Negev

The Rothberg school offered a fully-subsidized trip to all international students to the Negev desert the past weekend which included staying in Bedouin tents, hiking through the mountains, and on Shabbat, hiking along and climbing through the Ramon Crater, the biggest crater in the world.
The night before I went with Ari Hasit, Ari Miller, Noam, and a few other kids to a hip-hop freestyle cypher in Club Dhalia. I left early so I could get some sleep before the bus took off from the dorms at 5:45 AM. I rolled out of bed at 5:43 and speedily threw on some clothes and grabbed my stuff for the busride, which I made in the nick of time. I listened to music most of the ride up, too tired to bother chatting with anyone as it was SIX IN THE MORNING. Sorry, I'm just never keen on getting up so early for anything. At least it was for something I was interested in, or else I would have never gotten up. There's very few things I get up that early for -- fishings the only thing I can thing of off the top of my dome-- but that's pretty much how I felt about getting up that early.
We first hittup Ben Gurion's tomb. I totally dug how he chose to be buried in the desert as opposed to the more trendy Mount Herzel. He was all about the medina, not about the politics, and there's no greater symbol of that then the location of his final resting place. Big ups, David.
More big ups go to the vulture movie we had to watch before heading over to the Bedouin camp. It was 8 glorious minutes of watching birds of prey gore apart less fortunate animals of all sorts. These images drifted me off into excited thoughts of glee about our local birds of prey, the Eagles, and how they are most certainly going to the Super Bowl. I honostly cannot believe they're there -- it's totally surreal. I can only imagine how insane it must be back home. It's about time though, you know? They have a really good chance of winning the damn thing too. I don't care what the critics are saying or what the line is, this team rocks supreme. Go birds. I'm thinking about putting a petek in the kotel asking for a win. Or should I? Let me know if you think doing that would be good luck or bad luck.
But I digest...
The Bedouin camp was the same one we went to on Seminar. The people there were very hospitable and kept offering us their super-sweet tea. There was some serious down-time between the time that we arrived and when Shabbas started so I went out and kicked around a hackysack with some of the Canadians. We did Kabbalat outside and the Bedouins served us a good chicken and rice dinner. The tables were kind of segragated, with the meat eaters and one, the veggies at another, and the Argentinians at the third. Seriously, what's with Israelis and separating people? Oh wait, these were Bedouins. Nevermind.
After dinner the Bedouins went into a different tent to play their hand harp and smoke nargile. Those who were shomer shabbas stayed in the tent and hung out. Although I was tired, I stayed up with the guitar players and sang Manu Chao and Wyclef until it was too late. When I finally got back into the tent everyone was asleep. One of the Israeli madrichim was snoring quite loudly, so I put on my ipod and fell asleep.
The next morning we hiked around the Ramon Crater. You can read up on it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramon_Crater. I really liked it. Our tourguide, Guy, told an old Bedouin story about this boy Mahmoud and what every finger on the hand is for. Climbing up and down the crater was a huge rush and I made up fake tourguide stories about random things we saw, such as Goliath's footprints and landmarks for Arab graves. Ask me about them next time you see me. They were fascinating.
The busride home was boring. I had a headache and my ipod was running out of batteries. However, we took a pitstop at a Burger Ranch, Israel's favorite kosher fastfood burger joint. I didnt' get any burgers because I was quite full from lunch and dinner with the Bedouins but I did notice there was a bull on the Burger Ranch logo, not a cow. This got me thinking about several things-- first of all, why is the logo a bull, and not a cow? No one eats bull, and I'm almost certain that Burger Ranch doesn't make its burgers out of bull. If it did I'd assume that they'd adverstise it more openly. But then this lead to a more troubling thought-- why is it that we eat only the female species of animal? No one eats bull or rooster, just cow and chicken, the females of their respective species. It's a bit sexist, innit? It's almost a troubling enough thought to make me a vegetarian. Almost.
One final thought. The discussions of bulls and roosters reminded me of this rooster that is not far from my campus. It crows at all times of the day, morning, noon, and night. This rooster got VIGOR. It crows its heart out, mary martin would be proud. Here is the sequence of its crows: CROW -- six seconds of silence -- CROW -- six more seconds of silence -- repeat for ten straight minutes. I'm not joking. I asked my madricha Inbal about the rooster and she said she has been going to Hebrew U for 3 years, and it has been there since her very first day. We gotta do something about this rooster. I'm not one for violence, but I would have no qualms hunting down that rooster and slaughtering it to the point that no rooster would ever want to crow again.
And then I'll eat it.

ISRAEL

This being my first blog entry in Israel, I should let all you faithful readers know that I did post an entry about a week ago describing in detail my trip to the Judean Mountains to visit famous battlesites in Jewish history, including where David killed Goliath near Bet Shemesh (where Aunt Elana lives) and the caves from the beginning of the common era where the Jews had to hide from the Roman invaders. It was a very cool trip indeed, but I’ve done quite a lot since then that I feel would be better suited to brief on before I head to bed on this cold Jerusalem night. Ari Hasit has been staying at my place for the past few nights. Coincidentally, my roommate is home on vacation for the next ten days so Ari has a bed to sleep in here on Mount Scopus while he works on his senior thesis on Israeli hip-hop.
Tonight Ari, Zev and I went to the Stanga club in Mercaz Ha’ir and saw Ariel Zilber, a locally famous Israeli folk/rock star. His song “V’eich Shelo” was our edah’s zimriyah song this past summer, so sang along with along with the rest of the Israeli’s at the bar. I was struck by how friendly and open Zilber was after the show, opting to walk off of the front of the stage and mingle with the crowd rather than hop backstage like most American rockers do. Granted this was a small bar and not a concert venue like the TLA but the fact that this older, distinguished musician felt comfortable amongst the crowd pleased me.
I have a meeting with this woman named Idit tomorrow to discuss the “Israeli Friend” program where they hire Israelis to help out overseas students learn the land, language, and culture. Although it bugs me a little that they pay the Israelis to do this rather than have them volunteer, I will still wet my feet in this program and see if I like it. My madricha from seminar Ella does it and her American “friend” Noam seems to enjoy it.
I took my first ulpan test 3 days ago and it was very easy. I am still learning, however, and am not unpleased with my placement. The kids in the class are mostly fun and the teachers don’t stink, which hasn’t happened very often in my various experiences with Hebrew-language classes.
On Thursday I, along with most of the other kids on the Rothberg program, embark on a field trip to the Negev. I need to find a sleeping bag but that shouldn’t be a problem; I know enough people here who should have one that I can borrow. If anything this trip should serve as a good opportunity to bond with the kids on the program and perhaps make some new friends. And if not, at least I’ll be able to spend a weekend in a new and interesting place outside of Jerusalem.
Lila tov!