Thursday – Day 48
September 10, 2012
BREAKING NEWS: Shaanan was accepted into the Penn Singers, the premier Light Opera/ Musical Company at Penn. As such he was partying tonight and didn’t have time for an extensive post.
Today was an all new set of classes! First up was Electrodynamics I, a post-vector calculus, Junior level physics course (PHYS320). The class was full of around forty older kids and not particularly warm and friendly. The material was difficult and the lecturer got right into it. Homework was set immediately, a series of vector calculus revision exercises that taxed my brain a fair amount. I will need to get plenty of help with that.
Next up was Operating Systems, a slightly larger class (CS380) with around fifty students. The class required an advanced knowledge of the C programming language and our first assignment was handed out immediately: writing a shell for the Linux operating system. Difficult but doable.
Finally was my random class Russian, which today went well, learning a bit more of the alphabet and the difference between the two kinds of vowels, hard and soft. Stay turned for more details.
The afternoon I coded away at the Operating Systems project, not even stopping when it was time to leave for my night activity at 6. I knew there was a second bus leaving and decided to wait for that instead.
At 6:30 I headed downstairs for ‘The Rodin Sophomore Cruise’. The bus arrived at the port at around 7:00PM and after a minute we were informed that the second bus had in fact refused to start and that we might be waiting a bit longer till we set a-sail. Half an hour passed and the remainder of the supposed attendees didn’t show. Rumours passed around and it was eventually made clear to us that the original bus too had gotten stuck along the way. Finally at around eight thirty, the last of them arrived and we finally left port. The cruise was most enjoyable and I even got to dancing, after a little prodding. Highlight of the trip was meeting a very friendly girl by the name of Stephanie from my building too and a musician by the name of Rigel from my floor.
After we returned it was quickly back to my room and, exhausted I was soon fast asleep.
<RODIN CRUISE>
Tuesday/Wednesday – Day 33/34
August 26, 2012
Unfortunately there are no photos from the next few days so bear with till this blog becomes all colourful again!
Having reserved a seat on the six hour train from Mannheim to Hamburg, I was fairly confident that this time I would receive a seat. Littkle did I know that my train would be almost empty and thus I had an entire private cabin to myself. For the next six hours I drifted in and out of sleep, waking as the conductor came to check my ticket a few times.
Finally, at 1:37AM I arrived at Hamburg Hbf, an almost deserted station at that hour, with many shady types hanging around. My next task was to find the bus stop to the airport, which after about twenty minutes of walking round trying to keep safe I eventually found albeit, populated by a few drunks and some other individuals which to save on the description, I’ll just say I wouldn’t wish to meet on a regular basis.
After a half hour wait, the bus arrived and I nervously boarded with all my bags, arriving after a further twenty minutes to a shuttered Hamburg International Airport. I waited in a small area the security guard opened inside the arrival lounge and cleaned myself up a bit, taking all my bags into the bathroom with me for a shave and a semi-shower with the tap water. I read through “The Litigators”, the new John Grisham book, and spent time observing the other sorry souls surrounding me. No doubt they, unlike me, were catching the first plane of the morning, Airberlin to Berlin. Despite the moaning tone of this post, I quite enjoyed watching the airport go from silent, to bustling and full, as security guards opened up areas, activated escalators and the other staff wandered in, bleary eyed to greet each other in the morn.
I was first in line for my IcelandAir flight, on which no food was served. The flight itself was fine, but nothing special. However, the airplane itself was replete with Icelandic words covering it, and the interior was themed in much the same way. The music during boarding was Sigur Ros, a well known Icelandic band and though I am generally against bottled water, the water from the fjords provided tasted fresh and delicious.
My time after landing in Iceland was all too short! Unfortunately due to my extended stay in Europe and Israel, I had only the time for a transfer. Though I did not see the Fjords, I can comment on the airport shopping: fish and ice-gear. I sampled some of the wild Icelandic smoked salmon and can say that it was top notch. Adding Iceland on the todo list for later.
The flight to the USA was just about the same as the flight from Hamburg, and passed without event. Passport control and customs in the US were not at all a fuss and too, are not worthy of being described in print.
Exiting into the arrivals hall I saw one Samuel ‘Gus’ Ruchman waiting for me with open arms. A very close friend from ISSI who due to his volunteer efforts in Africa and busy school schedule I had found it hard to keep in contact with. This however was no barrier to our friendship and the next few days with him proved that though friends may not see each other for years at a time, it is possible to retain a strong relationship. His parents generously took me in, and after a lovely home cooked meal and a walk around the local nature reserve (I saw a racoon!), jet-lag took me and I was fast asleep.
The next day was spent hanging out and having a good dose of guy time, something I had been sorely lacking in a while, and though our choice of movie for Wednesday evening (Forgetting Sarah Marshall), isn’t exactly known to be the favorite of most guys, we enjoyed it thoroughly. Other hours were spent discussing musical composition and I had the opportunity to play on his grand piano, a beautiful specimen. I felt like a missing part of me had been filled, as though I have many dear and close friends at home, Gus fills a different part as he and I connect on a number of levels, from our involvement in Jewish life, to our love for musicals and political discussion. I was sorry to leave him on Thursday to give him time to prepare for his return to Harvard.
Thursday – Day 16
August 5, 2012
Sleeping at the boys’ apartment is an experience. With people on both day, afternoon and night shifts, the house is always moving. As the lucky one left without a bed, for me this means shifting beds at some point during the night to accommodate for those entering the house and those just waking up. Thus last night I did not sleep particularly well and needed an extra hour in the morning.
Following my wake-up I tried explaining the finer point of scheduling attacks on the WEP WiFi encryption scheme to members of the apartment, who suddenly were interested when they realized it had practical implications.
Sarah then rocked up for me to take her to lunch, which to her surprise, was to be held at the top of the circular Azrieli Tower, the tallest building in Tel Aviv.
At the top of the forty-ninth floor, is a restaurant 2C, kosher and more upmarket, with a 360 degree view of the Tel Aviv skyline. Being a lunch reservation, we were able to order from the business set menu which included three courses for the both of us for the price of ~70NIS each (~$20). I ordered bread and homemade dips, followed by the beef carpaccio with a main of Simia morrocan lamb on a bed of grilled vegetables. Sarah on the other hand took the dips, sweet potato soup and perfectly grilled salmon on mashed potato.
By the time they brought out the dessert menu we were completely stuffed and made a hasty exit, partially due to the impending chime of Sarah’s 3PM ambulance shift.
In the late afternoon I met up with Abi Reisner who has been living and working for the last few weeks on a permaculture farm just outside of the town of Modiin. Over an organic, fresh, eco-passionfruit we had a good chat about the gap year program and various other things.
The evening was Ma’ayan’s party, and on the way there I became a little more than slightly lost. Having been instructed by her to take bus number 25, I cleverly alighted onto bus 125. Following her instructions to get off after a certain number of stops, I found myself in what I would describe as an urban desert. A few buildings scattered here and there, large empty fields to my left, and nary a car in sight. After deciding to walk straight for a few minutes I came across a helpful guy who showed me a map and, when I asked him how to get to Haiim Levanon St. let me know that it was a good hours walk away and called me crazy. Nevertheless, I decided to walk there.
An hour later, and sweating from head to toe I made it to Ma’ayan’s place, where her, her boyfriend and a smart guy, Ariel Davis, were chatting in speedy Hebrew. Though my Hebrew was good, the conversation was a little hard to follow for me and I felt particularly awkward as this was also my first time meeting these people. For the next few hours it followed similarly, with new people coming in and me struggling to connect with them, as I had little in common and there was a small language barrier. I ended up conversing mostly with Ma’ayan’s brother, Elior and his girlfriend Lior. However, a bit later in the night things improved and by the end I was very glad I came and had met new people.