I. Hate. Cats.

Apparently, back in the day when Jewish settlers were colonizing what is now Israel, there was a bit of a rat problem. Don't get me wrong, I hate rats as much as the next person--they're truly vile. But, as this was long before rat-annhilating chemicals were invented, they decided that the solution to this problem was to breed hundreds of thousands of cats, which would keep the rat population in check.

But now Israel has a bit of a cat problem.

This place is overrun with wild, disease-ridden, flea-infested cats. Completely and thoroughly overrun. I swear, they're going to have to carve out a separate state for the cats as well as one for the Palestinians. I mean, really. I'm far more afraid of the cats than I am of suicide bombers.

No matter where you go, you're always on the lookout for a feral cat that might jump out of the trash and give you some horribly rare disease that you have to take 85 kinds of antibiotics to cure. They fight all the time. Approximately every 10 minutes, you hear a noise so awful that you seriously think someone is being ax murdered right outside your window. Horrified, thinking you should have your phone ready to call the police, you jump up and look outside. Nope. No homicidal maniac. Not even any people. Two cats, backs arched and hair raised, screeching at each other so loudly that people in Tibet can probably hear them.

The worst part is that, despite the advent of, say, inanimate rat-killing agents, the Israeli government still isn't making any efforts to spay or neuter the cats. They breed like crazy. This week was a time of phenomenal growth for the cat community, as there are now at least 7 litters of kittens running around. They look so adorable and fluffy...until you see the mama cat, all mangy and scarred from all her trash-bin fights. Then you remember that the kitten is basically a cute, fluffy petri dish of exotic, disgusting diseases.

So, for the record: if I never find the right guy, I will buy 10 dogs before I ever become a crazy cat lady. Ugh.

Houston, We Have Internet!

We finally have Internet in our room.

I'm so happy I could cry. For real.

Now that I'm connected to the rest of the world, I'm one very happy camper. I'm also pretty happy that intensive Hebrew is half over, and that the security-based stuff for my fellowship has finally started. We met with our IDF (Israeli Defense Force) liasion this week, and she (yup--SHE) seems really nice. We're going to be seeing some incredible things through the fellowship, and our first site visit will be in a few weeks. We're going to get a tour of the security wall, which should be amazing.

Everyone in our fellowship group seems really nice, although I suspect I may be the only Democrat. When we were having one of those "get to know you" sessions (thankfully, a lot more in-depth and fun than those obnoxious "My name is Lillian, and I like lollipops!" games from college), I mentioned my raging love for NPR. It raised every eyebrow in the room. I almost felt like I should follow it up with something to the effect of "But, uhm, I don't think Fox News is horribly biased! I swear! Please don't kill me!") This will make our discussions on Israeli policy interesting, for sure; politics aside, though, it seems like a great group of people.

The work for the fellowship will be pretty substantive; we'll have one site visit per month (and I'm SO keeping my fingers crossed for Gaza and the Golan Heights...I'm not kidding), and although we'll only have one class session per month to complement it, we'll be doing presentations and papers for each time we meet. To say the least, I'm all kinds of excited for the stuff we'll be able to do and see. Now if I can just join the IDF for a week...

In terms of Hebrew, my skills are improving--as evidenced by my interactions with cab drivers and kiosk owners. I can now--drumroll, please--buy a diet coke and get myself back to the dorms in Hebrew. It's astounding. I know. Should I be stranded in a remote corner of Israel where no one speaks English, I will be hydrated and able to tell someone that I need a ride back to the University. Next goal: navigating the grocery store. I need to figure out how to say "Is this salad dressing or chocolate syrup?" to avoid gross combinations of food.

The Jerusalem Hyatt: It's Not Gaza, But It'll Do For Now

Last Friday, my friends and I decided that we needed a break from the monotony of all Hebrew, all the time. "Hmmmm," said my friend Chad, eyeing the Hyatt Regency hotel that sits but a few feet from our dorm. "Let's crash the pool at the Hyatt."

I can't post what I said in response, but if you've seen "Team America," you can probably guess what it was.

So off we went, in search of a pool at a luxury hotel that we'll probably never actually stay in. We walk in, and...woah. Suddenly, we all have the same realization: all the settlers who were removed from Gaza are being temporarily housed in hotels throughout Israel. Including five-star establishments such as the Hyatt.

Now, logistically, this makes complete sense. Displaced people have to be put somewhere before they're re-settled in a new locale. But a bunch of settlers staying at the Hyatt--indefinitely, since the resettlements in the Negev are barely even breaking ground--struck me as a little odd. Seeing the Orthodox Zionists, whose lives run counter to the secular, luxurious atmosphere of the Hyatt, was a huge contrast. They eyed us with a great deal of suspicion, and I'm sure we did the same to them. When a group of obviously secluar, Western young adults, clad in bathing suits and carrying iPods, breezes into a group of intensely religious and, at times, fanatically nationalistic, settlers, the tension is almost palpable.

Avoiding eye contact and knowing that the Orthodox don't allow mixed-gender swimming, we beelined for the pool. Once there, we stayed all afternoon, and waited until it was almost sundown (and the start of Shabbat) to leave. Granted, it wasn't too hard to stick around a pool lined with palm trees on a gorgeous, sunny day. But nonetheless, I would've felt a little weird to waltz back through a lobby packed to the hilt with people who--let's be honest--probably would have big issues with both me and my politics.

Chad wants to make the Hyatt pool his official Yom Shishi (Friday) hangout, and I'm game--but I'm definitely going to try to blend in better next time.

Disengagement? What?

So as you probably know, Israel is unilaterally pulling out of the Gaza Strip. The policy of disengagement--which has been a huge point of contention in Israeli politics--is being carried out this week. There have been huge protests in opposition to the pullout, and equally large rallies to support it. Analysts are warning of the potential for civil war if the pullout gets violent.

The funny thing is, if you were here, you wouldn't even know it.

Maybe it's because the Israeli Internet system is really, really, ridiculously sketchy. Maybe it's because we're all wrapped up in intensive Hebrew. But at the end of the day, the whole country could descend into chaos and war, and none of us would have a clue. Life in Jerusalem on Disengagement Day was, by all accounts, totally mundane. I woke up, grabbed a coffee, and went to class. Did some homework. Went to the gym. Had to read the news online to even remember that this was, in fact, a day on which history was being made. Huh. Shouldn't history be a little less anti-climactic?

Reading the American newspapers makes it feel even more surreal; from the articles, you'd think that the whole country is on the brink of widespread unrest. Pictures of settlers lighting fires in Gaza and reports of violence from the field evoked a sense of danger, but when I walked outside, it was business as usual. No one seemed afraid, or even anxious. Either people here don't wear their emotions on their sleeves, or they've developed a thick enough skin that political tumult just doesn't faze them.

Nonetheless, most of the international students have decided to avoid crowds (in case Hamas and Islamic Jihad wind up taking the path that we fear most: carrying out suicide bombings to make it look like they're driving Israel out of Gaza), and have been a bit more cautious this week. Guess this means I shouldn't schlep down to the Western Wall with my camera in search of some excitement and turbulence...sigh.

On a totally different note, I know it took me a while to update this. Unfortunately, Internet access here is really hard to get, and Bezeq, the company that basically monopolizes communications technology here, has decided that it hates me. So, of course, this will lead to further development of my Hebrew skills: I'll buy you falafel if you let me use your Internet.

I Heart Metal Detectors

So I'm finally here. We got in on Monday afternoon, after a flight that, happily, was actually pretty nice. I didn't have any trouble getting on the plane in New York--granted, the cute El Al guy questioning me was a bonus--and even managed to score a great seat on the plane. I fell asleep somewhere around Iceland, woke up over Greece, and arrived in Tel Aviv a happy, well-rested camper.

My roommate, Jen, is awesome. She's another grad student from the U.S., and we get along like two peas in a pod. Not that peas actually ever interact, but you get my point. In any case, it's a good setup. We're in the same Hebrew class, so this leads to lots of vocab quizzing while applying makeup in the morning.

The intensive Hebrew, while I'm thinking of it, has been pretty good thus far. It took me a few days to really get my feet on the ground, but now that I've got the hang of it, it's great. I keep saying "yes" in Arabic, though, which I think is disconcerting for my Orthodox Jewish teachers. They know it's Arabic, and they usually give me a "who are you, really?" look whenever I slip up. Honest, guys, I'm just an Irish girl from the States.

As far as security goes, I'm completely desensitized to all the security layers here. Maybe living in D.C. prepared me for this--which I suspect is the case--since Jen, who's from Louisiana, was initially shocked by the frequency with which we get wanded and hand over our bags for searches. In any case, if you've ever visited the Smithsonian, handed over your ID in order to get into your office building, or warily looked around for bags without owners, it's not all that different here. The only marked difference is my feelings about buses. I'm not cool with them. I'm not riding on them while I'm here. Ever.

I've walked by many a bus stop, however, and have noticed that a lot of Israelis, for their part, are totally lacking in manners. Lines don't exist here. Instead, there are amorphous blobs of pushing, expletive-muttering people that congregate around offices, cashiers, and other places where you'd expect some semblance of order. Not so much. In Israel, there are little old ladies who'll mow you over if you don't make your move first. Younger people couldn't care less about mortally wounding the little old ladies by doing just that. I'm trying to get a little more pushy, and am making an effort to bust out the hockey skills by occasionally throwing an elbow. Just not on somebody's grandma.

More to come next week, when hopefully I'll be telling people in Hebrew to kindly get the hell out of my way.