We made it!!

Holy cow! Its so hard to believe this is real, but we made it and are safe and sound in our new home! Adam's parents dropped us off at O'hare Tuesday afternoon, and all told, our travels went off without a hitch. We flew 8 1/2 hours to Zurich, had a couple of hours there to eat, e-mail our families, and read a lot of signs in German, and then a four hour flight to Tel Aviv. I was apprehensive that it would be hard to get all of the things we needed at the airport, but it was all surprisingly easy. Our luggage came right away, we picked up our cell phones (old models that we will soon hopefully swap for our iphones with Israeli sim cards), and got a Sheirut (a shared taxi) to Jerusalem.

Our apartment is absolutely beautiful! We met one of our landlords, Anne, who let us in and gave us the lowdown on our place. Its a little bit smaller that I remembered from Skype, but its very clean and modern. We were exhausted, so we took a nice long nap on our new bed as soon as we could! We woke up around 9PM, and were able to explore our neighborhood.  We have dozens of restaurants and shops right around the corner, so it was fun to see everything the neighborhood has to offer. A lot of the restaurants are "American style" with burgers, (Burgerim), waffles (They seem to be the cool trend), Italian, Mexican, and Israeli Asian fusion (Gotta try that..Hummus Sushi maybe?). Adam suggested we try one of those, but I had one thing in mind for my first meal--Falafel! We got yummy sandwhiches from Adir's Falafel stand, and sat and watched people. Most of the people in the neighborhood are younger, and a lot of Modern Orthodox people live here.

Today we woke up to walk over to HUC to sign some forms and meet the administrative staff. It takes about 20 minutes to walk there, all along pretty busy streets. There is also a bus that goes straight there, so Adam will be able to get there easily. I wasn't expecting the campus to be so beautiful and large! There are 3-4 buildings surrounding a courtyard, and there are some great views of the city. When we were done, we met up with a group of students who were finishing a tour of the campus. A campus intern, Udi, was giving them a more unofficial tour of some cool places around the city, so we joined them. I have no idea where we walked, but it was fun to see some of the cultural places around, and to know where locals frequent. We ate Hummus and pita for lunch with the group, and it was fun to get to know some of them! Adam knew several of them from Facebook, but it was nice to meet the people that we will be spending the year with!

We took a bus home, and it was super easy. On the way back I had to stop for some famous Israeli Aroma coffee! Wow. It was the most delicious latte I have ever had! For real! We even saw Anne there--It made us feel like we live in the community!

So far we are overwhelmed and happy. For me, the hardest part is the Hebrew. Its kind of exhausting to try to translate signs and things using my limited Hebrew, and when I want to speak Hebrew to people, they automatically go to English to make it go faster...Hopefully when I start Ulpan I will feel better. Adam is so excited and nervous to start school--everyone is telling us how busy he will be, but I know its all stuff he will love.

Tonight we are going to a wedding! Adam's friend Jackie from high school is getting married to Sagiv tonight--HOw cool is it that we get to go? They're super sweet and have been really helpful in our transition.

Thats it for now-- -L'hitraot!


Melissa