Stars/cats

[Written yesterday.]


As I write this, the first stars are appearing. Not enough to tell whether they're any different here. The moon is the same.


The university and its surroundings by night (I wish it was safer to descend the mountain and go into the city at night) is a beautiful place. The cool air and soft breezes could not be more appreciated.


On campus, the stray cats, who've spent the day as inertly as possible in the shade, emerge as the sun goes down. Six of them were crowding around me just now, including a pitiful kitten with an abscessed eye. I've named some of the cats: Baxter, Klam, Persephone, Miss (pregnant), Khet, and Felicity Jones. After that I realized there were way too many cats in this city to count.


I had my first class today. Don't worry, I won't bore you with the details. It was six hours, with breaks in which I played piano. We've now learnt the alphabet, which means I must begin to read the Torah.


Lyera is doing well in Tel Aviv. She bought some flip-flops she's very pleased with. I'll bus down there in a couple days to visit, and then she has to come to Jerusalem because her course begins.


Me and Simon (my roommate for the month, among some others -- professional dancers/dancing students, who will be leaving soon) cooked our first meal tonight. It was pasta in tomato sauce with tomatoes, carrots, and hot dogs schnibbled up into pieces. It was very good, particularly since my lunch today was a croissant, and there were leftovers. We also bought fruit and stuff.


I dealt with the laundry detergent! My clothes are washed, my items scrubbed. Still no package from El Al, but they did email me a customer satisfaction survey. Everything else -- phone, money, hygiene, etc -- is in order.


Another cat just stalked by my bench. I think it was Baxter. I'm hoping to visit the Old City tomorrow after class.


Also, I'm taking pictures for you! On Sunday or Monday I'll be able to post some with commentary.


So far I'm not overheating. I have decided to learn the hard way about sunscreen. And I think I may have the jet lag system! I was up for 31 hours yesterday = 24 + 7 = one full day + the time difference! A well-kept secret? Or so tired I can no longer tell how tired I am??


I passed through a cemetery filled with birds earlier.


All right, I guess that's it for now. I'm writing this outside on pen and paper partly because of the night and partly because the dancers are having guests over, whom they fed to celebrate their leaving. They should be done by now. I'm going to go up and try some flower petal chips.


P.S. They warn you about diarrhea if you drink the water, but so far it's just my nose that runs! Thank God. -- Or should I say, אלהים.


[Update.]


Because they have headphones in the library, I'm listening to the first music I've heard since I got here, barring the Muslim prayer calls they pump out across the city. It's Beethoven's 9th, which is very relaxing. Just what I need...


...because I was so, so wrong about the jet lag. I'm practically collapsing right now. I guess it should have warned me that when I felt so up and energetic, it was at about 10 pm... It doesn't help that I have the "bomb shelter room", which, safe as it is, features a red light that looks harmless during the day but at night bathes everything in a faint red glow, making it hard and possibly psychologically damaging to sleep. :p


Needless to say, I'm not going to the Old City today. However, I would love to get off this mountain. I see Jerusalem all the time, spread out on the hills below, but I haven't descended to it yet, and it's beginning to bother me. Maybe this weekend, or next week.


Oh, by the by, not all the bus shelters are cement. As far as I can tell, it's the ones on the main roads. But I will report on that when I go to the city itself!


I think the runny nose is (and my dad phoned slightly after, the same conclusion having struck him) due to my mild allergy to cats -- something I should have noticed before! On the other hand, a roommate gave me an antihistamine pill this morning and it hasn't helped, so maybe it isn't that. Which would be kind of good; if it was the allergies and not a fleeting disease, I'd have to take antihistamine the whole time I'm here.


I did pet some stray cats, though, before realizing they were probably disease-riddled and covered in open sores. That reminds me: yesterday on a walk around the mountain I broke up a catfight like five times, before the cats finally bolted in opposite directions. If you've ever heard cats fighting in Canada, you know they make some freakish sounds. Well, the sounds they make in Jerusalem are no less weird, and possibly even more so. Anyway, the long story short is... no more petting stray cats!


Simon and I bought a watermelon yesterday. I thought it was only 3 shekels (around 80 cents), but I forgot that it was priced by weight. Oops...


In Hebrew class today we learned the phonotactics of the language (syllables, stress, special characters, cantillation for synagogue-singin', etc.) and began morphology. I have homework now, which I'll go do right after I write this. It's starting to get exciting!


Best news all day: UPS Israel called to tell me a package from El Al had arrived at customs. They needed a scan of my passport to take it through customs and then they would deliver it the rest of the way. Done and done. Hopefully I get that by tomorrow.


Okay, now to go back in time a bit to answer some questions I received about the last post...


One, getting from the airport to the university. That was a taxi ride.


Just as we left the airport, a man came up to us and offered a taxi ride to Jerusalem for 320 shekels (about $85). Having been informed that a fair price to go to the university is 300 shekels, we told him 300 and no further questions, and he agreed.


However, once we were on the highway, he told us that where we were going was further east than he'd been led to believe and that he would have to charge us a little extra. As I was exhausted and in no mood to barter -- and he was shouting and driving like a madman, two things I only later learned were perfectly normal -- I didn't feel like haggling, so I agreed to 350, which annoyed Valeria, who thought we would've been able to refuse. (Since then she's been teasing me about my lousy choice! :p)


Two, seeing Valeria off to Tel Aviv.


We decided she should take a sherut, which is a cross between a taxi and a bus: multiple people climb on, give their destinations, and it drops them all off one by one. It was a good mix of cheap and not having to walk to the bus station.


However, when we called the sherut company whose number was printed in our student guides, we found it staffed by a very short-tempered woman who repeatedly hung up on Valeria whenever Valeria suggested going to Tel Aviv and not all the way to the airport.


Finally she decided to just take it to the airport and get a cab to where she's now staying. But by then the angry woman had stopped taking Valeria's calls. So I called her.


"Can I get a sherut from the student village in Jerusalem to Ben-Gurion airport?"


"When is your flight?"


"Uh -- could I get there maybe by 2:30 or 3?"


"When is your FLIGHT?"


"I don't have a flight, I just need to get there."


"WHEN? This afternoon?! Tomorrow?!"


"This afternoon if possible!"


"No. I have nothing."


She had just told Valeria earlier that there was only a ride from here to the airport, so I said, "Um, are you sure? From the student village to the airport?"


"OKAY! I have the last one today leaving now! Go to north gate in three minutes!"


"I --"


"THREE MINUTES!"


So we rushed to grab all of Valeria's things, took the elevator down seven stories, and ran to the north gate of the student village. A sherut was just coming into the roundabout in front of the gate, and began honking the instant it was there. (That reminds me: Israeli drivers honk at everything. It's a little nerve-wracking.) Valeria ran to catch it and succeeded. So that was that.


So that was a couple of minor adventures I hope entertained you.


Also, I quickly wrote a poem about jet lag this morning (most of it is in another form in this blog, though).


...


Jet lag


In an Israeli taxi I
thought I had cheated jet lag.
    When I slept at last in my cell
I had been up for thirty-one
    hours -- a full day plus
    exactly the time difference.
I thought: "A secret unlock code."


For I was not weary.


I still felt that way last night
should've read the bad omen.
Now I have awoken,
    and midnight melted into morning
without hardly any sleep.


Yet I have a schedule to obey.


But in this land,
upright in bed,
the holy sun in slats on my back,
my seven-a.m. water in my hand,
my shadow lying on the floor --
this is how Samuel was called.


...


This has been a long post. So I'll leave you with just one more observation: in Hebrew people say "ehm" for "um". So... ehm... I guess that's all!


Till next time.