lower case g
Friday, June 30, 2006
captions for the adventures...so the pictures wouldnt show up when i uploaded them and i didnt know which one was witch from the html script, so here are the captions (in no particular order):
1- the pool at herod's palace in caesoria... very cool
2- my dad wondering around in solomon's pools
3- the dead sea round two... that is so much fun!
4- running around in the tunnels benieth the herodium built during the bar kokba revolt
5- an olive tree looking up to mt. carmel
6- a byzantine floor mozaic near the southern steps of the temple
7- am i really in israel... what in the world is this doing in jerusalem?
Thursday, June 29, 2006
pit... ?today in class we played the card game pit in hebrew... it was fun
... this post is really to stall becuase i'm hoping to put up a better and more detailed post this weekend... but even though a stalling post- playing pit was a lot of fun... and a lot less dangerous then playing it in bc with sticks that cut up my hands :)
Friday, June 23, 2006
one week ini thought that at the close of the first week of class and with the onset of shabbat in israel once again i would blog a bit about what life is like in langauge learning land. but before i go on... the fact that it was the eve of shabbat today meant a very very very good meal for lunch today... it was a dairy meal which for my vegitarian self is much better then the usual meat meal that is at lunch. yum.
a day in the life of learning hebrew... (translated into english)
1a. i forgot this... so it is added as 1a... eat a large breakfast (yum... dairy meal! :)
1. begin with prayer in hebrew
2. go to the "classrooms" which may or may not also serve as the moshev's (the name of the type of town that we are staying in) bomb shelters.
3. spend the next four hours in class... here is an example of what we do
teacher: abigal (my hebrew name) stand
my response: stand
teacher: abigal jump (i jump)
teacher: pick up the sheep (plastic animal, not the real thing... although there is a real donkey outside that makes a lot of noise all day and i laugh everytime that it does, but that really has nothing to do with the class time)
put the sheep under the table (hopefully i pick up the sheep and put it on the table)
teacher: touch your stomach (i touch my stomach)
teacher: abigal sit (i sit)
here is another example
teacher: class stand (we stand)
teacher: go outside into the sun (we go outside into the sun)
teacher: go to the garden
when we get there we are told to go into the wine press and pretend that we are pressing wine... we also throw rocks a lot when we go to the garden
we have also created armies and fought a war against eachother... and today we sang a lot and learned a dance...
5. go and eat a large lunch at the buffet
6. do about 3 hours of listening homework during which i look at pictures and listen to a cd that has the descriptions in hebrew
7. eat a large dinner
8. watch the sunset
9. read the bible outload for an hour with others from the class
10. stumble into bed for a brain recharge
... so that is a day in the life... i still dont know the alphabet and i have not had to parse one single verb... life is good... and we our homework for this weekend is to learn our first dialoge from the book of jonah :) :) ... i'm also going to en gedi and qumran :) so here's to hoping that everything gets done
Sunday, June 18, 2006
lessons from israel1: coming to a different country doesnt solve procrastination problems- the biblical ulpan starts today... and well... i only got to picture lesson three out of the ten that i was supposed to have gotten done BUT i have hope because last night we met up with the 6 western theological seminary students who are here and they said they were told not to study at all... here's to hoping!
2: i miss canadian legislation that disallows smoking in public places- i am sick of smelling smoke... it makes me feel sick... a little bit like right now in the less then ventelated internet cafe
3: spelling- they are very bad at spelling here... it makes me feel very much at home... although my spelling has gotten most likely worse (a tear of sadness goes down my face at this... soon no one will be able to read my writting becuase my spelling has gotten so terribly bad)
4: climbing- climbing up mt. arbel was SO fun... handholds and cabels and 50 foot sheer drops makes me happy inside.
5: the world is a small place and making connections- playing dutch bingo here is almost easier then doing it in western michigan... i think there is a special highway from here to there... also from rehoboth to here... as yesterday i met someone who is doing the ulpan who lived in gallup new mexico for a long time and went to rehoboth crc...
Sunday, June 11, 2006
over 230 channels...... and not one of them showing a single minuet of the world cup!
what!?
the guest centre has one tv... which has 230 channels of news in (almost) every language you can thing of (excluding the random langauges that is)... and it also has about 30 channels in which you can watch catholic news... and about 15 channels of evangelical television (ok... those might be a bit of an exageration)...
imagine my dissapointment today when i turned on the tv to watch the holland game and there wasnt a soccer game to be found... tears...
but this story has a happy ending, my dad and i went to the new city and found a pub with a large screen tv (HUZZAH!) and it was showing the game... so i watched the game in hebrew (quite interesting when the only words that you know are the numbers 1-10 and a few random words like "house" and "fish"... which, in case you are wondering do not come in handy when watching a soccer game. although listening to the dutch names pronounced in hebrew made me smile :)
and there is a double happy ending becuase holland won... double HUZZAH :) and afterwards we went to a vegetarian resturante... yum! :)
Saturday, June 10, 2006
shabbot shalom and west bank daymmm... it's my third shabbot here (and i'm getting used to the fact that the coffee machines are turned off on shabbot... along with a number of other things)
yesterday was a day of adventures (always fun and good to get the blood flowing :). i affectionatly labelled it as "west bank day/visit herod's crazy building projects day" one of the wonderful people that we met here (judith) took us in and gave us a tour around bethlahem and then to the herodium. the herodium was quite excitingly cool... i mean anytime someone builds a mountain to build a palace on top of it is worth going to see... both for the awesomeness and insanity of it. anyway, after going to the herodium, we may or may not have gotten lost in the west bank and toured around where many tourist most likely do not go... but oh well... we did get to see bethany and a place called lazareth car rentals with the slogan "we raise them everytime." (eep)
once we found our way through the maze of roads that change all the time (this bit of information i discovered from the number of times judith said, "this used to be the way to go/ there used to be a road here") we went down to jericho and visited the remains of old testament and new testament jericho. which were super super fun... particularly new testament jericho becuase it remains for the most part unexcavated... which means there are no things saying "stay out" which have always been an annoyance to me... anyway this post has gotten long enough... sorry about that... i hope that all have a wonderful day!
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
falafal
well hello out there world...so i am borrowing a laptop right now and trying to upload some pictures... however the firewall here is making it quite difficult to do so (grrrr) ... i would like to start with a small ode
ode to falafal
by: gayle doornbos
at lunch i eat you
little fried green balls that are not blue
you are made out of chickpeas
but my stomach you rarely please
for you are fried in a pool of greace
but israels national sanck you are
you are sold at at least 50 shops in the bizzare
so ode to you falafal
although i would like a belgian waffle
but i will likely still eat you tomorrow
in other news... everyone should read how to read the bible to hear God speak:a study in numbers 22-24 by cal serveeld. i read it yesterday and i highly recommend it!
i dont recommend the book Jesus by david flusser. i read it two days ago and it is one of the less impressive books i have come across.
wahoo, so another one finally loaded. yesterday we went to jerusalem university college.... which demanded a picture becasue it is a rare thing to run across other university colleges... it also had an academic building which made me feel right at home
there has been one day of clouds... and the wind on the day i took this was gusting so hard i could hardly stand up
anyway, i think that is all that i will be able to get up for now.... i'm sorry that it could not be more
but it took me 45 min to get the three...
Monday, June 05, 2006
pentacost reflections (a day late...)-one of the things i love about being here is seeing the incredible connections between God's working in the old testament and how it is connected into the new testament. yesterday we celebrated pentacost which coincides with the festival of shavo'ot. shavo'ot is the festival of weeks and celebrates the wheat harvest... it also celebrates the giving of the law at mt. sinai. if you go down to the wall there are hundreds of orhtodox jews gathered together reading the law. so then, isnt it incredible that the festival at which the giving of the law is celebrated is also the very time when God sent the Spirit on his people so that the law would be "written on [our] hearts" i find that truly awe inspiring and it makes my insides all warm and smily :)
-i also had to smile that yesterday we went to an anglican service in the morning and the recter was in a full liturgical outfit completed with sandles :) this is definitly my kind of place :) :).
-and in other news... after searching for many many days... it has been determined that my wallet was stolen from our last hotel room. sadness about this comes from my heart... especially because there were many fun things inside of it that will not be able to be replaced... oh well though, these things happen... yesterday i bought a new wallet... here's to hoping no one finds this one as a good thing to steal.
Saturday, June 03, 2006
... shabbot restthis city is hilly! today we walked to the top of the mount of olives... and took in a breathtaking view of the city. on our way up we passed by some hasmonian tombs... they were gigantic! afterwards we went back into the old city and sat in a square in the jewish quarter while having a snack of dried fruit (yum!). this land is so intriguing because mroe then anywhere else i have been you can tell what people believe by what they are wearing... and there is something both wonderful and sad to watch the orthodox jews on shabbot. they are so dedicated and yet missing so much. anyway, the count of dogs continues as i saw another one today... bringing the total up to 4... although i saw a pregnant cat... which means that there will continue to be an influx of stray cats in this land...
Friday, June 02, 2006
more from jerusalemthoughts from the day:
-this country takes seriously the no work on the sabbath and holidays command (evidenced in our search for an atm in the old city to day... apparently only the jewish quarter of the city has such things...)
-Christ's Chuch (an aglican church) has superb soup and delicious iced vanilla beverages
- i found mike and ikes in a store that reminded me of the lcbo + variety store + grocery store= the store of many things today...
- there are cats everywhere here... cat count= 100 + dog count= 3
- in the last 2 days i have gotten stuck in an elevator (in the hotel when we put 14 people into one elevator... one under the limit) and a bathroom (today at lunch) someone had to come and help me out of both places
- internet for 2.50 an hour is much cheaper then at the hyatt where it was 1 dollar for 4 minutes.
- the orthodox jews wear fur hats on shabbot... i am glad that i dont have to do this too!
hello all! the study tour official ended yesterday and now only 4 of us are left to explore the land and read a lot of books in our free time! my dad and i are staying with 2 other people who run an organization in holland, mi. anyway, i am saddened by the shrinking of our group but i am glad for the study tour to be done. it was a lot of fun and we went to a whole lot of very exciting places, but my reformed self had a bit of struggles with the teaching... by struggles i mean extreme frustrations. oh well though... God is, as always good and i have learned a whole lot so that is extremely exciting. :) today we are moving from our location at the hyatt regency hotel to another hotel located just outside the old city walls. i'm really excited aobut being close to the old city becuase this week is shavo'ot (sp?). so we will get to experience the festival from very close by. tonight we are planning to go to the western wall and see the ushering in of another shabbot... apparently they come down dancing and singing with the torah... i'm so excited to see this. last week we were at the wall and there were 3 barmizvahs (sp?) going on... seeing the celebration and the dancing around the torah was incredible. anyway, i've uploaded some pictures... i just realized that there was a usb on teh comps. here (they were hidden so dont laugh to hard at me..) so i thought i should make use of them and show a bit of the journey so far. dont worry to much aobut the land mines picture... we are safe and sound (it's just a part of the continuing saga of places that we werent supposed to go but did anywya... i ahve a photo logged for each one of the instances) on a totally different topic... the coffee machines dont run here on shabbot... this is a very sad thing for me! but alas... instant will have to do...
shalom!
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