Wonderful Wonderfulness.

I had a very long entry about my wonderful evening but lost it. Damn. I'll do my best to recreate it.

So I've just returned from a social that was meant to get students to know each other. However only 7 initially showed up and it was looking a bit bleak but then jessie, the not so orthodox orthodox enigma from previous entries, joined. It started with our Madrichim Eran (I might be mistaken with the name) playing acoustic guitar, I know that sounds cheesey but he's very good and has a very good voice. He sang us some israeli songs and some jewish songs, one of which was so so pretty and he sang it so well my heart melted. Not that he's dreamy or I have a crush but the song was just sang so well and it was so nice. He even played Pink Floyd. It was fine and well until he wanted to teach us a song...and have us sing. I was like, no no no, I can't sing! They kept trying to get me to sing, but luckily, James, a boy from Britain who is in my class stood by me and refused to sing too. All in good nature of course, we just aren't singers. Then the female Madrichim, Orit, said "well would you like to rap?" "No!" I yelped, laughing. "Thought so" she said smugly as if it would make me sing. It did not. Luckily, soon we gave up on that. Then we played Mafia, where there's a secret killer picking off the group and you have to find out who it is before everyone gets killed.

So, James and Jessie were both trying to convince everyone that the other was the killer and it got quite humorous. Jessie is extremely charismatic and had amazing reasoning as to why everything James said made him more likely to be the killer. He also shamelessly appealed to his fellow Americans for allegiance to which James would make smart remarks about America- in good fun, nothing offensive. James also trying to get pyschological and turn things Jessie said against him. It turned out Jessie WAS the killer, but in our game there was two. The second killer was a girl from Denmark named Kathrine, but she's gorgeous, blond hair, blue eyes, petite and nice so no one suspected her and she won. I was the last one killed.

I feel I can approach James (the most) and strike up conversation now and the others in the group for the most part too. Since he and Rob, another boy in the group, are in my class that's very helpful and a relief.

Afterward, Jessie was telling us about a nearby falafel place since Lauren, a girl from Tenessee, asked if anyone had gotten dinner yet. We (Lauren Kathrine and I) jumped on the chance for him to show us and he gladly led the way. Jessie is very knowledgeable, he's been here for a year and loves Israel. He's freaking out about going home in four weeks, he's going to miss it so much. He says he knows Jerusalem better than New York, where he's from. He goes to Columbia too. Anyway, he said this falafel place has its own facebook group, which I need to find. He is like the Chris D. of Jerusalem. Chris D was the Chris from my italy entries, who knew everything about the city and spoke Italian. Jessie is the Israeli Jewish Chris. He knows the best places and is completely at home here and uber helpful. Anyway, so you can get laffa or pita falafel, laffa is a thinner more rubbery bread, like a very very thin wrap. The laffa is much bigger but much better, he recommended it highly and so I got one despite its size. I was not disappointed. I was extremely happy and told him the laffa falafel had promoted him to best friend status. What can I say, I enjoy food. He also showed us the other strip of food places right by our school making more recommendations and reviews of the burger place and pizza place. (Good burgers, bad pizza)

I also pinned him down for taking me on a food tour of the center. He suggested we get a group together and so I grilled Kathrine who agreed to join. I hope he didnt think I was trying to get him alone or that I'm crushing on him, I was just very excited to find someone so knowledgable. I did the same thing in Italy, if Chris idn't know any better he might have thought I was crushing on him by how much I wanted to hang out. So I hope Jessie isn't getting that vibe, he's very handsome and friendly so I guess that might happen to him occasionally. Though Kathrine has me beat in the looks department by like a bajillion percent so I bet he's happy she's coming, haha. If I didn't have Chris and I was single I'm sure I'd be embaressingly taken with him, even though he's a professed liar (he admitted he was extremely good at it after the game) and I'm still unsure about his whole religious stance- not that it matters but his answers are always so cryptic, today he said hes alwas the wayward son being chastised for not dressing nice enough for other orthodox jews. He was very happy to agree though, since I did apologize for being so forward and he assured me it was fine. So Sunday at four when he gets out of class we are going. The weekend here is Fri/Sat by the way. I'm excited to have plans to to be getting off campus.

Then a distant relative of mine who lives in Israel called me. My number had gotten passed along to her and though I had been told it was still unexpected. She's more my father's age and I've never spoken to her before but she was very nice and urged me to come visit. While this would be nice she lives two and a half hours away. By train is easiest though I would have to transfer in Tel Aviv, I'm still nervous at the thought. Getting to the train station would involve a cab. And then I dont know if the stops are announced in English and so much could go wrong. I think I should do it, but I'm hoping maybe more towards the second half of my trip, right now I'm still adjusting.

I think I'm going to put some pictures up on facebook, it takes too long here. Though I haven't taken many because no one seems to be taking pictures. I was pondering this on campus today and realized maybe they would frown on it because of the high level of security. It could be seen as trying to get the layout. And while I know that seems far fetched they blow up unattaneded bags! And here you can't be too safe so I haven't taken many and I've been quick and discreet when I have. So the few have if you aren't on facebook I can give you a public link, comment here or email me if you'd like to see them.