a little late....

this now being wednesday, i obviously missed my deadline of sunday for a new post. but what happened? since i don't have class on fridays, i decided i would go to the shuk (machane yehudah, the marketplace) with my parents. oh yes. my parents have decided to visit israel while i'm visiting israel. no surprise there. so i was to go to the market with my parents; our date was for 10 in the morning. needless to say, i woke up at 9:30. i called, apologized, etc. my parents were meeting someone else there as well so it was not so bad. i ended up taking a cab because the bus timing is so unreliable; i could have gotten there as late as 12 with a bus. * i do in fact take busses. i enjoy them. i bought a bus pass. my pass is a "youth card" which you buy for 55 shekalim (something like 13 dollars) and it has 20 rides. apparently, i am too old to have one :( but the driver said [in hebrew], "just this time" i use it a lot because it is so much cheaper (2.25 shekalim) to get places than with a cab. a cab to the 'downtown' area would be about 30. * so i ended up being like 20 minutes late for our meeting, but i am unsure whether anyone really noticed. we had fun. bought lots of nuts. my mom said 100 grams of whatever, and the mean shopkeeper just took a large scoopful every time. what should have been less than 10 dollars spent on nuts became over 20. but thats how it goes. we went to a great cafe for coffee break (no one planned on having lunch there). my father and i naturally had lunch there as a side for our coffee. i had a double espresso, but it was served with soda water...and boy what an amazing combo!

so we continued at the shuk, etc. all in all, lots of fun. we left the shuk and the other lady-person that my parents met up with there. we went and walked around. my couple of hours with my parents turned into a whole day affair. regardless, i stayed at my parents apt. that night. saturday, we went into the arab quarter of the old city, and got lost a-plenty. fun in retrospect. i was really pissed at my mom though. she would eventually ask directions but then insist that they were wrong. of course, it was she that had been wrong. it happens. we had delicious hummous for lunch though.

sunday, i had class again. my mother wanted to visit though. she came for the last 20 minutes of the first class. in that time she already found something to dispute with my professor. i think she was right though... she argued that it seems more likely that deuteronomy was written after certain writings about solomon. it made complete sense, and if you are lost i forgive you. both parents sat in on my second class which was guest lectured by one of the most-highly renowned scholars regarding ancient near eastern law. that lecture was terribly boring and interesting at the same time. they wanted to see my apartment so we took the half hour walk back. i showed them. then they left. i walked back (having shown them where the bus stop is) and took a nap...for 2.5 hours. i then had dinner with my dinner group. * i started up a three person dinner group. our goal is to make as many dinners as possible rather than go out to eat all the time. we have had stir-fry, pasta, corn frittery things, and pita filled with hummous, israeli salad, sweet chili-marinated chicken. and the appropriate left-overs. every time, it has been tasty. sometimes there are issues because of lack of attendance or late classes or something like that, but all in all it is a money saver.* i was not feeling so well. i did not eat anything but sort of sat there and moped. they dismissed me, and i went back to bed. i slept relatively continuously until 8:30 the next morning. i had about 14 hours of sleep in total. i felt fine during the day on monday, but was so exhausted by the end. i again went to bed early (not nearly as early though). yesterday we had a field trip. again. i was not so excited because (a) i had done the WHOLE of it the last time i was here, and (b) our tour guide was the teacher whose course i dropped. i dropped her course for a number of reasons only one of which being that she doesn't speak up. she does not seem to have a passion for what she was teaching. a complete opposite of reuven, my j-hist teacher from the last time i was here. speaking of reuven, when we were at the israel museum to see the shrine of the book (dead sea scrolls and aleppo codex), i saw reuven! it was wonderful. he spoke to me in hebrew! he never did that. always spoke to me in english because i suppose i was with an english speaking group. but he spoke to me in hebrew, inquired about me and it was great. i want to visit him sometime (probably next week) to discuss with him.

now for today. nothing really special. i am looking for a masseuse in jerusalem. my back has been killing me for over a week. i just want a nice hour treatment. so i am going to go searching. talk to you later!

PS. I am not going to promise a time for the next post because you know i would not keep it anyway!