night, Carly and I met up with Brent and Sam, which was totally awesome because I haven't seen Brent in a year. He took us to this restaurant that I went to with a friend last time I was in Israel. I think it's called Tmol Shilshom, and it's sort of a combination of a bookstore and a restaurant. Very bohemian, and very delicious. Then, we went to this sports bar which is a pretty cool hangout place

Yesterday, Carly and I spent about half of the day sleeping, and most of the rest of the day doing nothing. This was nice. We also got internet, though no WiFi yet. That's today's project. At night we met up with a bunch of HUC people and went to this restaurant called Fortuna. It didn't have anything tzimchoni (vegetarian), but that wasn't too big of a problem because the fries were delicious. I must have had an entire bowl. I am hoping not to turn into a carb monster while here, so I will search for tofu when we go to the Super Sal today. Also, my classmates are wonderful. After dinner, some of us went with our Israeli intern, Udi, to this place called Gan HaSus (literally, the horse garden, it was a plaza with a statue of a horse), and we learned all about the cost of living protests last summer. Apparently, when Jerusalem residents want to protest, this is where they go.

After that, we went to a super classy wine and cheese bar atop a hotel overlooking the old city. Wow. Wow. Wow. The wine was good, but the view was breathtaking. This was also an excellent chance to quiz Udi about what we should do and see. He told us some things that sound awesome. For instance, there's this thing called the Shvil Israel, which is this long hiking trail that runs from the top of Israel to the bottom of Israel, and you can do parts of it. Definitely something I would like to do. When we were done with the wine bar, Carly, Jen, Udi, and I stopped for ice cream on the way home. I feel the need to post this fact because my mother went on a trip to Israel when she was sixteen, and the only thing she seems to remember about it is the glida. I had Mekupelet ice cream. Foodgasmic. If you don't know what Mekupelet is, you need to go to your local Israeli market (for those of you who live in LA, there are a lot of them) and buy this:

Seriously. It's tasty.

And now, I am off to have bagels with a few of our cantorial classmates and one of our instructors who is named Mikhal. Other plans for the day include figuring out WiFi, going to the Super Sal, cooking with Jen and Carly, and then going to a Shabbat potluck at the house of one of our classmates named Rachel. Eep!