Shabbat Shalom

The week is finally over, kind of. Weekends are different here, Sunday here is more like Monday but everything is closed on Saturday for shabbat, but after shabbat at night most things open up, just in case you're dying to get a boureka or something. So there's not really a lazy Sunday here where you can just shop and do what you want, that gets condensed into just a few hours Saturday night. 

I've finally had all my classes and they are quite unique. My environment class is really small and the teacher has been living in Israel for at least the past decade but is actually from Missouri I believe. There is apparently an awesome weekend Jeep trek he does in the class, probably gonna go do that when it happens. I also realized my psych class is focused almost completely on outdated views of developmental psychology, cough...freud...cough so its not what I expected but I will have to bare with it and endure. I finally had my acting workshop class, the teacher is quite eccentric and almost too passionate about the class. The first day consisted of everyone taking turns sitting in front of the class (15ish people) for about a minute. At first we were instructed to try not to think and then to focus on something and just let it naturally affect our faces. It was also pretty hard not to laugh when you are seeing every other face in the room cracking up. So I think this is gonna be quite the interesting class.

Tuesday I met a friend from Ramah and went to Nachalat Benyamin. Two days a week it takes over a section of the street, full of vendors on each side in front of all the shops that are still open. It's all handcrafted arts and crafts type items, jewelry, leather wallets, tiny glasses that you just put on your nose (but really, they are not for correcting vision, they are just small glasses that simply sit on your nose) and even a collection of artisinal soaps. Lots of cool/weird/funky/hipster/artisinal stuff. Running perpendicular to it is Shuk Hakarmel, a long stretch of street, same layout but they sell mostly food and household goods. So many vendors, but my stomach was not feeling ready to tackle all the great smelling street foods. I just got a giant basket of cherry tomatoes and half a kilo of peanuts. But there are some things they just don't have and I'm learning to cope with that, surely but slowly. Also, as someone who does not exactly blend in with the crowd of dark and tan Israelis, when other tourists who are lost see me, they immediately ask me to help them. Sure I speak english fluently but I barely know this place, so I can't always be a great help... Sorry english guy. 

I was also wandering around campus and happened upon this neglected garden. Lots of handwritten signs, rosemary and lavender bushes, a baby orange tree, and some dying tomato and pepper plants. I was also looking for the 'greenhouse' on campus which it turns out is not a real greenhouse but rather a food court-ish building. Need to do some more research on the "Urban Garden."
Last thing, I was at the OSP office asking about internships or volunteer opportunities, and now I'm volunteering every Friday morning at HaKfar HaYarok. Looks like I'm gonna start by just taking care of the animals and doing other assorted chores. They have so many animals, chickens, cows, goats, donkeys, sheep, pigeons, ducks, geese, other birds and animals and a very angry emu. Orange eyes, a bald head and giant claws. I also learned that there is one egg company in Israel that everyone sells their eggs to and that there are organic eggs and produce but they are very limited and super expensive. I really need to start taking pictures...
Shabbat Shalom!