A last post

Aside from the fact that a tall Haredi man's right elbow spent the majority of the flight comfortably settled beyond what I had presumed to be a green line of sorts demarcating the border between his seat and mine, the half-day journey back was tolerable enough.

And that's basically it. 

Several Arab dictatorships after my initial snowy departure, I've now returned to a warm and misty New York (this time sans the ticket back to that tiny and very special country called Israel).

After 6 months and over 4,000 hits in 22 counties, this will be foshJerusalem's 56th and final blog post.

I've enjoyed this process of occasionally verbalizing and sharing snippets of my experiences over the last few months, and I hope that on occasion you have too.

LY 001

After one final night in downtown Jerusalem, I've finally started to shove everything into my luggage so that I can hopefully make it onto an airplane in a few hours.

And I know you're probably wondering about this, so I'll just come right out and tell you: Yes, I packed them myself. Yes, they've been with me the whole time since the moment I finished packing them. Yes, I know what Shavuot is. No, no one gave me any gifts. Yes, I know why you want to know whether anyone gave me any gifts.

In other news, Bezeq has relayed to me via text message that it is under the impression that I want my Internet service automatically renewed in 2 months. Some things seldom change.

Alright, one final trip to Jerusalem awaits me, and then (save for the one paper I still have to write and any lasting complications) that's it for my semester abroad. Thanks, Israel. It's been metoraf.

Moving out

The refrigerator is empty. The apartment is clean. The library card is cleared. The transcript request is ready. The Internet modem is back with Bezeq (I'm at our dear neighbors' apartment at the moment). The dust from atop my shelves is gone (thanks to the obnoxiousness of the tall man checking my room). And the keys are all returned.

I'm headed to Bet Shemesh shortly. 

By the way, on my way out of Building 4, the following conversation occurred between Itai #2 and New Female Resident living across the hall:

Itai #2: Shalom! Welcome, do you, speak, Hebrew?
New Female Resident: Uh, some.
Me: Don't worry. They're very nice. And two of them are named Itai.

Last Shabbat, The

Well, assuming that I manage to make it out of the country this week, I'm about to begin my final Shabbat of the semester, in Bet Shemesh with the cousins.

I've mostly moved out of the Kfar--I'll be headed back there for one final Saturday night with the neighbors, as well as what will hopefully be my last morning spent with Nachman Syrkin, Martin Buber and Achad Ha'am.

Chickens and cats

Earlier this afternoon, I accompanied a soon-to-be-homeward-bound individual (and a loitering beggar-cat) on an impromptu eating tour of downtown Jerusalem.

It turned out that our chicken wings (post-schawarma, pre-pastries) were less-than-fully cooked. Well, some were blatantly raw.

Anyhow, that didn't stop me from eating the ones that at least appeared ready for human consumption (although based on certain gastrointestinal hints, I think their appearances may have been rather deceptive in nature).

Also, if there exists a person such that said person wants to write a 10-page paper on media and consumer culture, I'd appreciate said person coming to my attention.

Just another day trip

Since certain prospective nephrological mishaps made traveling to Jordan this week somewhat unfeasible, today a number of a us decided to head somewhere else for the afternoon.

(For the purpose of plausible deniability, I've decided against explicitly stating to where we may have gone, but it was certainly worthwhile.)

After arriving in the city, we headed straight to our main attraction for the day, a microbrewery about 30 minutes away from the central bus station (a large parking lot).

Then, we returned to the city that we originally intended to explore and spent time traversing the outdoor market before eventually heading back to Jerusalem before sunset (and having a rather new experience along the way).

Quite the normal afternoon.

Meat

Today I went to a Jerusalem restaurant with a menu that featured an item called "the Brazilian table."

For 145 shekels a person, we were (until we could physically consume no further) served course after course after course of different types of meats. It was perfection.

Haifa for a day

Earlier plans for a 2-day cruise to Cyprus fell through (just a little bit) after the cruise ended up becoming completely booked, but that didn't stop us from heading up to Haifa this morning nonetheless.

With our lovely guide, we toured the city from the beach all the way up the mountain (at which point we met up with a special guest). In the process, some of us may have gotten slightly discolored, but such is life.

And, of course, no trip to Haifa is apparently complete without being chatted up by some Christian missionaries with interesting preset Hebrew skills.