Last week of learning EVER...for one week

Last week of class. I've moved to the back row in class, showing my unwillingness to learn a lot this last week of class. Unfortunately, There are only 30 people in class so the instructor can single me out anyway. Which she does. Constantly. Allow me to explain the mechanics of this.

Like my mother after any sort of large family gathering involving my uncle, my teacher calls me Brian. For some reason, rather contrary to my survival instinct, I have decided to correct her every time she calls me Brian instead of just keeping my mouth shut and blending in. This has led to sort of a class joke and thus endeared me to her. She seems to find great joy in saving the scandalously difficult questions, paragraphs, and other terrible in-class exercises for yours truly. This makes class a real delight.

The Ulpan is an interesting micro-culture and gives many insights as to the bizarre lifestyle of the city's inhabitants. Class starts at the sweet hour of 9 am. Usually by this time there are about five of us students actually present. We have class for an entire hour before being given a half-hour break. This ridiculous span of time is necessary for the ritual morning snack. For some odd reason the school sells these mammoth 16" subway sandwiches. I remind you that this is 10 am and that half of the students have been up less than an hour. Half of the students go outside to smoke and eat their goliath "snacks" while the other half eat them indoors. You can get coffee if you want, which comes in a giant Reese's Peanut Butter Cup wrapper, or you can go down to one of the many coffee shops nearby.

By the time you get back to class you've forgotten what language you are attempting to learn, which is unfortunate because the second hour is always focused on the history of some obscure Jewish person from 800 years ago. This wouldn't be bad accept that each new personality involves a host of special terms. I am well-equipped to converse over topics like 11th century city fortifications, 19th century Israeli fashion, 13th century omens, etc. This is what I call "the lost hour", because I am not capable of understanding anything. Which of course baits the teacher into asking me in Hebrew if I understand the ramifications of a 40 day siege on Jerusalem's food supply.

By the time we get our second break - 10 minutes this time - most of the students have arrived. This wave of arrivals overlaps the wave of early departures. People are just SO busy what with the beach being 100 ft from the front door. I can never really remember the last hour because of all the lacunar strokes I had during the previous, but I'm sure it goes quite smoothly.

* * *

Naomi and I have still been wringing some tourist stuff out of the city. We fully engaged in our first sunset here in Israel, which Naomi described best as "the least spectacular sunset ever". The mood was right and the setting impeccable - a fancy restaurant overlooking the Mediterranean - but right as the sun was dipping near the horizon the Only Cloud In Israel puffed into being and completely eclipsed our view. Awesome.

Today we visited Tel Aviv University, on foot. It was WAY too hot for this approach. Also our map doesn't feel this part of Tel Aviv is important and thus decided to cut it off, so we had to ask for directions while I stood there wearing my purse. *slow head shake*

We managed to tour the campus and visit our friend Elinor in her astrology lab (oh, she's gonna be pissed!). We got a fine view of the city from her building. We left her working, like a sucker, and strolled through the park along the Yarkon River until we hit the boardwalk, which was really cool and completely unknown to Naomi and me. This afforded us a real sunset, though that damn cloud came out again and blocked the horizon. It was still stunning.

Two days left in Tel Aviv.

Captions:

A couple of photos for my upcoming New Age album (Reflections, Quiet Yearning, Remembrance, and Waves of Infinite)