Hi everyone,
For those of you who are all wondering, yes I arrived safely! We had orientation for the past two days in Jerusalem so it has been crazy busy here. Yesterday, we finally took the bus back to Tel Aviv and I am in the process of getting settled into my dorm.
We have "studio apartment" style dorms, meaning I have my own room, kitchen, and bathroom which is pretty nice! It is definitely lonely and something I'll have to get used to since I'm constantly surrounded by roommates at Pitt. After I FINALLY unpacked all my wrinkled clothes, my friends and I decided we needed to run to the grocery store to stock up on food. We walked to the nearest mall which was about 20 minutes away. Our "group leader" (I forgot the word for it in Hebrew) told us to go to this mall which she titled "the Rich Ladies' Mall." When I walked inside I figured out why... literally every designer store you could ever imagine possible was situated in one large shopping mall! Obviously I won't be shopping there but it's still fun just to window shop. My friends all headed to the grocery located in the mall while I went to go deal with my phone. I have been in Israel for 3 days without a working Israeli phone, so I decided to do something about it. Literally everyone at the kiosk was looking at me like I had 8 heads, but I was trying to get my phone to work, sometimes having to be pushy... hey, I have to try and look the part of an Israeli, right? Thankfully, the nice man at the kiosk fixed my phone and I was literally jumping for joy!
Next, we headed to the food court for some dinner. It was about 8:30pm by the time we ate, something I normally would not do in the US... but after all, I am in Israel so I must live like the Israelis do! I had falafel in a pita which I ended up taking to-go since I didn't have enough time to eat it there otherwise we would miss our bus. Well, turns out we ended up on the wrong bus and after asking about 3 different people, we figured out how to get back to our dorms. Then, my friends and I got ready and headed out into the center of Tel Aviv for a night out!
I can't tell if Israelis genuinely like Americans or if they just feel obligated to help us. In Italy, people weren't very helpful whereas here, I am finding that people are much more approachable.
Anyway, I am starting my first day of intern life here in Tel Aviv! My hours for June are 2:30pm-6pm, which is literally amazing. I can chill in the morning, go to the beach, and just live the life. It'll be nice not having to stress out about work. A lot of my friends have internships from 9am-6pm so this definitely is a perk!
I will post pictures of my apartment in the next post when my room isn't so messy!!
Shalom for now!
xo,
Alexis
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