El Al is much better...

Shabbat was really nice - Liz, Ronen and I were invited to a meal with Liz's co-workers - so it was chock-full of Answers.com jokes, stories, and of course, answers. There were 16 people altogether, and although some people spoke mostly Hebrew, others spoke mostly French, we were all able to get along and enjoy the Moroccan-influenced food. (She made her own matbucha!)

We had about an hour's walk home, after which we bid each other good night and passed out.
I woke up at about 9, and was mad with my cold for giving me reasons to wake up so early on shabbat. I sat up and read this weird book called, "Still Life with Woodpecker." The guy's writing style was a lot more interesting than the plot, which is pretty impressive considering the plot was about a royal Spanish family who got kicked out and is now living in New York, where their daughter is a environmental-loving, vegetarian, cheerleading, outlaw. Yeah, it's weird.

Liz's friend Shira (who we went to college with but only really became friends with her afterwards) hosted a meal at Liz and Ronen's apartment, and much of the same people from my first shabbat at Liz and Ronen's were there again. Good people, and we had a good meal. Dessert was a really good apple crumb cake, which Ronen likes to call apple crumble - it's an Aussie thing I guess, and a bowl of citrus salad. There were kumquats and little lemon things where you could eat the peels! weird. but good.

By the time everybody from lunch left, shabbat was pretty much over, so I packed up my stuff and chilled out until we thought it was dark enough.

Shabbat was nice, calm, relaxing - pretty much everything after Shabbat wasn't.

I left my rugelach from Marzipan in my freezer in Har Nof, so the plan was to drop off my stuff at the hotel Prima Royale (where the JEC's sheirut was leaving from), take a bus up to Har Nof, pick up my rugelach, and come back down to the hotel by bus with enough time.
Here's what actually happened:

I got a cab to the hotel at around 6:30, get there at around 6:50, put my stuff in a room, and asked the lady worker at the hotel where I can catch an 11 or 15 bus. Apparently the closest way to get there is to take another bus and transfer, so I do. I transfered at one of the stops in Mea She'arim and got on the SLOWEST BUS EVER. He was stopping in-between stops, talking to the passengers, driving at 3 kilometers an hour - it was torture. And then, we get up to Har Nof and the bus starts making an obnoxious beeping sound. He hits a few buttons, nothing changes, so he stops the bus. He turns off the bus and turns it back on, hoping the restart method works for busses as well as it does for computers, and Eureka, it does. We go a few more blocks, somebody hits the "stop request button" and the noise comes back with a vengeance. Argh! He then pulls the bus over, shuts it off for good and tells us all to get out. We are now at the high end of Shaulzon. My apartment is on the low end of Shaulzon. I start walking towards #90, trying to flag down any cab I can find, and nobody's stopping. I see an 11 bus pulling up at the nearest stop (by # 50) and I get on. In my best pitiful pleading voice, I tell him how I was kicked off the other bus and I would just like to go two stops on the bus - can I get on without buying another ticket? He says ok, most likely because he couldn't understand my frantic English, and I thank him a hundred times. I get off at my stop and RUN into the building, where some kid decided to rebuild his bookshelves in the middle of the lobby. I get on the elevator, wishing it to go up first, and of course it doesn't. At this point, it's just about 8:00 and I had to be down at the hotel at 8:15, when the sheirut would be leaving. I go into the apartment, grab my rugelach, say goodbye to my roommate again, and run back downstairs, where the cab I had called was honking away.

I don't know how, but I got there in time. I overpaid the guy about 10 or 15 shekels, but I didn't care - all I cared about was getting on that sheirut so I could get to the airport on time.

This is the other story - remember how my first post was all about the horrors at the airport? Well, yeah, guess what... IsrAir SUCKS. Our direct flight has now been changed to a flight that's stopping in Ireland for an hour. I don't really know why, nor do I think it will only be an hour, but I'm annoyed, to say the least. The idea of being on a plane for 14 hours with a head cold less than thrills me. Who knows, maybe when we stop in Ireland, they'll give us all a good Irish beer. I know I'll need it.

Begin towards the end...

After class was much more interesting than the classes themselves, so I'll talk about everything that happened afterwards.
As Tuesday is a short day at She'arim, we had a trip planned to go to the Begin Museum. It's a very moving museum about the life and leadership of Menachem Begin. What I thought was most interesting, was the way they presented the information. It was extremely high tech, as all good Israeli things are, and the audio information kits were motion-sensored, so that when we were in a room, the appropriate audio turned on. Each room was a different story of Begin's life, told from the point of view of Begin. There were little vignettes acted out, and some plain narration with different images flashing on the screen, and everything was extremely well done. It was very moving to hear Begin's hard life coming to Israel, his secret life once he got here, his strong belief in the way to a better Israel, and the way he lived his life to the very end. I think the coolest thing about the museum was the "Jerusalem Elevator" which is an elevator, but also an exhibit itself. It was the audio of Begin addressing the public about all the casualties of the '77 war. Inside the elevator were huge panoramic pictures of Jerusalem where Begin gave the speech, and when the doors to the elevator opened, it led us to the view of the specific spot where Begin gave his speech. It was really well thought out, and all in all a very gratifying experience.

After the museum, I met Francesca in Mea She'arim to go to the most famous book store in Mea She'arim - Manny's. They have a huge selection of Jewish books in Hebrew, English, for kids - all sorts of amazing books with decent prices. I bought a small mincha/ma'ariv/birkat hamazon bentcher (afternoon/evening/and grace after meals prayers) and a workbook on how to read Jewish texts - i.e. the Torah.

We had planned to go to the Shuk, which is a wonderful place filled with cheap food, random cheap shops, and lots of screaming Israelis. It's a great place to bargain for already ridiculously cheap stuff and to taste lots of different food as you walk by. This is not like your average food market - this is hardcore shopping - especially if you go there on a Thursday night or Friday morning - whoooweee, it's crazy. So we went there, I was planning on getting a specific picture that Francesca had brought home a few days before, but sadly, they didn't have it in the size I wanted. He told me he'd have it tomorrow, so I will have to go back. After the shuk, we went to Marzipan to get some rugelach.

Let me explain Marzipan - ggggaaahhhhhmmmmmmyummmy. Basically, the best rugelach you will ever taste in your life - they're gooey, crunchy, chocolatey, and sweet in all the right places. In my opinion, the most perfect rugelach ever created.
We bought 20 of them each (for only a sheckel for each rugelach), and happily went further into town for a planned dinner of shwarma.

We got some shwarma in a pita, and really, really enjoyed it. The one thing about She'arim is that all the food is dairy - the only food we're allowed to have in the dorms is dairy, so I crave meat every once in a while - or in this case, every three days. The shwarma was good - I wouldn't say it was the best I've ever had, but it satisfied a craving.

The last stop on our outing was Michal Negrin. She's an Israeli designer who makes beautiful Jewelry. It's very, very feminine, and very popular. She has a store on Ben Yehudah, so we went to look around. I wasn't planing on buying anything because I'm trying to not spend any more money, but I found some really nice, but inexpensive earrings that I liked, so I helped support the Israeli economy (and my jewelry collection) by buying them. Francesca got a pair of earrings for her mom, and another pair for herself.

It was a very satisfying day in every aspect, as I hope my last few days in Israel will be.