Ashley and I moved in to our new apartment last week. The apartment is stunning. I’ve included pictures at the end of the post. We’re still without Internet. It was originally going to be installed last Thursday, then it was pushed back to last Sunday (Sun-Thur work weeks here), now we don’t know. The whole country goes on holiday this week for Rosh Hashanah, meaning we may not get Internet for awhile.

We began our Hebrew lessons (Ulpan) yesterday. We have Ulpan everyday from 9am to 1pm from now until October. Come October, after we begin our internships, Ulpan will be reduced to only twice a week. It is amazing how much Hebrew I’ve already learned. I’ve mastered the alef-bet (Hebrew alphabet) as well as learned to write in cursive script. We’ve been working on basic dialogue; introductions, questions, hitting on women (not so useful for us married folk).

During Shabbat last week, we attended an outdoor Modern Orthodox service. Not quite my cup of tea, but the singing was beautiful and the outdoor area was gorgeous. On Saturday, we found the Reform Synagogue that is within walking distance of Nachlaot (our neighborhood in Jerusalem). The service was remarkably similar to Congregation Emanuel at home. I have a feeling we will be back regularly. We spent the day lounging in Independence Park and that night we had a few close friends join us for an end of Shabbat dinner and Havdallah service (ceremony that marks the end of Shabbat).

On a side note, I’ve probably lost 10 pounds these two weeks. All of our food comes fresh from the shuk (Pronounced shook, Arabic for market).

Walking down Ben Yehuda street to the bars.

At the bar with a bunch of Israelis and a few guys from our program. The guy in the red plaid is the social director for the Real Life Israel program. He knows everyone in Jerusalem. We got one of the best tables in the place and the bartender gave us a couple bottles of Arack (licorice flavored Middle Eastern alcohol of choice) and whisky at no charge. Also pictured is a bottle of Goldstar, think Budweiser of Israel but I believe it’s a lager instead of pilsner.

A photo of our apartment’s living room from the second floor.

Ashley standing in the living room on her way outside to use the Internet. While we have no Internet in the apartment, we can get a very slow connection by walking outside about 30 feet.

Our kitchen and dining room.

The bedroom. We have the master bedroom on the second floor. Our window overlooks the walkway to our apartment.

Our kitchen shot from outside our room’s door.

To get to our apartment, you have to walk through three archways, two of which are covered in apricot vines. Ashley picked some last week and made an excellent apricot spread for bread. Right now our pathway is full of construction waste (they finished working on our apartment last week). I’ll post pictures of the arches after they clear the debris.

We took a Nesher taxi bus from the Tel Aviv airport to Jerusalem. We ended up, at of pure coincidence, sitting next to member of our Israel program on the bus. After we arrived at our apartment, we met the other participants that arrived early. We went out for dinner and drinks that night.

Us at a bar in downtown Jerusalem. Picture taken by our program director.

This morning, we took a stroll through our neighborhood to Ben Yehuda Market.

Now that we are back, our time has been spent prepping for our next adventure, Jerusalem! We depart August 25.

From now until then, a lot has to be done. We ended up talking Greyhound in to changing our destination from Kansas City to Wichita at no charge, meaning we arrived in Wichita early but still need to visit Kansas City to scrap our old car and pick up the supplies we left.

We also need to take care of a number of repairs to electronics. This laptop goes in for warranty service later this week; the power jack is loose causing the computer to occasionally not charge. Our new Nikon camera has to have the flash repaired, it arrived broken. And, my iPod Classic no longer plays audio. Despite being four years old, I spoke with Apple and it seems that it is a manufacture’s defect and will be repaired at no charge. Overall cost of all repairs; only $6 to cover shipping of the camera. I love warranties. Now let’s hope everything arrives back before August 25.

This afternoon we climbed Mont Royal. At the top is a overlook of the city. Absolutely gorgeous.

Tomorrow is our last day in Montreal. Our bus departs late at night on Monday and we will arrive in Kansas City, MO on Wednesday. We’ll sell our broken car and pick up our gear we left at our friend’s parent’s house before heading back to Wichita.

One month from today we will be on a plane to Israel.

Next month Jerusalem!

Came across this sign at Parc La Fontaine. Only in Canada would the government have to post a “No Hockey” sign in a public park.

It has been awhile since our last update, it has been hard finding Internet access and free time.

This has been a very eventful. We finished classes, moved to another host’s house, ate great food and saw a number of Montreal attractions.

Class

Overall I would not recommend UQAM’s summer language courses. Despite claims that the course would be primarily conversation based, we never truly engaged in any conversation lessons. However, thanks to the Couch Surfing program, we have been able to stay with a number of native French speakers allowing us to practice and improve our French.

New Host

Well not that new. We moved back in with our first hosts. The apartment is downtown (our last location was in the suburbs), allowing us to engage in a plethora of fun activities. Plus, we once again have reliable Internet access. To use the Internet at our last host’s apartment, we had to pull chairs next to the window in the kitchen to steal the neighbor’s access.

Food

Most importantly, we have had some great food this week! Ashley discovered an amazing Afghani restaurant with the best prepared lamb shanks. Yum. We also munched on chocolate bobka from a local Jewish pastry shop. Bobka is a pastry made out of layers of phyllo dough and creamy chocolate.

Attractions

Our favorite attraction of the week had to be the “Just for Laughs” festival. We only saw two skits performed, but they were great. The best skit had to be the Bollywood dancers. I forgot the camera but snapped a few photos with my cell phone. I will hopefully post them soon.

We also visited the Museum of Modern Art and a museum on the history of Montreal.

Today, Ashley and I walked to Parc La Fontaine, one of the premier parks in Montreal. On our way we stumbled across a rugby game. I don’t quite understand the game, but it was fun to watch.

Below is a picture of us at the Montreal Port from last week.

We ended up stranded at home all day long. Lots of naps, lots of catching up on design work and of course a late-night thriller movie à français.

5150 Rue des Ormes is a horror/thriller movie made in Quebec. A teenager crashes his bicycle and when he goes to a nearby home to call a cab, he stumbles across a man being murdered inside the house. Over the course of five months the teenager is held captive by the family and he descends in to madness. Eventually he is given the ultimatum, beat his captor at a game of chess or forever be held captive. Sounds corny but the director makes it work. *Spoiler* Ultimately he is forced to play a game of chess using the preserved bodies of the killer’s victims as the pieces and is one move away from winning when the police arrive.*spoiler*

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1331291/

The director of the film is heralded as the “Stephen King of Quebec”. And like many Stephen King movies I enjoyed the film but, given the opportunity, I doubt I would watch it again.

Today we finished our second week of class. Only one week left. It is amazing how quickly time has flown. We had our first Poutine meal yesterday. Poutine is a Montreal specialty that consists of French fries with cheese curds drenched in gravy. It sounds unappetizing, but it is delicious!

Photo from Wikipedia

We moved in with a new host on Wednesday. We now have a whole room to ourselves; however, the location is well-outside walking distance to the University. The host is in his 40′s with a ten year-old boy. He became part of the Couch Surfing project to give his son a chance to meet people from around the world and learn about different cultures. The host doesn’t speak much English, but he speaks English better than I do French. We’ll be with this host until the 23^rd of July.

Joining us at the cabin was some of our host’s extended family. Our host comes from an Italian family and we had sit down meals for lunch and dinner that were to die for— Large, family-sized portions with tons of courses. We had steak and shrimp for dinner last night and Italian pasta for lunch. Oh, and all their appliances are restored antiques.

The first photo is of the plage (beach) and lac (lake). The second photo is of the outdoor pizza oven, how cool is that? Lastly we have one of three antique stoves in the house.

Tomorrow morning I have an interview with an Israeli nonprofit consulting firm for an internship position while in Israel. The place is very hip and has operations in NY, Chicago and Jerusalem. http://www.PresenTense.org

We just arrived with our new host, qui s’appelle Bradley. We’re going to spend the weekend in the country at his cabin.

Stained-glass window in Cathedral

Photos from the top of the bell tower. The first one is the Biosphere, America’s contribution to the World Fair in the 1960s. The second photo is of the Cirque du Soleil tents. The angel was added to the cathedral in the mid-1900s.

As we were leaving, we came across the colonial army marching through the streets. They are getting ready to turn in to the historic Rue Saint-Paul area. With them playing and the scenery around them, it’s like something from centuries ago.