Jerusally: That Time I Worked a Lot, but Still Explored

The funny thing about Blogger in Jerusalem is that it's in Hebrew when I load it, and not until I sign-in to make posts does it switch to English. Very tricky of you, Blogger!!!

Yesterday, after a pretty awesome breakfast in our building, I worked most of the day, probably around 8 hours straight without a break. I was working on lectures, recitations, lab rubrics, playing around with sound... nothing too exciting for blog content though.

(one of the images I put in a lecture)

After lots of work, someone or other decided to go by the old city for falafel. (I think I heard it from David, but he didn't end up going, so maybe it wasn't him?)

(Nick being awesome on Woody's crutches)

In any case, we piled into two cars, and drove there. Except the normal route was blocked off,

(pride parade protesters. lamesauce. they got MAD about this pictures...)

and we got rerouted into traffic, and then I made a wrong turn, and then.... well, in any case, we eventually got there. And THE six-shekel-falafel place was open. Ha! It was just as delicious as I remember it being, and just as crowded. I ordered in Arabic, saying "everything" to indicate my toppings, and he obviously understood me. After a year of Arabic, I can easily read signs, and I can pick up on words and tidbits of conversation, but I don't know nearly enough to be able to converse about anything. And as far as food is concerned, I know chicken, meat, fish, salad, soup, and a few other things, but nothing that ever seems useful. But, nevertheless, the written language is no longer random indiscernible scribbles, and the spoken language is no longer harsh, intelligible babble. So there's that.

The party van walked around EJ and a little bit of WJ afterwards, on a "10-minute walk." We didn't actually walk down to the park/divot/hole in the ground, though I'm sure we'll make it soon. We did however buy dried hibuscus leaves, apple soda, and/or ice cream, get free baklava samples and a pear which wasn't a fig at all, and end up in a really charming little alley that lead to who knows where. As we were admiring grafiti, I managed to cut my toe open on something or other, and now I'll probably die of necrotizing fasciitis. Or not. The blood matched my shoes; I was just trying to be trendy.