Excuse me, do you have another pair of your eyes?

(This was written on September 15)

Hi everyone!

As I told you, I’m taking classes at Hebrew U for the first half of the year.  The first month of school is the minimester, in which everyone on Nativ takes certain mandatory classes.  The real semester starts in October and we’ll get to choose our own classes then, but for now I’m taking Israeli Society, Jewish History through the Eyes of the Filmmaker (there are three people in this class; I’m sure I’ll mention it again soon), and Jerusalem Through the Ages.  We only have Jerusalem class every other day, but it’s a three hour class that is half lecture and half touring (with more lecturing on the tours... woohoo).  Yesterday we went to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, along with the site of the Last Supper (which is also a mosque), Kind David’s grave (it’s not actually his grave though), and the Cardo.  I visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre last December with my family, but it was really interesting to go back there and see things I hadn’t noticed last time.  Our teacher, David Keren, was also there to explain everything we were seeing so that made it even more interesting. Anyway, when we left the church, we were standing in the courtyard hearing about the conflict regarding a ladder and cleaning the windows of the church, when Matt Goldberg, a fellow Nativer whispered to me, “The guy sitting behind me is a cross between Jesus and Hagrid!”  I not so subtly turned around and stared at a man who did in fact look like just like Jesus and Hagrid.  Naturally, we needed to take a picture of him, so I grabbed another Matt (Matt Alfasso) and we took a picture with Jesus/Hagrid in the background.  I know you’re all dying to see this incredible combination of a man, so here’s the picture.



Can you find him?



By the time we were finished with our Jerusalem tour for the day we were exhausted, but we still had to get back to Beit Nativ.  As we walked through the Arab shuk (with David and one of our madrichot, Maya) we saw classic Israeli t-shirts, bags, and jewelry that you can find at any shuk in Israel.  There were hundreds of different spices, fruits, and nuts to buy, as well as the tempting smells of rugelach, bread, and other non-gluten free treats. While I was telling my roommate Aimee all the gluten I wanted to eat, one of the stall owners stopped me and said, “Excuse me, do you have another pair of your eyes?” I was so surprised that someone would actually use such a lame pick up line that I just said no and walked away laughing. 

Once we got out of the shuk we walked through Mamilla, a new (very expensive) shopping area on the way back to Beit Nativ.  I had been meaning to stop by Aroma (a popular café in Israel) because I heard they had gluten free brownies, so we went to the one in Mamilla.  There weren’t any GF brownies, but they did have some cookies. In general, GF food is good for the first few bites until you realize that it really doesn’t taste very good.  I think this is because you’re so surprised to be eating “real” food that doesn’t crumble to pieces in your hands, but once you start really tasting it, the thrill is gone.  Anyway, the cookies were nothing special.  They tasted a lot like Passover cookies and were pretty unimpressive (and unhealthy).  I’m hoping the GF brownies will be better, but I won’t get my hopes up.  In the meantime, I found a really good chocolate cake that doesn’t taste like chocolate but is still the best GF food I’ve had so far in Israel (besides the Berryline-esque frozen yogurt).  Now it’s time for dinner where I’ll probably have the usual: GF crackers and hummus. YUM.

Love, Tali