Snow and other stuff
After an unexpectedly long hiatus, I return to you with news that on Friday it snowed in Jerusalem. Not much, mind you – 10 centimetres at most. However, because it’s such a rare occurrence here naturally everyone went a bit loopy: roads were closed; the Egged buses stopped running (briefly); the shuk, normally rammed on a Friday morning, was virtually dead; school was closed for the day. However, since the snow came directly on the heels of 24 hours of torrential rain it didn’t stick around for long. I left school with Allison (if you’re a regular reader you’ll know by now that she’s my flatmate) at 9; we went home, ate some food, put on sensible shoes and headed out again at 10, by which time almost all the snow had melted, flooding the streets with yet more water and slush and making the two snow ploughs we saw on Agrippas look completely redundant.
We headed down to the Old City to attempt to get some photos of the Dome of the Rock with a lovely white hat but to no avail; the view from the roof of Christ Church (where Tamar lives, another blog regular) looked exactly the same as usual. Gutted. Adding insult to injury, when I invited my photography-inclined friend Jesse to come along he mocked me for being excited about snow in the Old City and told me off for being a tourist. This last seemed a little unfair – I’ve only been here half a year so surely I still get some ‘get-out-of-jail free’ cards with regard to doing touristy stuff?
Anyway, I made the most of the unexpected day off, having lunch with friends then heading home for a nice long nap. This has become a feature of Friday afternoons: school finishes at 12.50 on a Friday, so I have a good lunch, often at my favourite local Iraqi restaurant (great mujadurra), then head home for a snooze which is inevitably interrupted by the sound of the Nahlaot Shabbat siren (which is very LOUD and GOES ON FOR A LONG TIME) ushering in the sabbath. The weather has been spectacularly crap here for the past few weeks, with rain and wind and fog and more rain. Apparently this is the wettest winter in Israel in 30 years, with more than double the annual average rainfall and whilst this is gratifying for farmers, Lake Galilee, irrigation channels and most Israelis, I feel like I left one country where it rains constantly only to find myself in another one, where conditions are worse because it’s just not set up for this much wet weather. The street I live on turns into a small river when it rains. It’s been cold too, though that’s only problematic because the houses are not in any way set up for cold weather, what with the stone floors and lack of central heating. Our electricity bill has gone through the roof as we’ve had electric heaters plugged in and the electric blanket I bought in 2004 when I lived in the fridge-like basement of a very large, draughty house on Alexandra Road in Bristol has once again repaid the cash outlay with warm, cosy nights. My bed is sometimes the only place in the whole house where I’m confident I can get warm and stay warm.
It’s been an eventful and busy few months. I had to return briefly to the UK in January for the funeral of my great-aunt Carol, the last of my grandmother’s five sisters, all from the pre-war generation that lived through the Great Depression (which was worse in the north of England, where that side of my family come from) and the horrors of the Second World War. The Dixon women were very strong characters and were fairly difficult in their own individual ways; they were known collectively and sort of affectionately to their children as ‘the coven’ (or so Dad’s cousin John told me at my own grandmother’s funeral) but they were remarkable women. My dad was particularly close to Carol and we are all close to her side of the family, the American cousins, where there is much god-parenting in several generations. For our family Aunty Carol's passing marks the end of a generation and despite the sad circumstances it was good to be there.
I returned to Israel (suitcase packed full of cheese, sausages and a Pieminister Pie for emergencies) and the next day was dragooned into chaperoning the school post-exams ski-trip to Mount Hermon. This entire event was so typical of events here in Israel that it is, I feel, well worth recounting. We were due to leave school at 5.30 for the three-to-four hour drive up through the Jordan Valley and the Galilee to the Mount but of course the bus driver was 45 minutes late (probably a relief for the main coordinator of the trip who was himself half an hour late). When we finally arrived at the resort no one seemed to know what was going on (again, typical) and it took an hour or so to sort out the ski passes, equipment hire and lessons, not to mention the inevitable performance that comes with trips involving teenagers whereby they’ve not got the right kit (gloves, coats, socks, hats, whatever). My frustration levels were sky-high by the time we actually made it onto the slopes. However we then proceeded to have an absolute blast – conditions were good, the runs weren’t over-crowded and neither were the queues for the lifts, there was a degree of adventure skiing through the blizzard at the top of the mountain and I managed not to get knocked down by any Israelis, who ski like they drive in a manner akin to kamikaze pilots. Of course the bus trip home with 50 over-tired, excitable teenagers was torture and we didn’t get back until 10 p.m. so I was a wreck for the next week, but I think on balance it was worth it, not least because I remembered how much I love to ski.
This seems to be the way things here happen and not just in school: a trip is planned, organisation of said trip is fairly shambolic, time-keeping is non-existent, non-Israelis like me get increasingly frustrated by the general chaos, but when all is said and done an excellent time is had. Israel is very un-western in some respects (or perhaps I should say un-European), even though on the surface it often looks and feels like your average Mediterranean country. For starters, no one here RSVPs to invites; if they do bother to RSVP they may change their mind; if they don’t they’ll usually still show up and bring a few extra people along for good measure. No one keeps a diary or plans things far in advance, so despite the fact that my week on paper can look pretty empty usually I get to Sunday completely knackered from all the unplanned activity that has ensued. And thus did February happen to me, in something of a haze of late nights and day excursions that I hadn’t foreseen.
I did have a training course in the diary – a weekend in Paris (hurrah!) on a conference for teachers of IB Diploma History, which was very useful for me as an educator and very enjoyable for me as a punter. The course itself helped me to iron out some of the issues that have arisen in teaching the IB, which is a pretty demanding curriculum, plus I got to meet other international school teachers who all tend to have very interesting stories (like moi, non?). Also, I hadn’t visited Paris in about 15 years and was gratified that I was able to do some sightseeing, see some friends who live there, eat a lot of food and drink a lot of vin rouge.
Furthermore, I was able to buy and bring home with me some macaroons (my absolute favourite sweet treat) and about a kilo of assorted cheeses, to the great delight of all my friends in Jerusalem. There’s plenty of feta, goat cheese and cottage cheese here, but decent European cheese costs a fortune. I only realised how excited people get about imported cheese over Christmas when I threw a Boxing Day party, for which I made vast quantities of chicken curry which one gluten-intolerant friend couldn’t eat, so I brought out a block of Waitrose own-brand cheddar (my parents had brought several packs for me to freeze in October) and people went crazy. The cheese was the hit of the evening. Seriously.
Anyway, as January and February passed in a bit of a blur and March is now upon me I’m finding myself fairly well settled into the rhythm of life here in Jerusalem. I have now learned the Hebrew for ‘No, I don’t want a plastic bag; I have my own’ (‘Ani lo szrichar sakit; yesh li tik’) to fend off the vast quantities of plastic bags the guys in the shuk try to give me. The strawberry-seller midway down the covered part has taken a shine to me, even though I never shop at his stall, and keeps shouting hello at me whenever I walk past; the guy who sells me eggs actually smiled at me the other week. We're due another trip to Ramallah to see Shira, who lives there, and hit the Turkish baths again (more of that another time). I've been attending Narkis Street Baptist on Saturday mornings and really love it there. The weather is due to improve in the next month and I’ve got some trips round the country planned with friends. Plus, this week it’s Purim, the festival where Jews celebrate the tricking of Haman by Esther by dressing up in costumes, eating pastries called hamantaschen or ‘Oznei Haman’ (‘Haman’s ears’) and getting spectacularly drunk, an actual religious requirement for this particular holiday. I love living here. If only people could be a bit more organised…
Should have got here earlier, boys.
We headed down to the Old City to attempt to get some photos of the Dome of the Rock with a lovely white hat but to no avail; the view from the roof of Christ Church (where Tamar lives, another blog regular) looked exactly the same as usual. Gutted. Adding insult to injury, when I invited my photography-inclined friend Jesse to come along he mocked me for being excited about snow in the Old City and told me off for being a tourist. This last seemed a little unfair – I’ve only been here half a year so surely I still get some ‘get-out-of-jail free’ cards with regard to doing touristy stuff?
Snow at school - a little unusual for the palm tree
Anyway, I made the most of the unexpected day off, having lunch with friends then heading home for a nice long nap. This has become a feature of Friday afternoons: school finishes at 12.50 on a Friday, so I have a good lunch, often at my favourite local Iraqi restaurant (great mujadurra), then head home for a snooze which is inevitably interrupted by the sound of the Nahlaot Shabbat siren (which is very LOUD and GOES ON FOR A LONG TIME) ushering in the sabbath. The weather has been spectacularly crap here for the past few weeks, with rain and wind and fog and more rain. Apparently this is the wettest winter in Israel in 30 years, with more than double the annual average rainfall and whilst this is gratifying for farmers, Lake Galilee, irrigation channels and most Israelis, I feel like I left one country where it rains constantly only to find myself in another one, where conditions are worse because it’s just not set up for this much wet weather. The street I live on turns into a small river when it rains. It’s been cold too, though that’s only problematic because the houses are not in any way set up for cold weather, what with the stone floors and lack of central heating. Our electricity bill has gone through the roof as we’ve had electric heaters plugged in and the electric blanket I bought in 2004 when I lived in the fridge-like basement of a very large, draughty house on Alexandra Road in Bristol has once again repaid the cash outlay with warm, cosy nights. My bed is sometimes the only place in the whole house where I’m confident I can get warm and stay warm.
It’s been an eventful and busy few months. I had to return briefly to the UK in January for the funeral of my great-aunt Carol, the last of my grandmother’s five sisters, all from the pre-war generation that lived through the Great Depression (which was worse in the north of England, where that side of my family come from) and the horrors of the Second World War. The Dixon women were very strong characters and were fairly difficult in their own individual ways; they were known collectively and sort of affectionately to their children as ‘the coven’ (or so Dad’s cousin John told me at my own grandmother’s funeral) but they were remarkable women. My dad was particularly close to Carol and we are all close to her side of the family, the American cousins, where there is much god-parenting in several generations. For our family Aunty Carol's passing marks the end of a generation and despite the sad circumstances it was good to be there.
I returned to Israel (suitcase packed full of cheese, sausages and a Pieminister Pie for emergencies) and the next day was dragooned into chaperoning the school post-exams ski-trip to Mount Hermon. This entire event was so typical of events here in Israel that it is, I feel, well worth recounting. We were due to leave school at 5.30 for the three-to-four hour drive up through the Jordan Valley and the Galilee to the Mount but of course the bus driver was 45 minutes late (probably a relief for the main coordinator of the trip who was himself half an hour late). When we finally arrived at the resort no one seemed to know what was going on (again, typical) and it took an hour or so to sort out the ski passes, equipment hire and lessons, not to mention the inevitable performance that comes with trips involving teenagers whereby they’ve not got the right kit (gloves, coats, socks, hats, whatever). My frustration levels were sky-high by the time we actually made it onto the slopes. However we then proceeded to have an absolute blast – conditions were good, the runs weren’t over-crowded and neither were the queues for the lifts, there was a degree of adventure skiing through the blizzard at the top of the mountain and I managed not to get knocked down by any Israelis, who ski like they drive in a manner akin to kamikaze pilots. Of course the bus trip home with 50 over-tired, excitable teenagers was torture and we didn’t get back until 10 p.m. so I was a wreck for the next week, but I think on balance it was worth it, not least because I remembered how much I love to ski.
The view from somewhere on Mount Hermon
This seems to be the way things here happen and not just in school: a trip is planned, organisation of said trip is fairly shambolic, time-keeping is non-existent, non-Israelis like me get increasingly frustrated by the general chaos, but when all is said and done an excellent time is had. Israel is very un-western in some respects (or perhaps I should say un-European), even though on the surface it often looks and feels like your average Mediterranean country. For starters, no one here RSVPs to invites; if they do bother to RSVP they may change their mind; if they don’t they’ll usually still show up and bring a few extra people along for good measure. No one keeps a diary or plans things far in advance, so despite the fact that my week on paper can look pretty empty usually I get to Sunday completely knackered from all the unplanned activity that has ensued. And thus did February happen to me, in something of a haze of late nights and day excursions that I hadn’t foreseen.
I did have a training course in the diary – a weekend in Paris (hurrah!) on a conference for teachers of IB Diploma History, which was very useful for me as an educator and very enjoyable for me as a punter. The course itself helped me to iron out some of the issues that have arisen in teaching the IB, which is a pretty demanding curriculum, plus I got to meet other international school teachers who all tend to have very interesting stories (like moi, non?). Also, I hadn’t visited Paris in about 15 years and was gratified that I was able to do some sightseeing, see some friends who live there, eat a lot of food and drink a lot of vin rouge.
In the frozen Jardins Luxembourg, with my lovely friend Chiara
Furthermore, I was able to buy and bring home with me some macaroons (my absolute favourite sweet treat) and about a kilo of assorted cheeses, to the great delight of all my friends in Jerusalem. There’s plenty of feta, goat cheese and cottage cheese here, but decent European cheese costs a fortune. I only realised how excited people get about imported cheese over Christmas when I threw a Boxing Day party, for which I made vast quantities of chicken curry which one gluten-intolerant friend couldn’t eat, so I brought out a block of Waitrose own-brand cheddar (my parents had brought several packs for me to freeze in October) and people went crazy. The cheese was the hit of the evening. Seriously.
Anyway, as January and February passed in a bit of a blur and March is now upon me I’m finding myself fairly well settled into the rhythm of life here in Jerusalem. I have now learned the Hebrew for ‘No, I don’t want a plastic bag; I have my own’ (‘Ani lo szrichar sakit; yesh li tik’) to fend off the vast quantities of plastic bags the guys in the shuk try to give me. The strawberry-seller midway down the covered part has taken a shine to me, even though I never shop at his stall, and keeps shouting hello at me whenever I walk past; the guy who sells me eggs actually smiled at me the other week. We're due another trip to Ramallah to see Shira, who lives there, and hit the Turkish baths again (more of that another time). I've been attending Narkis Street Baptist on Saturday mornings and really love it there. The weather is due to improve in the next month and I’ve got some trips round the country planned with friends. Plus, this week it’s Purim, the festival where Jews celebrate the tricking of Haman by Esther by dressing up in costumes, eating pastries called hamantaschen or ‘Oznei Haman’ (‘Haman’s ears’) and getting spectacularly drunk, an actual religious requirement for this particular holiday. I love living here. If only people could be a bit more organised…
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