Shalom from the home(land)

So, here I am. Another three months in another foreign country, doing more strangely foreign things, eating stranger foreign foods than I am used to, and meeting new people (you guessed it, foreign ones!) For those of you who don't know, I am not just being irresponsible and traveling around the world having forgotten about school completely, I am here doing an internship with a wedding dress designer named Galit Levi, apparently one of the top ones here- it seems I pick them well! (if you are interested, galitlevi.com- but don't be scared, as mom likes to say, it looks like lingerie!) Anyways, after a LONG two days or so of traveling to get here, taking up residence on a less than comfortable couch for 6 hours in London Heathrow Airport- just long enough to get back into the British swing of things, then leave again- I arrived safely to my new residence- ISRAEL! I knew it wouldn't be long until I was back here and this time it's for longer than three weeks, it's for three months! If you would have asked me last summer when I was here if I would come back for a longer period of time SO soon though, I probably would have laughed, thought about it a little longer, than answered “anything can happen.” So, it happened, I’m here.

I am living in a great apartment with two great girls, one American and on Canadian, in an area called Ramat Aviv, right next to Tel Aviv University and about 15 minutes from downtown on a bus. So far, from what I've seen in my extremely jetlagged day here, it's a really cute, but quiet area with a little strip mall, lots of trees and parks and a huge amount of adorable families. It’s actually pretty modern looking around here and apparently, a pretty well to do area. Since it is Shabbat (the Sabbath, day of rest, whatever you want to call it) everything, and I do mean everything, is shut down, minus two cafes and one tiny little corner store. No buses, barely any cars, and lots of families playing outside in the parks and riding bikes and just relaxing together, a very new concept to me since I don't even think that on Sundays, America remotely shuts down or relaxes. So far, everyone seems so much more laid-back and everything has slowed down dramatically- but this is just on the Sabbath. I’m sure I will quickly find out that this is not the case during the week when I start working early on Monday Morning.

Since I have only been here for about a day and a half, I am trying to get over jetlag but not doing much on top of that- slept late, unpacked (Shocker!), hung around the apartment, went for a walk to the “mall”, sat in the park for hours and just read and people watched (my favorite hobby of all) and now, I’m back to relaxing at home. Tomorrow will bring a trip downtown to take care of some cell phone and food shopping business and of course, some time just to get back to one of my favorite places in Israel. I can already tell that it will be different to be a resident here as opposed to a tourist, and I’m sure my biggest obstacle will be the language- my first words in the country were “Sorry, I don’t speak Hebrew” when someone asked me for directions. At least I look like I know what I am doing… I think?

Hopefully, I will keep this more updated than I did with my Danidoeslondon blog, but I can’t make any promises of daily updates, I’m sure my life will not be so exciting that I need to share every detail of it to the wonderful world wide web.

Don’t forget, keep me posted on life wherever you are, I think it’s only fair, don’t you? I don’t have a cell phone yet but I have a feeling Skype will become my new best friend in the next three months, so don’t hesitate on that one.

I hope all is well with everyone at home (and wherever else you might find yourself).

Shalom in the home(land)

Dani

p.s… just so you can learn right along with me…

HEBREW PHRASE OF THE DAY:

I’d like to buy…. Ani Rotse (rotsa) Liknot.... (fill in the blank)

(that’s an important one, obviously :))