PARTY WEEKEND! 05/25/2009
 

I have to be honest, I did absolutely nothing this weekend except for clean and party!  Thursday was Yom haStudent - or Student Day at the University.  They pulled out the stops, bands, activities, food, everything.  It was great fun.  I got back at 3 in the morning from that.

Friday, one of our friends, Sigalit, had her 30th birthday party.  She lives in a penthouse overlooking the whole city and has an AMAZING patio that takes up most of the roof of the building.  Her family is Jewish from India and she threw a Bollywood-themed birthday... I'll let the pics speak for themselves.
Shabbat was our turn.  Omer, Luke and I decided to throw a Channukat haBeit - which means housewarming party.  We planned a Sushi party, but didn't have the ability to pull it off...  So about 5 girls came and cooked all afternoon so we would be ready by 8pm. It cost us about $300 to buy all the supplies - OUCH!  But, it was worth it... PEOPLE LOVED IT!!! And everyone loves our apartment - which makes me very happy, because entertaining is one of my favorite things to do.  I've got pics from that too!
 
Moving... YIKES! 05/25/2009
 

Alot has happened since I posted last time in the beginning of May.  Obama met with Netanyahu, Iran has tested rockets that can hit Europe, and I have moved houses - gone to several conferences on Middle Eastern Relations, met a long-lost relative, and threw a housewarming party... Let me go into detail...



First - Moving: Omer and I decided to move a couple of months ago, but it wasn't official until we found a third roommate and we found the right apartment... it was a rollercoaster - up and down - and the most hectic part was that Omer had family vacation in Peru - SO - there I was packing up a bunch of stuff that wasn't even mine... oh well.  Anyway - the move preoccupied my time for the better part of 2 weeks, and basically I only now feel settled.  The funniest parts of the move: dropping a refrigerator on myself, getting yelled at by the bipolar president of the Renters association at the new building at 6am (after having no sleep), and of course - dragging a box full of Ikea-stuff about half a mile up the road to catch a minibus back to Tel Aviv at 2 in the morning. (PICTURES COMING SOON)
Second - Conferences:  One of the many perks of going to a large school that is influential in middle eastern affairs is getting to attend the conferences.  Over the last 3 weeks, I have had invitations to 3 conferences.  The first one was with the diplomatic core from Turkey and was regarding Turkey's relationship to Israel.  Very enlightening.  The second one was hosted by the French Institute - Tel Aviv and I heard from Gilles Kopel - French Scholar on Radical Islam and Itamar Rabinovich - former Israeli Ambassador to the US - about the Obama policies on the middle east.  Today I am attending the biggest seminar on Iran ever to take place in Israel.  SO - I've been busy.
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Third - Esta - My long-lost cousin.  Tuvya called me and said we had a relative coming into town, and it was so nice when she arrived.  Several of us got together for dinner and had a great time.  Here are a couple of photos:
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Okay, so I totally blew it on Mother's day... I had plenty of excuses - including being out of the country and moving apartments, but perhaps even worse than forgetting to call on mother's day is calling and forgetting that it is mother's day... that was me this year.  I thought mom sounded wierd when I called her - I asked how her day was and everything... and she finally got around to saying... "Are you forgetting something?"  By then, it was too late... I was back-pedaling big time.  Oh well... I guess I still called, and I will have to make it up for her birthday when I'm back in California.

 
 

My friend Joyce and I (who I went to Bethlehem with at Christmas) were invited by our friend Saed to come visit him in Ramallah.  Ramallah is a place that most tourists don't enter because it is in the West Bank and the best way to get there is on the Palestinian buses... so most people avoid them.  I won't say I wasn't at all nervous, but I was glad I had the chance to do it, and also glad I knew someone there. 
We visited the street market where we saw Stars & Bucks Coffee, We saw a Labour day parade, we ate Falafel with Hummus and Fuoll. Then we visited Arafat's tomb, saw Saed's bank and his old school.  We also visited his family for dinner, and we saw the new house they are building.  After that we went to the city and saw a modern dance performance, ate a palestinan desert and saw a wood-worker making keychains as well as a group of students from a peace-oriented NGO rap and break dance... It was a great day!

 
 

This week was Israel's 61st Indendence Day (Proceeded by Holocaust Remembrance Day and Memorial Day).  Generally, Israeli holidays start on the eve of the day and go until the sun goes down the next day, so the party started right after a day of mourning.  Most Israelis know someone who has given their life in military service and paid the ultimate sacrifice, so Memorial day is quite solumn, but as soon as the sun goes down... it is a different story.
For Independence Eve, some friends and I hit the town until about 3 in the morning... it was lots of fun.  The next day, I went to a barbeque with the masters students from my school... It was a great holiday.