HAPPY 16th BIRTHDAY HANNA!!
If you don't wreck the car you'll have a belated gift from me when I get back in June. Ok on to 3 events in the past 3 weeks of my life, because I took way too long to blog since Istanbul.
1) Buzz Cut
Christina from South Africa who speaks Swahili gave me the cut. I now look 50% more Israeli.
2) Joe Biden
I went to Tel Aviv at 5 am on Thursday to see Biden speak at TAU. We got there 2 hours ahead of time and, just like with the Netanyahu speech, were able to easily and inexplicably get unbelievable seats. We got 2nd row seats, only about 15 ft from Biden. The coolest thing about it was that we sat directly behind the bigshots in the first row. NAME DROPPING ALERT:
Before and after the speech, I talked with these people:
She will likely be PM of Israel after next elections
I saw a man hand a brown envelope to him and say "Give this to the President". He was not talking about the President of Tel Aviv University.
/END NAME-DROPPING
The actual speech was amazing. Biden spent a lot of time fluffing up Israel before criticizing its decision to form 1600 new settlements in a controversial area in East Jerusalem, a decision with terrible timing because it threatened to undermine the indirect peace talks that Biden came to Israel to promote, between the Palestinians and the Israeli government. The full text of the speech can be found here but I recommend watching it here because then you can see me! I'm first visible at 1:00:17 when the camera zooms out, leaning forward in a white shirt in the 2nd row next to my friend Mike in the blue shirt. If you pause it, you can see Tzipi in the first row with red hair four seats to the right of me, and Dennis is sitting next to her on the left. There were a ton of other bigshots but those were the two I spoke with.
Basically we told them we were Americans studying abroad and they were very happy to hear, and they even seemed a bit surprised that we were in the second row. I don't know how it happened either. But it was so cool to talk to them, and they told us we were Israel's future. Just watching them throughout the speech was an amazing glimpse at the front stage of international politics. It made me feel like I could do it.
There is one regret to that amazing experience. As some of you may recall, I happen to own an Obama mask that Dad gave me as a gift for Halloween. I left it at home. I didn't think of this until after... but what if I had snuck the mask into the speech, and put it on? You can see how close I was to Biden - he would've HAD to notice his boss staring at him from the second row. It would probably throw his speech off, I imagine he would've had to say something about it. I could've been on the front page of CNN! But I wouldn't want to throw off Biden... maybe if I put it on before asking him a question during the Q and A, and then asked him something like, "Great job, Joe. You're doing great. Look, do you wanna grab lunch later?" If only I had the mask...
3) The Coolest Class Ever
I'm in this class called Archaeology of Jerusalem, a class that anyone studying at Hebrew U needs to take. Last week we spent the class walking around the Old City of King David, which dates back to the 1st temple period (1000 BCE). This week, we talked more about what we saw.
What you are looking at is proof that Jews were in Israel first. And it was discovered less than 5 years ago. Let me back up:
There are these seals called bullaes used during the time of the First Temple that were wrapped around letters. The seals said the name of the person who sent the letter. Because Hebrew is a very old language, we can tell that the one above belongs to Gedalyahu, and it was one of two seals found in the past 5 years in the Old City. The other seal found belonged to someone named Yuchal. There is a third seal, which was found earlier, that belongs to Gemaryahu. Do the names sound kind of weird? They should. They are Biblical names. From the Old Testament: "So the officials took Jeremiah from his cell and lowered him by ropes into an empty cistern in the prison yard. It belonged to Malkijah, a member of the royal family. There was no water in the cistern, but there was a thick layer of mud at the bottom, and Jeremiah sank down into it." [Jeremiah 38:6]
Gemeryahu is believed to be Jeremiah. The spelling is a common way to spell Judean names from that historical period. They are very similar, but it could be a coincidence. The recent discovery of seals belonging to Gedalyahu and Yuchal, however, also match up with names in the Bible - the very people who threw Jeremiah into the pit! This is strong historical evidence that events from the time of the Bible are found in the city of David.
I wish I could write the entire 4 hour lecture down here, but I simply don't have time. It was filled with historical evidence - from the Old City of David, that we walked through just last Monday, which lies not 5 miles from where I sleep at night - that events from the Bible happened in the Old City. This is why I came to Jerusalem.
Schedule for the next 21 days:
Thursday, March 18 - Jerusalem Half Marathon. Haven't been training at all. Should be fun.
Friday, March 19 - Climb Masada in the morning (it's going to be a tough 24 hours for me). Ein Ghedi hike during the day.
Saturday, March 20 - Dead Sea and Jerusalem Basketball Game vs Bnei Hasharom
Thursday, March 25 - Sunday, March 28 Sea to Sea trip. Hiking from the Mediterranean to the Sea of Galilee.
March 29 - April 6 Greece
THANK YOU MOM AND DAD!!!!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY HANNA!!!
Love and miss you all (especially Mango, she keeps getting comments every time I use my credit card),
Daniel
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