Nightlife: Its the only life

My first weekend in Tel Aviv has come and gone. It was a wonderful weekend all around. The weekends in Israel start on Thursday night as most people work a Sunday to Thursday week with a Friday and Saturday weekend. For the most part, I kept it simple this weekend. Just went to a few different bars on Thursday, went to one of my friends apartments on Friday and stayed in Saturday and relaxed. During the day on saturday the group headed down to the beach for some R&R in the sun. Although it was a tad cold (when I say a tad cold I mean 60s) the day was still very enjoyable.

Today I am pretty much just doing some work. Yes, I do still do work here. Its not all fun and games in Tel Aviv. Tonight, I will head to "Mikes Place" which is the American sports bar that I mentioned earlier to watch the J-E-T-S beat the Colts. Depending on my mood I may stay for the vikings-saints game. However, I do have class tomorrow and football games don't start till very late hours here.

Running is still going well. I am looking to get in to a more serious routine this week and try and find out if there are some road races here that I can run. I will continue to update everyone on my running observations as the week goes by.

All in all, everything in Tel Aviv is wonderful. I am having a great time and so far love every aspect of my term abroad.

This week I am hoping to develop a normal routine of life and start to explore Israeli culture more. I am hoping to find a synagogue to go for Shabbat services next weekend as well as begin to immerse myself fully in Israeli society. I will let everyone know how that goes.

Anyway, I would really like to hear from everyone who reads this! Let me know how things are going. You can email me at ianschwartz15@gmail.com, facebook me, or even skype me (my skype name is schwartz.ian). Hope all is well!

Running Tel Aviv

After a week of fun (for the most part) its back to academic life. Classes here have started and I am slowly settling in to a "normal life". For those of you who are interested in what I am studying while in Israel here is a brief summary of my classes:

1. Politics and the production of everydayness: this course offers a unique opportunity to explore various aspects of the production of everydayness in Israel as it is manifested in different sites: the arts, the leisure industry and the spatio-temporal arrangements of daily routines and practices. In a nutshell, this course immerses us in Israeli culture through academic study.

2. Israeli-Palestinian Relations: Conflict and Negotiations: Pretty self explanatory...

3. Hebrew: We learn hebrew.

4. Religion, state and politics: Comparative Aspects: the purpose of this course is to examine the relation between religion and public life both in western and non wester societies. The professor is incredible and the course looks like it will be an incredible experience.

5. The final course that I am taking here is called the NYU Tel Aviv Core Course. This class meets one a week for two hours and we have lectures by prominent people in Israeli society, i.e. movie directors, authors, etc. This class also ties together all of our group trips that we will be taking to places like Jordan in an academic fashion. The final aspect of this course is a personal project. Each student must choose an interest that he or she has and relate it to something in Israel.

I am not really sure what my personal project will be but I think it may have something to do with this:

Last night I went out for my first run in Tel Aviv. The place where I am living is very conveniently located next to one of the biggest parks in Tel Aviv. In the park there is miles of well maintained running and biking surfaces, a very nice rock climbing wall, out door gym (these are placed all over Tel Aviv, they are sort of like parks but all the equipment is for working out, the only negative aspect is that that they dont have any weights on them, pretty much if you can lift your body weight youre out of luck, so for me (the muscular bro that I am) this is a problem), and lots of different playing fields and courts.

One thing that you will notice about Israel in general is that everyone truly loves to be outside. I guess when the weather is so nice day after day, who wouldn't want to be outside?

Anyway, I set out on my run last night with no specific course in mind. I decided that I just wanted to run where my feet took me. A few minutes in to the run I realized that running was going to be my best way to efficiently (and cheaply) get to know the city of Tel Aviv. I also realized that running would also allow me to get to know the people of the city better. Over the numerous years that I have been running I have realized that running alone allows you to observe a lot of different things. My fellow high school and college teammates would probably agree with this statement as we have all probably witnessed some of the most bizarre and astonishing things while out on a run. So, while I was in the first few minutes of my run, I decided that Israel should be no different. Here are just a few of the good and bad things I observed yesterday while on my run...

-Israeli kids will still laugh and yell at you for your short shorts. The only difference is I (right now) can not decipher what they are saying...I'm sure its probably the Israeli version of run forest run. Soon I will be able to respond in hebrew, just wait kids, just wait.

-Israeli runners still wear short shorts. However, the short short pride in Israel is not the same as the states. Usually, when one short short runner runs past another short short runner there is a certain acknowledgement. As if to say "I got your back short short wearing comrade". So far, here, this is not the case. I hope it changes.

-Everyone has a dog and all of them are really cute. The only problem is that people dont like to use leashes. Naturally, running past a random dog off a leash is nerve racking, but I think ill get use to it.

-Finally, (for this post at least) running in tel aviv feels very safe. In a city where all the drivers are nuts its nice that all the running routes are safely guarded from the roads. I find it really interesting that the Tel Aviv park and city planners care more about bicyclist, runners and walkers than the New York State department of transportation does.(some of you will understand what I am trying to get at here)

After my run, I started to think about how I can incorporate this in to my personal project. I guess I will have to figure that out...

Anyway, for some less serious stuff. The beer here is good. I've found a new love for Tuborg and Israeli Goldstar beer. It sure beats natty ice and keystone. The night life is pretty fun here. I am going to save that post for after I have my first weekend out here.

To conclude, I would like to know how everyone is enjoying the blog. I am sorta just writing about whatever, but if anyone would specifically like to here about something else please let me know. Email, IM or comment here! I miss all of you and hope that everyone is well.

I will write again soon....

Tours, tours and a few more tours...

Shalom Friends and Family,

I would first like to apologize for the lack of blogging. Orientation week has been extremely busy and my free time has been quite limited. As a supplement for the lack of blogging this entry will be quite detailed and long! So it begins...

The beginning of the week began with conversations with the NYU Tel Aviv staff about expectations and goals for the term abroad. The conversation was a good way to get to know the people that I am living with for the next few months. So far, everyone is sababa (awesome/excellent in hebrew). We are all getting along extremely well and the group dynamic is great. More on this later. Anyway, here's just a little, mini list of some of the wonderful things that we have done this week in Tel Aviv:

-Tour of Ben Gurion's private home

-Tour of Tel Aviv University (we have access to their library for academic use....for those of you who are wondering, Israeli libraries are just as boring as American ones)

-Dinner with our Professors at the Port in Tel Aviv(free wine on NYU, SABABA!)

-Met with the Security Director from the US Consulate to discuss security (dont worry mom, I'm safe, just in case he gave us the number of the Marines here :) )

-Toured Yafo (a part of Tel Aviv or separate city depending on who you ask, the tour was really interesting, we had both a Jewish and Arab tour guide who gave us different stories, from different point of views, about the history of the city)

-Asaf Avidan concert (you tube him, it was a good night)

-Watched a sunset on top of the Azireli Tower, one of the tallest buildings in Tel Aviv, we had the privilege of hanging out on the Heli-pad, and relaxing while the sun set

So, in a nut shell that was a recap of my first week in Tel Aviv. Most of the nights, we went out as a group. The night life here is pretty fun. There are lots of bars and clubs and cafes and there are always people out and about. Dont worry, I'm not drinking, thats illegal! ;)

As the first week in Tel Aviv came to an end, we all got on a bus and drove to Jerusalem for a three day excursion in the holiest and most controversial cities in the entire world. For me, it was a some what of a home-coming. The last time I had been in Jerusalem was on the March of the Living with BBYO and I had waited 4years to return and finally I was back. Going back to the Kotel again was an incredible experience, especially because we went on Shabbat. Here is a brief list of things that we did while in Jerusalem:

-Tour of Har Herzl (place where Theodore Herzl and many other important Israeli figures are buried) and the military cemetery

-Tour of Katamon neighborhood (this is what they call the projects of Jerusalem, this tour was more for academic purpose to bring up a controversial discussion later)

-Group Shabbat dinner

-Visit the Kotel

Toured the city of David

Toured the Old City and the holy sites (this included the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, as a first time visitor this was an extremely interesting aspect of the tour, the atmosphere was indescribable, no matter what religion every person should visit this holy site)

-Sound an Light Show at the David Citadel(awesome.)

-Ir Amim tour of the Security Barrier and East Jerusalem, this was by far the most incredible and moving part of entire weekend in Jerusalem. I will dedicate a separate post to this topic tomorrow. Check back

-Tour of the Knesset(Israeli Parliament)

Again, in a nutshell this was Jerusalem. I will most definitely return to Jerusalem many times before this term is over.

As you can tell, this week was pretty packed with lots of different activities. Overall, I enjoyed most of the tours around Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. The best part of all of this was being able to get to know the people that are on my program, so far so good!

Anyway, last night I went to an American sports bar called Mikes on the beach to watch the football games. All I have to say is J-E-T-S! The bar was really nice, just like a little slice of America in Israel, the chicken fingers were delicious.

Today we started classes, more detail on these to come as dinner is being served in a few minutes and I am starving! Just know that the classes are really good and I am looking forward to the rest of the academic term...

I will try to write on a more regular basis, I apologize to those of you, like Danny Silver, who dont have patience for my sporadic posts. I hope everyone who reads this is doing well!

Shalom!

Dear Friends and Family,

Welcome to my Israel Term abroad blog. The ultimate goal of this blog is to keep everyone posted and updated on my life in Israel. (The other goal is too keep my family happy so they know that I am safe and having a good time, hi mom!) I will attempt to make entries every few days so keep checking back for constant updates.

I have arrived safely in Israel. The flight was good and getting to my "home" for the next few months was a breeze. Everyone in my term abroad program is extremely nice and it seems to be a really good group. Our accommodations are quite nice. NYU pretty much bought an entire floor in this hotel/hostel so the rooms are very nice. Our classrooms and dinning hall are all in the building too. Orientation will start today and I am looking forward to getting out into Tel Aviv. Hardest part about the trip so far has been adjusting to the time change/ jet lag. I managed to stay up to 11:30 last night but then woke up at 4:00 am. Luckily, I was able to go back to sleep for a little bit.

There is a huge park directly across the street from our hostel with miles of running surfaces, a rock climbing wall, soccer fields, basketball courts, etc. I am looking forward to using it for running purposes and hopefully Ill be able to climb as well.

Well, thats really all for now. Check back soon...

P.S. for those of you living in frigid temperatures, its 80 degrees and sunny here...I think Ill go to the beach, which is a nice 5minute walk!

Shalom :)