Off-Roading and Camping in the Negev!

Last week we had a significant break from Ulpan for the holiday of Shavuot.  I believe this holiday celebrates the time when God gave to Torah to the nation of Israel on Mount Sinai, but don't quote me on that because my knowledge of religious significance is mostly based on Wikipedia.  Anyway, from Monday night we were on vacation, and when I told my cousins that I would have a significant break for the holiday they invited me to join them on an off-roading trip in the Negev desert in southern Israel.  My cousin's husband is from the Mizpe Ramon, which sits right on a giant crater that's 40 km wide, and was carved out by water and tectonic plate movement (whereas other craters are sits of bomb blasts or fרםצm meteors that collided with Earth). It,s absolutely beautiful. Here's a pic from above the "Machtesh" as the crater is called in Hebrew.

On Tuesday afternoon we set out for Mizpe Ramon, stopping at Be'er Sheva on the way.  I had driven through the Negev before on my way to Arad and Eilat, but I had never spent a significant amount of time in the desert. There's something beautiful about the vast emptiness and quiet that comes with the desert.  As my cousin's husband said, out here it's just you and god, and he wasn't kidding.  No cell reception, running water, or electricity, just good old-fashioned family time.  

This trip marked the first time that I had been off-roading for more than a couple of hours.  I couldn't believe some of the roads and passages that we drove through because they were so riddled with rocks and dips that if taken at high speeds will destroy your car.  Some of the descents and hills looked impassable to me, and I was shocked when we would drive down paths that consisted solely of giants rocks.  One such path was even challenging to climb on foot, and Yaniv (my cousin's husband) climbed it with his Trooper.  See the video below to check out the climb.  

Overall the trip was really amazing.  I saw a part of the country that I had never seen before, and spent more quality time with my family.   My favorite part has to be that I drove during the trip on Wednesday and Thursday.  Going off-roading and camping out in the desert is something that I can definitely see myself doing in the future, and I can't wait to go back.  Here are a few more pics of the few, and a video that my cousin put together.   Enjoy :-).

Couldn't get a direct feed from Youtube, but here's the link for the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tu9fX0e7SHs

And That's a Buzzkill

Yesterday I was very excited to learn that I got a part-time opportunity at a High-Tech start up in Tel Aviv, and today they called to rescind their offer because they need someone who can start right away.  Well that's just shitty, but hey, I guess it's not meant to be.  I'm not too down about it because I know there will be other opportunities that may actually be full-time positions, but it would have been nice to already know that I have at least one promising position waiting for me when I leave Ulpan. Oh well back to the drawing board, speaking of which, job fair yesterday! My first Israeli job fair took place yesterday, and it was a far different experience from the job fairs that I attended in the states.  This job fair had a far more relaxed environment; I shower up in jeans, a t-shirt, and flip flops, and that was perfectly acceptable.  Yesterday's fair brought some useful information and contacts, but a majority of the representatives came from job placement agencies, so it's tough to say if those will lead to any actual positions.  Either way, I'm staying positive and hoping that some other promising employment opportunities come my way.

After the job fair and a nice run I went downtown with a few friends.  We went to the old city and then hung out in the city center for a little while.  Overall it was a chill time; a bunch of people were exhausted so we packed it in early, but I was glad to spend the night in downtown Jerusalem on the eve of Jerusalem day.  Here are some pics from last night; hindsight tells me I probably should have used the flash on my fancy iPhone camera, next time for sure. 

Sami and David, my bros,  at the Kotel.

Here's a candid of most of the group that went to the Kotel.

Natalie attempting to hammer Nate.

First Israeli Job Interview

There are a ton of firsts for new Olim, and today I had my first Israeli job interview. It went well for the most part; well besides the fact that I was 30 minutes late, but I called to let them know, and it didn't appear to be a huge problem. In my defense I would have been on time had the Egged driver not taken an unnecessary detour through Ramat Gan, aka he had no idea where he was going. Still, I arrived and had my interview. For the most part it went well, everyone was very pleasant. Definitely one of the least stressful job interviews I've had in my time which surprised me. I figured a job interview in my second language would prove challenging, and I expected lots of personal questions, but everything went well. I know that's a little bland, but I don't want to write anything too spicy in case I'm hired and start working for this company ;-).

On my way to the interview I read the Jerusalem Post, an Israeli newspaper geared towards people whose Hebrew isn't great. It felt great reading the paper because I can already notice an increase in my reading speed. I'm noticing that as my decoding improves, a new issue that I'll need to tackle is my reading comprehension. It seems that I'm working so hard at reading the words that I forget what I'm reading. Baby steps right, but I must say as an educator and someone who taught decoding and reading comprehension last summer, it's fascinating to see the difficulties of learning to read and write. It's like I'm a little kid in a 6'1 (sorry 1.85 m) medium-build body. I wonder if my fellow Olim feel the same way. Either way, it's a great feeling to see you're own personal progress with the language, and I hope that in the coming months I'll continue to see improvements in all aspects of my Hebrew. To my fellow Olim, make sure you take a break from the frustration, and take a minute to evaluate your own personal strides with Hebrew. It feels great to see how far we've come in nearly four months :-)

I'm Starting to Miss Having a Car

Yesterday there was a fire at Ulpan! No joke.  A careless pedestrian apparently flicked a cigarette into some of the dried brush right outside the Ulpan, and a decent sized blaze sprouted up.  Now if we were in the States there would have been alarms, and at least four fire trucks within minutes, but to my surprise I heard no such alarms, and I didn't see any Israeli firefighters.  So what happened? Did the Ulpan burn down? Not at all, thanks to some quick thinking from our building's maintenance manager and some help from the cooks and some fellow students.  Itzhik, the maintenance manager, quickly hooked up some fire hoses, and with the help of some of the cooks and students put out the fire before the fire department arrived.  Only in Israel.  I just love how people acted fast and didn't wait for the firefighters to arrive.  It's interesting how people here are ready to handle things themselves and jump to action far quicker than in the States; probably due to the fact that services here can really suck forcing people to be more self sufficient.  I mean seriously 25 minutes for the fire dept to arrive? No bueno.  Here are some pics taken by a fellow student showing some of the students helping to put out the fire.

Today marked the first day where I went to Tel Aviv (Ramat Gan) to look at apartments with my future roommates.  We saw some good places, but the trip absolutely drained me.  We left Ulpan at 4 pm, and returned at 12 am.  That's right, eight hours to see two apartments in a city that's a 40-45 minute drive from here, crazy right?  I'm finally missing having a car because taking public transportation has made me realize how long it takes to accomplish everyday tasks without a car.  If we had a car we probably would have seen everything and been back on the road by 8-8:30 tops.  I can't wait until I have enough money to save up and buy a POS car that will get me from A to B without any major mechanical or safety issues.  That or maybe I'll land a good job that will give me a work car, fingers crossed.  I have my first interview tomorrow in TA, wish me luck! And here's a pic of my future POS car.  Not really, but it probably won't be too different.