...I was on the bus and...

I want to start out by saying that I am sorry.  I know some of you are waiting to see pictures of where I live.  I have been a bit lazy lately; I have yet to take a single picture since arriving in Israel.  I am not making any promises, but eventually, pictures will be up.  Also, for those of you who were wondering, my electricity came back on at about 5pm on Monday night.  The flashlights I left out were utterly unnecessary.

Tuesday was a very productive day in the life of Sondra.  It was my first day in the next level at ulpan.  While the teacher isn't as engaging and energetic as the teachers in the previous class, I think the level is better for me.  The class goes beyond grammar review and sentence completion.  There is a lot more listening, reading comprehension, and writing.  While the other class was a breeze for me, this one challenges me to think.  I can actually synthesize what I have learned instead of just doing worksheets of rote conjugation.  I have more homework in this class, as well, but that is good because I feel like it is really pushing me to learn.  The grammar in this class is still a review for me, but I am being challenged in terms of vocabulary, reading and speaking.

After ulpan and a quick lunch, I took the bus back to town with a couple of friends.  The bus came just after we got to the stop, so the timing was perfect.  We were a bit of a big group and there weren't enough seats for us, so we just stood in a clump by the back door, out of the way of everyone.  We drove for a few minutes, and suddenly the bus stopped.  We weren't at a stop, so I thought it was a bit bizarre.  I looked up to the front of the bus to see why we had stopped.  I realized that we had pulled up toward the middle of the road and that our driver was chatting with the driver of another bus.  Cars behind our bus and the other one were honking, and it was so Israeli when the two drivers just continued their conversation ever so nonchalantly.  Eventually we continued on, and I would like to say that the rest of the ride went on without a hitch, but that is just not the case.  A few minutes later, an elderly woman punched me in the elbow (right on my funny-bone) and yelled at me in Hebrew: our English-speaking group needed to be quiet because she had a headache.  While we weren't being particularly loud, I relayed the message to my friends and we toned it down.  A few minutes later she hit my friend and told him she felt like she was at the zoo because we were acting like animals.  At that point we had been talking in near whispers.  She kept at it though, calling us a bunch of dirty animals.  At that point we all burst out laughing.  It was just too much.  It would be one thing if we were actually being loud, but really, there was no excuse.  Luckily the next stop was ours.

After my lovely bus ride, everything else went swimmingly.  I got a cell phone plan, I met some friends for shopping in the shuk, and I had an interview for a babysitting position.  All in all, it was a good day.  A couple friends from ulpan also ended up coming to town later in the evening, so I met up with them for drinks.

Wednesday and Thursday were pretty typical days at ulpan.  I am settled into my class and I now have friends in the class that sit near me.   The afternoons have also been pretty typical.  I worked on a writing sample for my grad school application, applied to grad school, met up with friends, went out to eat with my roommate, shopped and cooked a bit , and started to get into a routine.  It's great that a lot of my friends from ulpan come into town in the afternoons and evening, and I see my friends from school (U of I) who are here for the semester pretty regularly too.  The transition has been a relatively smooth one.  My next task is to meet Israelis and speak more Hebrew.  This weekend, I am going to my host family in Kiryat Gat (they were my host family from this past summer's volunteering program), so I will get a lot of Hebrew practice there.  I will also get a home cooked meal.  Yum!