a winter without winter break, part 1

05Jan11

oof I have not posted in awhile, and my life events for sharing are piling up! (and I must stop saying oof so much!)

Christmas in Israel

…does not really exist.  Just a day like any other (and it was Shabbat, so Jerusalem was especially dead).  So on Christmas, what better to do than leave Jew-city and head to the birthplace of Jesus Christ— Bethlehem!  I went with a few friends, one of whom had previously been to Bethlehem.  I had no idea what to expect… a manger in the middle of a field?  What does modern day Bethlehem even look like?  Would it be crazy on Christmas?  Bethlehem is in the West Bank and as such is an Arab town, not a Christian town. From from the bus stop, we walked past a bunch of shops, all with signs in Arabic (meaning none of us could read anything) and arrived at Manger Square.  It didn’t seem like anything special, but there were some Christmas decorations and lights and we could see the Church of the Nativity across the way.  First thing to do: get coffee.  We see a sign for a coffee shop and diner, so we pop in and they seat us and give us menus… even though we just wanted coffee…. and then were peeved when all we ordered was coffee.  Then we grabbed some 5 shekel felafel (cheapest I’ve had yet! equal to about $1.40) and went to wait in line to get into the Church of the Nativity, which was built on the site Jesus was born… sooo no manger.  There was a big line, but it moved pretty fast.  I think the city was more packed on Christmas Eve, especially at night.  Anyway, the inside of the church was very ornate and glitzy, so we looked around a bit and then left.  We didn’t have too much time and didn’t feel like schlepping anywhere else (there are other sites to see, like Rachel’s tomb, but we would’ve had to take another bus or cab), so we meandered back through the shuk, with piles of potatoes still covered in dirt, fresh from the earth!

We decided to continue our day of Jesus by going full circle.  After returning to Jerusalem from seeing Jesus’s place of birth, where else to go but the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Old City to see the site of his death!  It was also very busy.  We saw the stone on which his body was lain, which I guess people take holy water from and then upstairs we saw the hole into which the crucifix was placed.  I’d like to go back again and explore some more on a less busy day.

christmas , posted with vodpod

New Years in Israel

… also does not really exist.  I mean, it does, but not the same as everywhere else in the world.  Why? Because New Years to Jews means Rosh Hashanah.  So, they call it Sylvester instead (the Catholic saint whose saint’s day is Dec 31).  It was also a New Years unlike any other because it was on Shabbat.  Rather than going into town the maybe go to a bar or club, we decided to just extend the Shabbat dinner we hosted at our apartment into the night.  The one rule of the evening was that everybody had to bring their own bottle of wine.

We had been having electricity issues earlier and were able to get all of the outlets working again….except the dude (the hot water heater for the shower).  So, no hot showers for us.  Well, on December 31st, the sun set and Helene and her 2 friends visiting went off to shul, and my other 2 roommates had other evening plans.  I went over to Ryan’s to shower, and when I came back ALL OF THE POWER WAS OUT.  Shit.  I was home alone with nobody to contact and in about a half hour I was to be joined by Helene and our other 6 guests for dinner.  Disaster!  I didn’t know what else to do besides to lighta bunch of tea candles around the apartment, finish getting ready, and wait for everybody to get here for an interesting surprise.  But everybody seemed to take the “surprise” quite well and were excited for a Shabbat dinner unlike any other.  Nobody minded the lack of proper light and none of our food really needed to be hot, so we had Shabbat dinner and our New Years Eve celebration by candlelight (oooh, so romantic).  Definitely a New Years I will never forget!

More about my winter-break-less winter to come soon…

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