As you can see, Israelis are not the most considerate bus riders. This picture was taken as I held on for dear life in the aisle.

updates on everything because i'm a terrible blogger

Hello my friends! Yeah, I'm a total loser who is terrible at blogging. But! I'm here now. And I will try to at least give you a brief overview of what I've been up to.

First, I will apologize if my writing is not what it usually is. One thing that's happened since I've been here is my English has gotten SO MUCH WORSE. That might not make any sense since it's my first (and only) language but it's true, and other people have backed up my claims with similar experience.

While I only speak English here, and I don't have any other languages at even a conversational level, I still live a very international lifestyle. My roommate, who is also one of my best friends, is French (as in from Paris) and while she speaks English well, her grammar/word choice is questionable at times (but it's so damn cute she gets away with it). In my workplace, as we do international news, we have people who speak all different languages - the languages I hear on a daily basis in the newsroom include French, Hebrew, Spanish, Russian and Arabic. I have other friends from Chile, Australia and Argentina.  All of this on top of the fact that I just spent ten days in Amsterdam and Berlin - in Amsterdam I was useless, but I made a real effort to pick up German while in Berlin and to start learning the language.

All of this to say, when I speak it's a total balagon (Hebrew for chaos/mess). I pick up speech patterns from all of my different friends, use verbs and conjugations questionably and randomly intersperse words from other languages into my sentences. So if my writing seems strange, blame it on my worldliness!

Anyway, moving on.

Since it seems ridiculous to try and write about everything I've done, I will just do a bulleted list and try to give a brief overview of some things that have happened.

• Hiking/Camping in the Negev was amazing! I made a lot of friends from other programs which was nice, and now they come to visit me in Tel Aviv. We stayed in a Bedouin tent but it rained so much that we didn't get to ride camels. Better luck next time. 
• Work has been really good. Mostly I do the social media stuff, but sometimes I get to go out on interviews. When I go on interviews, my responsibilities are to take pictures for the Facebook and Instagram and help with set-up. It's also cool to learn with the producer I'm traveling with all about who we are talking to and why and what we hope to get out of them.  Just this week I got to watch an interview with Einet Wilf (former Knesset member) in her home, and with Uzi Eilem, the former Director of the Research and Development Department of Israel's Ministry of Defense. Both were about the impending death of Ariel Sharon. Uzi worked with him for many years, so it was really interesting to hear about his experiences. Both of these interviews were in English which was great because I could understand. I have been on others, but many were in Hebrew and I just watched awkwardly and tried to pick up as many words as I could.
• Went to a Security & Diplomacy Seminar in Jerusalem. I absolutely LOVED this. It wasn't for everyone, but because it so closely relates to journalism I signed up to go. They bussed a group of us to Jerusalem where we stayed in a nice hotel for a night and had a lot of different lectures/seminars/discussion groups on different facets of Middle Eastern security and peace issues. I really felt like I learned a lot and left with a better understanding of all the various Middle Eastern conflicts, and the issues surrounding them and why it's so hard to solve so many of these problems. Also, they fed us really, really well. 
• MET MY FAVORITE ROCK STAR! Okay, this might not seem so exciting to most of you, but it was one of the coolest things that has ever happened for me. There is a music group called Beats Antique and I LOVE them. I have seen them 10 times in concert in the past three years, and they are just amazing. My group of friends back in Seattle worship them. Their shows always sell out, and they are extremely popular in the underground circle in which they travel. Anyway, turns out they decided to come to Tel Aviv which is a HUGE deal as many artists don't come here because of the political implications. I found out they were coming right after I had read this news article about a girl tweeting that she was looking for Kim Kardashian at a Kanye concert, and Kim tweeter her back and invited her to sit with her in the VIP section. Obviously I had to try my hand at Twitter. I sent out a tentative tweet as a joke:
  
  
• And then, THEY RESPONDED!!!

• Several of my friends said they would come with me to the club to help me track down Beats Antique, but at the last minute bailed. I was tired and did not want to go to a big club myself, so I didn't go.  I decided it was silly to try and meet them, and I almost gave up. Then, two days later, I decided to "go big or go home." I tweeted them directly, basically saying that I was a huge fan and wanted to meet them and would this be possible? I didn't have high hopes and planned on deleting the tweet in an hour, but they actually answered! They tweeted me back, and told me where they were going. This time, I was prepared. Again, friends said they would come with me and bailed at the last minute (they don't know Beats Antique) and I was too late for the busses, so I found myself walking to a Reggae club alone at 1am. I got there, and couldn't find them anywhere so I sat at the bar to drink and get up the nerve to figure out what to do. After about an hour, I still didn't see them and decided I would go to the bathroom and then leave. I went to the bathroom, walked out and then heard my name - "Jordyn???" I look up AND THERE IS DAVID SATORI (the mastermind behind Beats Antique)! AND HE RECOGNIZED ME AND KNEW MY NAME!!!!!!! One thing I didn't realize is that he is like, 6'6". So incredibly tall.  It turns out the reason I couldn't find them was because he walked Tommy, the drummer, home and then came back. Turns out he was the nicest, most down-to-earth guy ever and we ended up going to another bar where it was quieter to drink and hang out. 
• This was the first time I had ever met an idol of mine, and it was really amazing 1. to see that he is just a regular person and 2. that he was so nice and down to earth. He told me a little bit about touring, but he didn't even want to talk about himself so much and asked a lot of questions about what I was doing in Israel and if I liked it and all that. And as a rockstar should, he even bought be drinks and a cab home! It was a really amazing night, and two nights later was the show. My friend Lisa came with me, and it was one of the best shows I've ever been to in my life. And I felt really cool when after the show I got to go backstage and talk to him and introduce him to Lisa =p Definitely one of the coolest experiences of my life. 

me and David Satori after the show!

So, Israel has been good! We had one week of CRAZY weather where it rained and hailed and thunderstormed literally for 8 day straight. It also snowed in Jerusalem, and we went there, and it was so beautiful. I loved running through the snow and seeing all of the famous sights. We also went to the wall and it was my first time going on a day that wasn't Shabbat, and I was shocked by how jovial everyone was! I was used to it being really morose, but it was a really lively atmosphere. There were several Bar Mitzvahs, everyone was singing and laughing and throwing candy and releasing balloons, and I really loved it. 

Nothing else too exciting - I've been eating my weight in Shnitzel because it's the only thing close to my work for lunch, and it's cheap - I need to start remembering to pack lunches. But for that I need to go grocery shopping. It's a sad thing realizing you're eating all of your money. But the food here is so good! So it goes. I will try my best to write about my Europe trip soon. No promises though, because apparently I'm terrible at that. 

Love you all!

Video of the Beats Antique show in Tel Aviv