After the zoo, Juliana got in touch with two guy friends of hers who were at the Malka Mall, not too far. We walked over there to meet up with them- I didn't know that one of them was a soldier so he was wearing his uniform (pretty hot!). Then we took a ride over to their house in Efata, which is a settlement very close to Hebron. Actually, I didn't feel as if I was in danger at all. It was a pretty isolated area along the valley- very beautiful. Their house was just gorgeous.
Believe it or not, I was actually glad to be out of Jerusalem like that because there was a gay pride parade going on that evening. It is a very controversial event in Jerusalem because many people don't feel that Jerusalem is the right place- that it is too special and all the religion there basically condemn homosexuality. So every year the haredi community post threats of violence against the parade and the gay people. Last year was nearly canceled because of the Second Lebanon War and instead of the streets, the parade was held inside the stadium down in Giv'at Ram (one of Hebrew U's campuses). The night before the parade, at least 50 people were arrested for hostilties. The city was putting out a force of at least 7,500 security officers to handle the crowd while the parade marched from the center of the city towards Liberty Park. Just before I went into Juliana's friends' house, I received a call from Linda asking if I was planning on joining the parade. I told her, even though I support the gay parade, I wouldn't do the Jerusalem one- I'd rather do the one in Tel Aviv. She said it was a wise choice. I thought that was interesting that she called but I know that she's into demonstrations and such. Then a couple minutes later, Juliana booted up the computer to JPost.com site to find that a haredi man was found with a bomb. I texted my friends and new roommates right away not to go downtown that night- it was just not safe at all. When I finally came up, the JPost reported 19 arrests and one of my friends called and told me that cab drivers were charging 50-60 sheklim no matter what. I thought this whole scenario was insane-even more so than Yom Ha'atzmaut with the whole security and cabs thing.
Friday, Paige and I hung out at the beach for the entire day again. We took sheruts instead of the buses considering it was Friday and being a big travel day. Israel is a small country- I saw Moti and his friend, the same shady hotties from the week before, again towards the end of the day. At first I liked them but now I think they're definitely sketchy. This week, my friends and I will have to move to a different area of the beach! Especially that his friend kept asking where was Hilary (at work, making up a sick day).
For Shabbat, I "crashed" at the hotel with the ulpan dinner. I met several new people from different parts of the world. I can't generalize an average student.... I did meet a lot of smart kids from Ivy League schools- including several from Yale. Scary!!!!
I'll talk about my awesome new roommates in the next post. :)
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