Saturday 25 February 2006

One Month On...

Well I have been 'Living in Jtown' (yes it's true I am a nerd) for just over a month now, so I think some sort of musings on my time here so far are due... What I've learnt, what I'm thinking... etc etc...This is what I've come up with so far ...

- I can walk from my apartment to anywhere I've needed to go in Jerusalem so far in less than an hour
- Cab drivers are the most crucial members of Jerusalem society
- Not having a car can be kinda liberating
- Jerusalem is the most beautiful place in the world
- There are some cool Americans out there
- My personal hit rate for having an arguement with the driver of the cab I get in to is about 1 in 4
- Meeting people to share an apartment with on the internet isn't actually the craziest idea in the world
- Israeli bureacracy is not to be trusted or relied upon under any circumstances
- Not having a car can have an affect on the amount of alochol one consumes
- Jerusalem is the craziest place in the world
- Losing your phone can acutally be quite liberating
- Jerusalem is the best place in the world to learn any language but Hebrew
- I can't seem to shake the feeling that the whole world is looking at Jerusalem
- The only two answers Israeli's give when you tell them you've made Aliyah are 'Congratuations, Welcome!' and 'WHY?!?!'
- Vegimite and red wine go well together when cooking
- You can't do anything in this country without being handed at least 7 pieces of paper
- The piece of foil used for smoking nargilah can be reused at least 6 times
- Photocopiers in Israel are just as evil as photocopiers in Australia
- If each person in our flat buys a bottle of red every time they go out we're usually set for wine
- Winter is Dec-Feb in the Northern Hemisphere
- A Brita filter is the first thing one should buy on moving to Jerusalem
- Whether or not you leave a message on an answering machine will most likely have no bearing on whether or not you get a call back
- Blutac pulls paint off the walls the same way here as it does in Australia

I'll leave it at that for now... gotta go teach... But here's a photo I took the other day that I think captures the unique mesh of old and new that is Jerusalem...


Kids playing sport on a tennis court just inside the Old City Wall....

Thursday 16 February 2006

New and updated room and flatmates...

So my days of having heaps of spare time to compose blog posts in my head are (finally) coming to an end... my teaching job starts on Sunday. Got all my lesson plans done etc so I guess I haven't actually been doing nothing. Pretty excited to start - I've definitely had more chillin than I am able to deal with. And the job itself will be sweet. Definitely still need another job ... got a few prospects... not too worried yet.

Anyway so I'm blabbing... a picture says a thousand words... all that jazz... so on to some photos...


Updated photo of my room: Finally got 2 pillows so my neck doesn't feel like it's gonna fall off every morning. New rug for when my bedouin friends sleep over. Purple poncho equiped with hood and pockets - my new favourite item of clothing. My flatmate says I look like a Mexican bum when I wear it. I think I look more like the Purple People Eater's next victim. Especially when I sit on the couch that has the purple blanket on it. And I finally decided what to do with the big white wall (thanks for all the photos over the years Mart!).


Ruben, and our newest flatmate - Mel. She arrived from Toronto last night.


A round of drinks and 'Polish Butterfly's last night. Got messy.


Carrie and I the day I arrived.


Usnat, Loay & I the day I arrived.

So anyway I'll leave it at that for now... it was meant to snow last night and it didn't - which is crap coz I was really excited for it.

Till next time... check out my flatmate's blog too - http://rubenbrosbe.blogspot.com

Cheers

Thursday 9 February 2006

Show and tell

So I've been inspired by the fact that my bedroom actually looks like a bedroom now (my new bed just got delivered... yay!!) ... and think its time to show you all some photos... here we go...














This is my bed... clearly!! Out the window is the view pictured in posts below. The wall behind my bed has nothing on it coz I'm thinking I wanna do something mature with it rather than just photos and posters... don't know what yet though...














My room from a different angle... with the big window behind me - you can see photos, Australian flag, Israeli flag, CDs, pile of mess, door to the balcony, incense, etc etc...
















Last photo of my room. This is my cupboard for the time being... quite a bit of creativity has been used here... One of my flatmates and I have been figuring out that there is really no limit to the amount of things shelves can be used for...















My two flatmates Bri & Ruben(flatmate #3 arrives next week), having shots before the aforementioned Superbowl night.















Ruben, Marc (our unofficial flatmate) & Me, in our (currently lounge-less) lounge room. Ruben's getting my mattress and we're moving the couch (which he's been sleeping on ) into the lounge room though. And then with the addition of some bean bags etc should be sweet. The door in the background goes through to my room.

I'll put up more photos soon...

As for me, I'm going to visit family in Netanya this weekend and then Nahariyah next weekend. Still enjoying setting myself up here and meeting people and hanging out with my flatmates.

I seem to be starting a job next week waitressing in a new Italian restaurant. The guy that interviewed me is either the most accomplished or the weirdest man in the world - I'm not sure which yet. During the course of the interview he told me that he:

- worked for NASA
- developed the world's first Internet Cafe... IN THE 1970S...
- owns a camera that weighs 200kgs
- lived in Canada for 5 years
- taught at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
- a couple of other things that I don't remember...

Anyhoo so it should be interesting... will keep you posted...

Monday 6 February 2006

It's the Superbowwwwwl

I don't really know how to write that title and make it sound like it's 'meant to'. You definitely have to hold the 'ow' sound for quite a while and do some sort of 'bring it on' type hand/full body movement depending on if you're seated or standing. According my flatmate who's American that is. I definitely learnt how to do it last night.

So as probably only some of you reading this blog know, the Superbowl (apparently some sort of American thing about a football...??) was on last night. Started at 1:30am Israel-time. So we 'pre-gamed' (read: vodka, tequila, and dragons breath shots) at the flat - this is my two flatmates (one American, one Canadian), a friend from Australia who's staying with me for a couple of days, and me - then figured that if we got out at about 11pm we'd definitely be in fine spirits for the game.

Unfortunately the first place we went to (Mike's Place - and yes we were trying to be American) didn't serve the wings that we were planning on getting. My American flatmate seemed to think that the order of priority was
1. Superbowl,
2. Chicken Wings.
Clearly I didn't agree, so we went to different place (Egon) that had a Haloumi Salad so of course I was pacified. So we had some fun in the pre-event cheer etc, much like the build up to a big Australian game I guess but there were more Americans (even though some of them though it was amusing to do the Aussie Aussie Aussie chant... hmmm...) and less beer.

Or less people actually managing to finish their beers.

As the irony of the situation would have it, we had to transport certain under-the-weather members of our little party home at pretty much exactly the same time as the Superbowl was starting. So we didn't actually see any of the game. Apart from the bit where every MVP in American Sport history EVER (well that's what it seemed like to me) walked in in a suit. Rivetting.

We tried to find some way to watch it online but apparently you can't actually do everything on the internet yet. So really... all worked out pretty perfectly for me... fun night... didn't have to watch sport!

Till next time...

Saturday 4 February 2006

View from my window



These are a couple of pics of the view from my bedroom window. We also get the same view from the kitchen, breakfast room, and one other bedroom. You can see Mt. Herzl, Givat Mordechai, and a couple of other places that I can't remember the names of. The Givat Ram campus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem can also be seen on the far right.

Above: in the afternoon, with a bit of a storm brewing...

Right: around dusk time, with some cool clouds going on in the sky...

Blog eh...??

So my flatmate showed me his blog this morning and I thought that maybe I should have one... then I can stop flooding people's inboxes with group emails whenever I feel that I have something to share with everyone back in Australia & other randoms scattered around the world. Now its Saturday in Jerusalem... Shabbat... Everything except for a few non-Kosher restaraunts in town are closed, buses don't run, and thus there is nothing to do ... so really the perfect day to create something as potentially lame as this.

Not much to report on at the moment I guess. I bought a bed and a washing machine this week. Very exciting but now I have very little money. Should be getting some this week though - will be nice. Maybe then I can stop smoking evil Noblesse and move up to something a bit more upmarket such as Camels or Time. Great. Anyone coming from Australia HAS to bring me Styves!!

What else? Need to find another job. My job teaching doesn't start till 19th Feb and I've pretty much got all of the administrative start-up stuff done so I will definitely need something to take up some more time and stop me writing too much crap on this thing!

Anyway let me know what you think... good idea... bad idea.... lame...??

Thats all for now folks...
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