...we broke into dance in the middle of the...

This past month, Jersusalem has been celebrating "Hamshushalayim".  The name has two parts "Hamshush", and abbreviation for Thurs, Fri, Sat, and "Shalyim" the second part of the city's name in Hebrew, Yerushalayim.  It is a essentially a celebration of culture.  There are concerts, discounts at restaurant, free tours around the city, and extended, FREE hours at museums with special exhibits and performances included.  I took part in Hamsushalayim three of the five weekends.  I went to the Science Museum once and the Israel Museum twice; there were different exhibitions open each time I was at the museum and different performers as well.  The first time I was at the Israel Museum was a bit less exciting than the second.  The highlight was the Mariachi band.  The second time I went, there were dance shows, a play about the end of the world, and then the icing on the cake, a great Klezmer band . It was so Israeli when we all broke into dance in the middle of the museum.  It was great!  Luckily, Jerusalem is working on becoming more cultural, and this will be the first of many outings.

...we planted an indoor garden.

Israelis are obsessed with fresh spices: fresh mint, fresh coriander (cilantro), fresh basil, etc.  You would be hard pressed to find these spices dried in a jar.  On that note, many people grow their own.  In the spring, summer, and fall at Hebrew U, the spice garden is in full swing.  There are chives, lots of good tea herbs (mint, lemon grass, lemon verbena),  and good salad spices (sage, hyssop, etc.).  In our office we also have a bit of a spice garden.  Last year it was just mint and lemon verbena.  It was so Israeli when, we expanded our indoor garden: about a month ago, we added some basil, and this week, we planted some green onions!  The onions sprouted well in our sandy soil (we're actually learning a thing or two about gardening), and the basil is doing well too.  Our mint is a bit dusty, and we don't know if it is from all of the building going on or if it's because of a parasite.  Hopefully with some diligent care, we'll get it back on track.  In the mean time, we are trying to decide what to do with our pepper seeds.  The thought is that because the vegetable was genetically engineered, it won't grow, but someone told us from experience, that we might be successful.  Our sandy soil isn't good enough for peppers though.  My goal this week is to hunt down some compost (not the raw materials I bring every week, but the finished product) to enrich our soil!

...or at least un-Feldman family when...

Thank goodness Hanukkah has finally come to a close. If it lasted any longer, I might have been forced to walk around pants-less.  While everyone talks about the "Festival of Lights," the "Festival of Oil"  and the "Fry Fest" are usually less talked about.  This does NOT mean, however, that they are less celebrated.

I grew up in a house with a two-doughnut-per-year rule.  During the few years that I followed it (sorry Mom), that would mean that I couldn't get a doughnut both times throughout the summer my camp bus stopped at Dunkin' Donuts if I had already had a doughnut once before (which was usually the case come summer).  Luckily by the time we went to New Orleans as a family, the rule was on hiatus.  I think we reached our two doughnut limit within the first four hours sitting at Cafe du Monde.  When we returned a few years later, the rule was still no where to be seen.  And in Israel, I think it just doesn't exist.

My parents came to visit a few years ago during Hanukkah, and we had quite a few sufagniot (doughnuts--often filled with jelly or other yummy fillings).  It is a holiday tradition to eat food fried in oil (potato pancakes too!) and Israelis go all out with the doughnuts.  This year, they crept up in OCTOBER, even before Christmas decorations and sales in the States.  I, like last year, executed immense self-control, though, and did not partake of the holiday treat until the holiday itself--until the second day of the holiday, in fact.  But from there it was downhill.  I decided I was going to bring sufganiot to work, so of course I had to taste one before investing in two dozen.  The first one I tasted (a chocolate one) was rather disappointing, so I had to have another (a caramel one).  This one was pretty good, so I stocked up.  The count was already at two--done for the year.

The next day, the stock of doughnuts came to work with me.  Vanilla cream-filled doughnuts go really well with a cup of coffee (3), and a doughnut before class is always delicious (a friend and I went halfsies on a caramel one and a chocolate one; 4).  A half of a sufganiah heated up in the microwave while cutting the communal salad  made for a great appetizer (4.5), and the other half for dessert (5) was a must.  And of course, that night at a party I couldn't not have a bite of a fresh doughnut from a well-known bakery (5+).

The next day, there were also sufganiot at work (7+), followed by a short one-day reprieve (if I remember correctly).  The next day though, was a killer.  I had two sufganiyot tasting parties.  At the first, I had halves of four different doughnuts (pistachio, cream, chocolate, and a frosted and sprinkle-y one with an unidentifiable filling; 9+), and then I went out with a friend for the "best sufganiot in town."  And they were delicious.  I had a Belgian chocolate one (10+) and my friend had a halva one.  It was a good note to end on!!  At a party the next night, I opted out of a sufganiah, and I even saved a very highly reputed bakery's sufganiot for next year's taste test.  While two doughnuts a year is a bit of a low allowance, I think staying under ten( or at least 10++) is a good goal.  Below are some pictures from the end of Hanukkah.

...he offered me his lap...

As you can see (pictures below), Hanukkah is still in full swing.  But so is typical Israeli bus etiquette (which could actually include a number of behaviors).  Here is a brief rundown of my week in buses.  (I think I should have made a list, though, because I forgot the middle story.  Hopefully it will come back to me.)

Picture from this site.
It's actually my bus stop!

At the beginning of the week, I was waiting for a bus in the little bus stop, and I had a spot on the bench, which is quite a luxury.  The majority of the stop is covered but the bench only spans half the enclosure.  My bus route is busy in the mornings.  Sometimes we have to get in at the back because the front is so crowded. (Then we don't have to pay.)  This morning was just like the others, and there were a number of students waiting for our horrible late bus, the 14.  A few minutes later, though, an older man came into the enclosure too.  I quickly go up and offered him my highly coveted seat.  He took it with pleasure.  The bus came just a few minutes later, and it was packed!  We got on in the back and squished as much as we could.  When the older man boarded, another student who was already seated got up and offered him her seat.  I was standing near him (and everyone else because there was absolutely no moving or breathing room), and I had my lunch in a container in my had.  It was so Israeli when he offered me his lap to hold my lunch.  I demurely declined but his kind gesture made me smile the rest of the day.

MIDDLE STORY HERE  (Hopefully I will remember it and add it in soon.)

Taken from here.

This morning, as I was waiting for the bus, I was reading an article in Scientific American about autism and its genetic basis as correlated to genetically based technical and systematic intelligence.  An older, religious woman was also sitting at the stop, and It was so Israeli when she saw what I was reading and decided to strike up a conversation.  She asked me if I studied autism at the university and if I could explain the basis of it.  I explained to her as best I could (before reading the article) about linked genes and co-inherited traits.  I went back to reading thinking that the conversation was through.  It was not, though.  She continued the discussion and applied the rifts between siblings or between parents and children in which communication is cut off for years to be a sign of autism.  I disagreed with her and cited anger or hurt as a main cause for a break in communication.  The conversation continued in a philosophical direction, and somehow we came to the topic of the goats she owns and how even in them, there is an innate instinct to motherhood.  I wasn't sure how this tied in to autism, but I just went along with what she was saying. Luckily the bus came just a few minutes later, and I was free of my philosophically minded, Hebrew speaking companion.  It was a challenging, interesting, and spontaneous way to start the day, but I still haven't gotten through  the article.  Hopefully I'll get through it on the bus ride home.

On the bus seeing the city lit up with decorations

The third night of Hanukkah.  I am a bit late in my picture taking.
The let and right candles have already burned out.

The menorah at the community garden where I take my
compost.  I guess the previous night's candles
blew out because they were still there in the morning.

The fourth night, at the grocery store.

 

The fourth night, outside my apartment building.

...she asked us to get in her car...

Tonight is the first night of Hanukkah, and with Hanukkah comes candles, fried food and a ton of parties.  I took a few pictures on my walk tonight to the first of two parties.  It was amazing to see menorahs lit throughout the town in all shapes, styles, and sizes.  The first picture is of my menorah that I bought last year.  Tonight my roommates and I all lit candles together.  Then as I began my walk, I saw a menorah lit at the International Christian Embassy.  They had one too many candles lit, but it was nice to see.  I also passed a yeshiva on my walk and saw all of the bochurs (young men studying Torah) lighting their candles.  Then I walked through a family-friendly neighborhood and saw windows full of menorahs and colored candles.  It was a sight to see.

After a delicious eating (and social) extravaganza at the first party, I headed to another party.  Throughout the walk, we passed smells of food frying and heard Hanukkah songs from the windows.  It was truly magical (I know it's cheesy  walking through the neighborhoods of Jerusalem, and I just felt such a sense of joy that I live here and can see and be a part of such celebration.

And celebration there was.  After a second celebration of more friends, food, and fun, I was ready to head home.  I stood outside with a friend for a few minutes though, catching up and waiting with her for her ride.  It was so Israel (?!?!?) when a woman who had been idling in a huge SUV across the street asked us to get in her  car...and just sit in it for a few minutes.  She wanted to run into the party because the person she was picking up hadn't come out yet.  I guess she had heard us speaking English and saw that we came out of our friend's apt.  It was all very strange.  She said she assumed that we wouldn't drive away (we joked that the car was too big and scary to take anyways), and then she dashed into the party.  We though it was weird that she didn't turn off the car before leaving it...if she was nervous about getting towed or ticketed, we could have prevented that by standing next to it.  The only other option is maybe there was a kid sleeping in the back seat.  She looked like she could have been a mommy, but she didn't mention it.  I guess we'll never know...

...we gave up on dinner to watch a car chase...

Immediately after recovering from my stomach bug (as referenced in my previous post), I went into overdrive.  The following weekend we were hosting an international workshop at our campus for the DIP (Deutsch-Israelische Projektkooperation) Stork Project.  It would be a meeting of German researchers from several cities and institutions and Israeli researchers from our lab as well as another one.  We are working on the stork project together, and the DIP is a big source of our funding.  This would be my first time meeting the whole team, and it wasn't until this meeting that I really understood how big the stork project is.  The goals of the meeting were to assess progress thus far and plan for the coming breeding season.  The three-day workshop was meant to be intensive, and just about a week before it started, while in the throes of the flu,  I found out that I was meant to give a presentation.

A large chunk of my presentation was easy.  I made a few slides with background information, highlighted my objectives, hypotheses, and predictions, and then discussed the methodology for my research.  I was also expected to present some results, though, and results were something I was lacking.  I spent the majority of the week (read 14 hours a day) making results.  I analyzed data that I had planned on saving until the spring, drew connections where I hadn't thought to draw them, and threw in a few graphs and charts.  Somehow, I pulled my presentation together, got the okay, and pulled it off!

The meeting started well.  Our Spanish counterparts chose not to come to the meeting due to the situation in Israel (although a cease-fire had been reached by that time), but everyone from Germany had arrived, we had eaten a delicious first dinner, and the first morning got off to a good start.  We had a fun "welcome" presentation, made a few introductions, and got underway.  By the time my presentation came around, some clashing opinions had begun to come out, but we'd had a lot of productive discussions and brainstorms.  I presented (within my time slot!!) and was able to answer all questions directed towards me.  My research proposal was received well (unlike some other proposed plans), and I was given the go-ahead to continue my work in the coming breeding season.

The documentary we watched.

After my presentation we heard a few more talks and then were supposed to end the day with dinner.  It was so serious and scientific and dedicated when we decided to forgo our dinner reservations and instead order in pizza so we could continue with plans for the upcoming field season.  It was so Israeli when instead of planning, we watched a documentary about one of the researchers in our group.  He and his father went on a stork chase!  They took a fully equipped car and followed a stork with a GPS transmitter through Europe and Israel on her way to Africa during the fall migration.  The documentary was hilarious even though it was in German, and a night that seemed like a loss (who gives up on dinner?!?!) turned out to be a fun one with pizza, beers and a movie.  The rest of the workshop was busy, and we fell behind schedule a bit.  We sacrificed some of the talks and presentations for the much needed planning time, but in the end we progressed well with our research plan and left as a much stronger team.  My first academic meeting was both fun and successful.  What more could I ask for?