Just a few quick notes.

Thursday was another good day of classes. We got our first assignment in my Emergence of Modern State of Israel class--so far so good. The music class is also going well and it turns out that one of the people in my class played a role in the Israeli equivalent of the Broadway show "Hair". She's one of three people in my class who is not of university age (we're trying to get her to sing for the next class!). My Jerusalem the Gold class with the less-than-amazing teacher went from 9 people to 4 people. That said, I thought the second day was better than the first. More on that in a minute.

Thursday night we went out and met up with a friend of mine from Ramah Nitza Sherman. She and her friend and spending a month in Israel before going to Greece for a week--rough life. Friday, Dani, Elana, Meredith and I went to the Macheneh Yahudah shuk and got food for Shabbos dinner. Dani and I played "spot the foreigner"--he won. The rest of the afternoon we spent cooking (we had a total of 11 people for dinner!). My two years of living off campus and having to cook for myself are finally paying off! For shabbos I went with a group of friends to Shirah Chadasha. I've been there a few times before but I have never seen it so packed, literally standing room only. They run a "conserva-dox" service where men and women are separate but they participate equally in the service leading and obligations. There was a good mix of Israelis and visitors as well including my friends Yoni and Michal Shear, Judah Ferst, Talya, Sarah, and Ilya who just finished Birthright. Talya goes back to the US today after being here for almost a year--hope you got back safely Tals! After services I walked back to Kfar Studentim, it was SO nice outside. Also, coming from Spokane/Seattle, it is such a different atmosphere walking home on Shabbos in Jerusalem. Everyone was outside doing the same thing as me, cool :-D

Today has been very laid back. Most of my roommates went home for Shabbat and a lot of the people living in Kfar Studentim (including Ariel and Leora who arrived Thursday) weren't here. I also found out today that my Jerusalem the Gold class is going from 4 people...to 1. ME. Yea. Mano y mano. It'll be interesting to see whether or not Hebrew U decides to drop the course. Tonight a bunch of us are going to a free concert on the top of Masada being put on by David Broza (I think I previously told people or wrote someone different... I was wrong!) and Jackson Browne. It's supposed to start at sunrise! Should be great.

On a completely different note, Kevin Durant is now a Supersonic. Ray Allen is not. Being in Israel puts me at quite a distance from all this stuff, but it's pretty unbelievable. My take is that Seattle management is going with a young group in anticipation of moving cities. I would love to be wrong... but I won't be surprised if it's the Las Vegas/Oklahoma City Supersonics by this time next year. Oh well, maybe the UW team will take over as Seattle's bball team?

I hope you all are doing well, I'm really enjoying my time in Israel! If you want to visit, just let me know :-D

Col tuv and Shabat Shalom,

Avi