efffffff... my life, kind of

today, i had my documentary workshop class that takes place on hebron road that leads into the west bank. the class trekked up and down גיבת המטוס and looked at some amazing landscape views of jerusalem. that place just can't be beat. however breathtaking and awesome the place was, i just can't find something i want to do. i want to observe the israeli-arab interaction but that's kind of hard seeing how the neighborhoods are segregated. it is also hard that i'm not originally from israel so i have no background information of the historical meaning of the place. it's quite infuriating, to be honest. the teacher, yaakov, was very encouraging and told me to think beyond the box and what i'm used to and just photograph what i feel. well then, i feel like making a journey to hebron, the city hebron road leads to. it's going to be dangerous since i will be going into the occupied territories with a camera... and sometimes being a foreigner with a camera is not a good idea, so i've learned. we shall see.

i also got to develop film for the first time today since... march 2008? it's been a while. developing color is going to be a big pain in the ass. everything has to be in the right temperature... the water level has to be right, i have to dump this there, dump this here, blah blah blah. but it was nice working with toxic chemicals. i'm not going to lie: the more toxic the art is, the more i'm intrigued by it and will dip my bare hands into it. speaking of, they wouldn't let me process color bare handed so boo but i got to do b&w with no gloves! i probably shouldn't be so excited about this because my hands are super dry and smell toxic... but it just got me in the photo mood, which is exhilarating! however, the film was not so exciting. they came out crappy. oh well. stupid bulb setting! dammitt! i had some really good shots today.

anyways, sarah invited me over for dinner. we had hamburger patties, mashed potatoes, israeli salad, two veggie dishes of some kind, indian rice, zucchini soup and bread. quite amazing. sarah then busted out mango & passion fruit sorbet. yum! i should host a dinner party soon and show off my awesome cooking skillz. haha. just kidding. but honestly, i need to start exercising or i'm going to put on the weight i've lost!

after dinner, i went salsa dancing! rothberg international school holds weekly salsa dance lessons. it's fun. my first time and i liked it. what i didn't like was this israeli translating condescendingly to be as if i didn't know anything. honestly, that's the one thing that bugs me about israel. i don't care if you have an opinion about how you think i'm some stupid american tourist, just keep it to yourself. don't show off. it doesn't impress me. (so far, only guys have done this to me.) another thing, this really weird looking dude gave me the once over... twice and tried this come hither look on me... what?! no. after the lesson, i danced with joseph and he's an aggressive leader. but the boy can move. :) afterwards, i was asked to dance! haha. it was fun dancing and i might go again next week!

lasly, i think for my pesach break, i'm going to go to egypt and jordan for the first half and travel israel for the second half. i'm going to stick to the middle east instead of eurotripping because i'm here and the middle east is just as, or even more, fascinating and fun than europe. that said, i'm tired so i'm going to bed.

dinner party & בית שאן

kimmy sue invited me over for a housewarming/dinner party at her place. she's a fellow bezalel student who is taking screenprinting with me. she's pretty awesome and super nice! joseph and i made rice pudding for the potluck. when we got there, i met so many people from hebrew university. it was really fun, eating good food, meeting new people, talking and laughing. i met a girl who's studying at USC and we spent quite a while talking about LA. during this talk, i realised that i forgot a lot of los angeles. i mean, i even say that i'm from boston when people ask me where i'm from. haha. she wants me to go back to LA so we can scout out great food and etc. harris, a guy from wash uni at st. louis, brought his guitar and played the harmonica simultaneously. how great is that! also, there were three people named jenny at the party: two jenny's and one jennifer. but whatever.

בית שאן, beit she'an, was the destination for the weekend. it was quite fun despite all the lack of enthusiasm coming from the israelis. anyways, בית שאן is the site of the ancient city of beit she'an-scythopolis and tel-beit she'an. here is a little history provided by the brochure:

settlement first began in the 5th millennium BCE on the tel. in the late canaanite period, the city became the seat of egyptian rule. the israelite tribes did not succeed in conquering canaanite beit she'an. after the battle waged at mt. gilboa, the philistine lords of beit she'an displayed the bodies of saul and his sons on the city walls. the city was later taken by king david, becoming the administrative center of the region during king solomon's reign. the site was destroyed 732 BCE, with the conquest of the norther part of the country by tiglat-pilesser III, an assyrian king. during the hellenistic period, the city known as nysa-scythopolis was founded on this spot. local lore has it that dionysos, buried his nurse, nysa, here and settled the region with this followers. at the end of the 2nd c BCE, the city fell to the hasmoneans and the city became predominantly jewish. as one of the ten cities of decapolis, it became the most important city in northern israel. during the revolt against the romans in 66 BCE, the jewish pop. was murdered by their gentile neighbors. in the byzantine period, beit she'an became largely christian. a wall was erected around the city, with churches and monasteries near it. after the arab conquest, the city declined in prominence and the population dwindled. it continued as a rural settlement thereafter.

עין שוקק

we left bright and early friday morning, caught a bus for the two hour ride to beit. we checked in the hostel there and it was a pretty nice place. we wanted to leave the actual national park for the later half so on friday, the group split up two ways: one for hot springs, the other one for trekking around. guess which group i was in. carla, claire, and i took off to find a kibbutz but instead found a vacation resort that looked pretty swanky. and after two hours of walking, we found עין שוקק. it was so refreshing to dangle our feet in the water after all that ambling about. at the waterhole, there were people playing checkers, swimming, playing guitar, and picnicing. it was very cute. we tried to hitchhike back to the hostel but failed and took the bus instead. haha. the shabbat dinner was amazingggg. did i mention how much i love israeli salad? and hummus? yum. they also served us non-dairy ice cream for dessert. niceeee. we were all antsy so we played games like it was recess time. petra introduced a game called sandokan, a czech game. it was hilarious and fun! basically it involved jumping around and stomping on people's feet. german jan was quite good and we were all scared of him.

today, we walked to the national park. it wasn't that far away from the hostel. it appears that my new friends like charades because before brunch they played. and when we found the first amphitheatre (which they mistook for a coliseum), they acted like gladiators and wild beasts. i had fun being a spectator. i'm not going to elaborate much on the actual national park because it's quite... dull actually. so i'm going to post some highlights.

amphitheatre

gladiator vs lion

view from tel

bath house

hieroglyphs