So I was pretty much falling asleep at the keyboard during my last post, and this being the case I made a mistake. We didn't actually stay in Jerusalem again that last night on the 6th, instead we left and went back to Tel Aviv to grab our bags from Mike's aunt, then headed up to Haifa and stayed over with one of Mike's cousins who lives just a little outside the city. Oops.
Anyway, so we traveled up so that we would be close to Haifa and could get in early on the morning of Thursday the 7th which was the first day we were allowed to check in. After bumming around hostels for the last few days this was very nice because we got to stay in an actual house, and since most of the family was away I got my own room and bed, yayy!!
We also got to have some free food which is always great, and relax watching a movie. Mike's cousin had to study, so left to our own decisions we selected Kiss Kiss Bang Bang because what we remembered from the previews was an action movie and Robert Downey Jr., whom we both like. Unfortunately we found the movie to be pretty strange and confusing. You win some you lose some. If that was a loss, then the win would probably be the air conditioning in my room. A/C was noticeably absent from our dormitory hostel room in Jerusalem which had 4-6 other people in a room that was not big enough for that many.
Mike's cousin had to get up early the next day so we did too, taking advantage of the free ride. Unlike when she picked us up from the train station the day before, we did not have the dog in the car this time, so I had a little more room in the backseat. With all the suitcases in the car, the sizable dog and I had experienced some breaching of personal space boundaries, so the ride back towards Haifa sans dog was a little more comfy.
The city of Haifa is pretty much all built into the slopes of a large hill. If you are in Israel, you refer to this hill as Mount Carmel, but many people who have ever seen a mountain will know this is no mountain. It's a hill. It's not tiny... but it's a hill. Mike's cousin (I think her name was Talia...) was able to drive us up to near the base of the hill where we got off and waited at a bus stop. The University of Haifa is located directly on top of Mount Carmel, and it would have been a significant time investment to actually drive us up there, so we were more than happy to wait here for the bus.
Brief religious history interlude. Mount Carmel is significant for its relationship with the prophet Elijah. Apparently he spent a lot of time here / lived here for awhile, I think maybe in hiding. That is all.
So we waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. You get the idea. It took awhile for the right bus to come, and meanwhile we had to watch over all of our luggage (I personally had two suitcases, my hiking bag, my camera bag, and my laptop bag), and of course the open face of the waiting area at the bus stop was directly facing the sun, so shade was hard to come by and it was already pretty hot. I tried to spend as much time as possible in the shade behind the bus stop shelter, but even this was unpleasant as I am pretty sure somebody had peed back there not too long before. Siiigh.
TMI?
Eventually we got our bus and awkwardly piled all the luggage on. We then learned how long it really takes to drive up a hill when the hill is also the third largest city in Israel. Sadly, there is no one road that goes straight up to the top in nice convenient fashion. The roads go every which way, most of them seem to follow the horizontal lines around the hill rather than vertical ones up and down, and the buses make all sorts of stops, so going from way bottom to way top is a solid hour long investment. But we persevered.
It was exciting and almost surreal to finally arrive on campus. After so much planning, paperwork, and waiting, it was crazy to think I was actually checking into school to spend the whole next semester here in Israel. We were pretty early in the day still, probably around 10am, so it was quiet on campus. Many arrivals were coming in later that day, overnight, and the next day or so after that. Some people were already on campus because they had done programs over the summer, but it was definitely a little ghost town-ish upon first arrival. Plus, the actual Israeli students were not on campus yet for the most part, as their classes didn't even start until a week after ours (ours started on the 10th). After a little directional confusion (me, tough time with directions? never) and navigating our way past the guard booths, we made it to our "reception".
Reception being one of our social coordinators was waiting to meet the arrivals and give us our materials and show us to our dorms. Not that I wasn't impressed. They had pretzels and cookies so I was certainly happy.
Mike and I had checked to see if we could live in the same apartment awhile ago, but one of the people in charge had since changed, and suffice to say this request had not been addressed. We were not too concerned seeing as we were living in the same dorm complex either way and it was one of those things where we figured, on one hand it might be nice / convenient to be in the same apartment, but if not you just meet new people, so it's kind of a win-win. Turns out since we were really on the early side they switched us really easily, and all was well.
The apartments have 6 rooms. Usually one or two international students (Mike and me in this case), and the rest are Israeli students, so we knew we would be living with 4 other Israelis. This seemed like a great system because we would not feel like we were "cheating" too much, and would still have to meet plenty of new people and not just other internationals, but regular Israelis as well.
I think it is easy to say that this is the best living arrangement I have had thus far in college. The apartment setup is pretty cool first of all. Not only to we have our own little flat, but unlike most others which are one floor, ours has an upstairs and downstairs. I do not have pictures of the flat itself yet, or the campus in general, so I will work on that and post some later.
We have a kitchen and table, with a little sitting area, and an awesome little back porch area with a great view of the bay. I was eager to check out my room of course so I went in annndd... I was definitely happy.
Based on my experiences at home with dorm rooms, at this point I pretty much have a short list of criteria that I really really really need for my room.
Stephen's criteria for a happy dorm room experience:
a) It's a single.
b) ... actually that's it.
This room being a single and all, I was happy. But this room had some extra touches too. Like... space. Unlike my rooms from my first two years at school this one was just... had that little something... what's the word... it was... big. Don't get me wrong, this is no palace. But, unlike my rooms freshman and sophomore years, taking out the bed wouldn't double the open floor space of the room. I can walk around. In different directions. Sometimes I make a mess, then push it to the side, and still have room to walk. Unbelievable.
Still, single, and room to work with are fairly standard things to get excited about. This living area even had those extra intangibles. The X factors. The little bit of extra sauce on the side.
Exhibit A: The view from my desk window.
Not too shabby hmm? Awesome view at night too, I'll get one of those and post it later with the others I've already promised.. I've got my work cut out for me.
Ah ok let me pause here for a brief explanation. You'll notice how in this picture, it appears that my door is both open and closed. That is because there are two. Why you ask? I jokingly was calling the second heavier door the "blast" door. Turns out that is not so inaccurate. I guess two rooms in every apartment of 6 are reinforced and have these extra blast doors on the door and window (if you see the window views above, you can see the open window blast door on the right side of the first picture). Mike has the other blast room downstairs. Our roommates joking told us that they put the Americans in the blast rooms because it is bad press if one of us gets incinerated and then they have to tell Obama what happened. I think they were joking at least...
Anyway I think it's pretty sweet. Not enough to make my X factors list, but certainly a bonus, mostly because when people are being loud at night, I just close the blast door and viola, quiet.
Window with the previously noted view.
Aha, so we come to Exhibit B in the X factors list.
Exhibit B: PRIVATE BATHROOOOOOOM!!!!!!!!!!!
I couldn't believe this one. A private bathroom??? Are you kidding me?? I may never have another private bathroom in my whole life!!!! Nobody is allowed in here. Just me.
So we have here a spacious single with a great view and a private bathroom. And blast doors. Like I said. I am happy.
It also turned out to be a pretty nice that Mike and I were living together. It was pretty quiet in the first few days, and even for the next week after classes started because the Israelis had not filled in yet (although our first two roommates were there from the beginning, Alex and Raviv, and they are both very fun and cool guys). So, it was good to have someone else on the same schedule in the house to hang out with or go out with and try to find things without getting lost. Some international kids didn't even have any other internationals in their apartments, so this would have been trickier. Plus, the first couple rounds of food we bought we ended up sharing and splitting a lot of things, and this is just so much easier when you know the person, as planning and dividing up food and fridge space can be a tricky situation to maneuver.
Even more so, since there was a sizable portion of students that had done one of the summer programs, a lot of the kids there (about half) already knew each other and whatnot so it worked well for me and Mike to be able to coordinate easily as we attempted to penetrate some of these preexisting social webs (I feel like I'm just waxing poetic right now...).
So anyway I think Mike and I have found that it has definitely worked well to share the apartment and we have still been able to meet plenty of people and whatnot. In fact, much more inhibitive to these efforts have been the constant travelling (many other people did their traveling over the summer... I on the other hand was working in a very cool office), but the travels are for later posts.
We only had a couple days before classes started, and these were definitely necessary to get used to living in well... a foreign country. Besides meeting all the new incoming international students, I would say the two things of note would be...
A tour around Haifa that the social coordinators set up for us. It was definitely useful to be able to see the city and get an idea of what was going on around us now that I had fully jumped down the rabbit hole by not only living in a city (Williamstown... not a city), but also doing so in a foreign country. Given, just about everybody was falling asleep on the bus in between stops, but helpful nonetheless. We stopped at the Bahai Gardens at night too, I'll include the pictures next time (sorry I'm being so bad with the pictures for this post!!! I'll never fail you again).
Other thing of note: the Shuk. Or Shuq. Not sure how to spell it, but basically a big outdoor street food market where you go and buy produce and breads and meats and such for good prices and you get to practice your Hebrew and wonder if, despite the good prices, you are still getting ripped off with an "American" price instead of the local price. Very fun. Although also tiring. I was very proud of myself though, buyin cucumbers and and, tomatoes, and... pasta... and pita bread... and hummus... and grapes... you get the idea. Imagine me... food shopping! Incredible. (We have to buy and cook our own food here. Suffice to say I will drop to my knees and raise my hands to the sky when Mom starts cooking for me again. And meal plan dining halls? Oh man I've never appreciated my lack of having to cook so much before I can't wait... but in the meantime I'll have to manage.)
I think I will include a little more about classes as I continue with later posts, but with the benefit of hindsight I can say that while I definitely prefer the class structure of my lessons back home, and miss some of my beloved professors (awww), I have certainly found the classes to be helpful and interesting, and it has been a valuable experience so far to learn from a different perspective and in a different system than the one I am used to. One of those things where you just have to get used to it a little first. Like now each class is once a week (except Hebrew is more) for 2 and a half hours instead of 2 - 3 times a week in smaller chunks. Whatever. Who can complain when we get every Sunday, Saturday AND FRIDAY off!!! Yahooo!!! But ya classes are good too.
Like I said, more on the campus in general to come later, and more specifics on classes, but the arrival to campus went well and after basically 5 months without any classes because of the late starting semester, it was good to finally get back into the school routine. Finally in Haifa, yayyy!!! Now I can start telling you about my actual semester...
No comments:
Post a Comment