That Time I Drove a Car in Jerusalem

The issue of what to do my presentation has been solved. For whatever reason, when I was falling asleep last night, I suddenly decided to do it on telomerase and its role in everyone's best friend: cancer. Kind of random, and I'm really not sure why that suddenly came into my head, but it's definitely something that can be represented really well graphically, and that has a logical layout. More on that later.

Money. Why does the US have the ugliest currency of any country? Ah, who knows. Here, the money is colorful, and happy. (And, for the moment at least, abundant.) The basic unit of currency is the shekel. The actual conversion puts the shekel at a little less than $.31 USD, but dividing a shekel amount by 3 is a good estimate of the USD cost. The coins are 1/2, 1, 5, and 10 shekel denominations, as well as 10 arogot (which is the equivalent of "cents") though I haven't encountered one yet; the bills are made in 20, 50, 100, and 200 shekel denominations.

This morning, between the time I woke up and the time we left for Hebrew University, I somehow volunteered myself to be one of the assigned drivers for the duration of the trip. The other instructors either didn't have licenses with them or didn't want to drive, so lucky me gets to enjoy "the Green Car". I got a paper to put in my windshield so we can get through the security gates at the entrance to the University. My name in Hebrew (which is written from right to left) is written just above my license number:

The car is pretty interesting, because it has an extra security feature. Before you can turn it on, you have to enter a 4 digit code into keypad just to the left of the steering wheel.

Driving in Jerusalem, especially when following a car carivan, proved to be a little bit difficult. Some of the roads, particularly around our flat, don't have lane lines. And the lines that do exist are merely suggestions. As far as I can tell, there is no speed limit; although even if there were, it seems it would also be more of a suggestion than a rule. The bus that cut me off was at least kind enough to honk before doing so, but then proceeded to occupy both lanes and prevent me from catching up. In any case, we all got there. Although, I'm not really too comfortable parallel parking, so Mike did that instead. (If all else fails in life, I can always say "Teeheehee, I'm a girl. I can't park, let's do our makeup!!")

Abeer gave us all maps of the campus and showed us the pertinent locations. The students at Hebrew University were on strike earlier this semester, and once they returned to classes, the semester got pushed back a few extra weeks to compensate. While we still have the lab space that we planned on, our teaching classrooms will be located at ORT, the technical high school on the Hebrew University campus. Below is the auditorium, including the awesome science-y stained glass windows.

After ORT, we walked over to the Ross Building, which is where the Engineering and Computer Science programs are housed. In the basement of the Ross Building are the 20 computers that comprise the Year One laboratory space. We will not be in that room until Thursday of next week, because our 40 students need to work individually on labs for the first 4 days. (Here, the week runs Sunday-Thursday, and the weekend is Friday and Saturday. Shabbat is the Jewish sabbath, and is observed from sunset on Friday until Saturday night.)

Instead, we will be working in the Sprinzak Building, which is basically the main computer lab. The Year Two and Year Three kids will be here most of the time, and probably aren't looking forward to us stealing their space for a few days. However, we are, because it gives us much more room, and it's closer to the cafeteria!

After checking out the Sprinzak Building, we set up our Hebrew University accounts at yet another computer lab, and got to spend some time checking out our workspace environment. Not to shabby, except the first time I opened the terminal, it said "You will perform cranial activities with..." (someone's name, I forget whose), and then the screen went black. Exciting. After I rebooted, I didn't run into any more problems.

Then, lunch. There was food, and it was good. A lot of people got schnitzel, which is apparently some mysterious meat that is fried up to a golden, crispy deliciousness. I did a little more schnitzel research, and discovered that it is an Austrian dish of breaded and fried veal. However, when it was first brought to this region by the Ashkenazi Jews, veal was unavailable, and chicken or turkey was used instead. This became part of the local tradition, and now schnitzel is almost always one of these meats. There will be plenty of time for schnitzel in the future; for the time being I stuck to a chicken kebob, and a whole lot of vegetables.

After lunch and another exciting journey through Jerusalem, we returned to the flat and, amazingly, we have our own internet!!! Except... well... it's also not very consistent. I just stayed on Ranger, and took my chances. With most of the people out of the house, it was much faster anyway.

Around 6:30pm, Mike and I headed off to the Old City to wander around. I've mentioned the Old City a few times, but now, some pictures from the inside. When we first got in, I this picture, and the little kid in the picture came up to us and tried to be confrontational. He said something in Arabic, and kind of bumped into us.

A lot of the Old City looked like this picture, and we wandered through the pedestrian streets in the Muslim quarter aimlessly. Occasionally, one of the narrow tractors would make its way through the paths, and all the people would stand against the walls to let it through.

We eventually found ourselves in Al-Ghazali Square, just north of the Temple Mount. I'm pretty sure that even if we were dressed appropriately, we would not be able to enter the Temple Mount from the gate in Al-Ghazali Square as we are not Muslim. But that's alright, instead we watched as two teenage boys attempted to fly a kite, and were very much reminded of "The Kite Runner".

We exited through the Lion's Gate, one of the gates on the Eastern wall.

And then we walked around the northern side again, and reentered the city through the Damascus gate, because really, we just hadn't gotten enough of the Old City! Outside of the Damascus gate, vendors sold all kinds of things, like shoes, bags of Doritos (except in Arabic), and, strangely enough.. underwear. I didn't take a picture of that though. However, I did snap a rather snazzy shot of the market.

Just in front of the Damascus gate, a long market stretches through the city. Imagine a pathway crammed with people, with stores on either side, a never-ending tunnel that leads to who knows where. Even if you try to get off the main thoroughfares, you still find more markets.

They sold everything imaginable, and in the Old City, all prices are negotiable. (In fact, in much of the Middle East, all prices are negotiable.) We must have been on Souq Khan as-Zeit St., as it seems to be the main thoroughfare where we were walking. However, after walking past all of the stores, we tried to get off the main street and onto a more pleasant side street. Instead, we ended up seeing this.

We were in a back alley, and the butcher shops in the marketplace has tossed some of their unwanted pieces (which really isn't much...) in the street. Blood, and other juices were quite common on this street, so we tried to keep ourselves from getting too disgusting.

Eventually, the side street opened up into a larger street, and we decided to follow a guy who looked to be on his way out. It proved to be a good choice, and we found our way to Jaffa gate. Jaffa gate is the "main" entrance to the Old City and the only one with car thoroughfare. Once outside, Mike was pretty ecstatic to have escaped.

We wandered around the touristy area of the Center City, and after discovering many buildings with numbers on them...

We ended up back where we'd gotten shawarma the previous day. At least we knew where we were. Heading back in the direction of home, we ran into Max, Humberto, Zach, and Kim devouring shawarma. After a brief conversation, and an encounter with a large, flying cockroach, Mike and I headed toward home. Just outside of the Damascus gate, we found yet another 6 shekel felafel stand, which was frying up felafel right in your face on a tiny cart. Delicious. The grapes and cherries we bought from a nearby stand we equally so.

Eventually, back at the flat, more work, and more sleep. Ever-preparing for tomorrow's adventures.

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