Jonah Mancini

This will be the last post where I number the day. I see this as being a plus and by the time I reach “Day 321″ I believe I will officially have become a person who is no longer a creative individual. So I am heading that one off right now! No more posts with “Day + #” in the Title. This of course leaves open for other titles including the word Day… i.e. “the Day the world was folded in two” or “Day of the rabbits” and “Day-O-matic” or any other such Day-incorporating titles.

At any rate, day 2 here in Israel I connected with a couple of people whom I haven’t seen in about a year. It was great! As a matter of fact, while I was registering, I heard a voice coming from behind me. The voice belonged to a beautiful young woman and even more so, the voice was saying my name! Needless to say I was taken-aback for I didn’t expect any to know who I was in this new setting. I turned around to find the lovely Lindsay Kevan (whom I had known from last summer’s Biblical Ulpan with Dr. Buth) approaching me with open arms. It was great to see a familiar face amidst the hustle and bustle of class registration at a new university in a foreign country. We quickly exchanged pleasantries where I found out she would be around for the second part of the modern Hebrew Ulpan, “Great!”, I thought to myself as she hooked me up with her contact information. Even more so then this, Lindsay later enable another friend of mine from the Ulpan last summer to get a hold of me. His name is Geoff, and he rushed over to my newly organized dorm room and took me to a local Grocery store (which was much needed) where I could begin to start stocking up my fridge and thus allowing me to begin living in my new home. Also, just before I left for Israel, two great friends from the first Biblical Hebrew Ulpan contacted me, who I am looking to get a hold of soon and see their beautiful new baby!

I am really excited for this coming Sunday (day 5) when I begin the modern Hebrew class. Ok… now this is an FYI, here in Israel the week begins on a Sunday (just like in the States) however, here they actually begin to work on the first day of the week (unlike many jobs/schools/etc. in the States) Another thing I am getting excited about is having Internet in our dorm suit. Unlike the brochure, the Internet here in the dorms is not as “available” as they lead to you believe. So I have been turned on to a method to acquire Internet access from a local cable provider. This will cost me somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 shekels a month for the service and about 250 shekels for the equipment. This my seem like a lot of money and truth be told it isn’t cheep, however I plan on being able to get it all back from people around me splitting up the cost. This is great news for anyone who is interested in my ability to create new post on this “Frunderful” blog! As it is, this Sunday after my first class (Oh Joy! - said non-sarcastically) I am going to go down to “Besek” (the cable provider) and get “wired”!

note: I know some of you are waiting for pictures, and they are coming, I have taken some but not enough to make a photo album worth looking at yet. So just hang in there, they are coming

First off, its hard to count days here. Not that the sun has issues with rising a setting, but after traveling for so many hours I don’t know how to count my first day. As a result, my “first day” will include all the travel and my actually first full day in Israel and everything in between. As soon as I arrived in Tel Aviv airport, I found my luggage and built myself a little fort where I could camp out for the night. But after worrying about 3 hours of worrying about my bags every time I needed to get up and go to the bathroom or get a drink, I decided to get a hotel in side Jerusalem. So I made my way over to the Israeli tourist information booth to try and arrange something for the night. After talking with the young woman who was working the booth for a while, I left with two things. A hotel for the night and the email address of young woman “In case I needed anything else”.

I left the Airport on a Sherut (shared taxi) headed for Jerusalem and met 3 guys who will be participating in the same Ulpan (Hebrew language program) as me. When the Sherut driver dropped me off at the place where my hotel was, I was a little frightened because it looked a little less then “kosher” and it was at night and…. I found out the next day that it was just as my new friend from the airport led me to believe. It was just fine. Dragging luggage down a dark street after 24 + hrs of travel can seriously alter your perspective.

Well, the next morning I made my way over to the Hebrew U. campus and started the registration process. This was an incredibly smooth/swift process which ended with me in my new room at the dorms and chatting with my new roommate (his name is Daniel) I will soon post pictures of campus, my dorm room, everything I can think of. But until then…

Peace, love, ‘n granola from Jerusalem!

June 26 2006

Well the day has finally come. I am now in Houston international Airport waiting to board the plane to JFK, where I will jump over to the International Terminal and hitch a ride with Air France all the way to Tel Aviv, Israel. When I got on the plane from H-town I found my seat next to a sweet elderly couple from NY. I started a conversation with them about travel and what-not (I don?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t really know what ?¢‚Ǩ?ìwhat-not?¢‚Ǩ? is but we talked about it). Come to find out, they had done quite a bit of traveling in their time. After I had picked up some handy tips for faring the international airways, I did as I always do once I get above 10,000 ft, I fell asleep. The New Yorker sitting next to me was kind enough to wake me for the food cart’s voyage down the plane’s narrow isle, This allowed me to partake in the microwaved cheeseburgers being handed out. To pass the time my neighbors began to play cards and converse over some of their memories. One comment I found particularly intriguing was when the older man mentioned the first time he had seen a TV. Its interesting to think how each generation can be marked off by the technological advancements they have witnessed; like this couple and the TV, my parents and the PC, our generation and the Internet. The other day I was trying to explain to my niece what a record was… She had no idea what it was and I was struggling in my explanation. It was funny because I ultimately had to explain it as a large CD that didn’t hold as many songs.

After landing in JFK and making my way down to my terminal, I boarded the Air France plane bound for Charles De Gaul (sp), however, after we had all boarded the plane we sat for another hour and a half at the gate waiting to move out to the runway. Once the plane started moving everyone onboard got situated for the flight. This ended up being a very clever deception on the part of the pilot. He moved the plane about 500 ft and then stopped it again for about another 20 min or so. Everyone was becoming restless and it was at this time that I got up and looked out the window to behold quite a site to see. Row after row, line after line of planes waiting to take off. The Pilot come on over the intercom and stated some shocking message in French. The only reason I knew it was a shocking statement (other then the gasps for air) was because the French man sitting next to me felt I should be able to share in his shock, so he translated it for me. We were plane number 40 in line to take off! So everyone on got up and milled around for another hour as we inched our way out to the runway. Finally we made it to the runway and the plane filled with shouts and applause.

Now considering that I had just spent 3 or so hours on the ground and only had 2 hrs to make my connecting flight in Paris I feared I had about a snowball?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s chance in Hades of catching my next flight to Tel Aviv. As is was, GOD smiled on me and the other passengers on our plane and delayed the flight to Tel Aviv for another 2 hrs or so. So I made it with time to spare. I guess snowballs have a much better chance in Hades after all.

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It it true, it is true. I have become a victim of the ?¢‚Ǩ?ìblog?¢‚Ǩ? bug. I know what your thinking, ?¢‚Ǩ?ìthis Jonah guy is just another ?¢‚Ǩ?ìJohnny-come-lately?¢‚Ǩ?, jumping on the ban-wagon of Internet web-logging.?¢‚Ǩ? And you would be correct in these thoughts (except I wouldn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t be a Johnny, but more of a Jony-come-lately or Yony-come-lately depending on how you pronounce the ?¢‚ǨÀúJ?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢). I do however hope to make this ?¢‚Ǩ¬¶. (ugh) blog as enjoyable as possible. I will be establishing a news section, a current update on myself and how all things are fairing in Israel (including prayer needs), and several other entertaining sections. As you can now see I have already begun with a ?¢‚Ǩ?ìVideos?¢‚Ǩ? section which will be filled with random hilarity as only can be spawned by way of the ?¢‚Ǩ?ìMancini gene pool?¢‚Ǩ?! So check it out and I will send out an email to my nearest and dearest friends (whom I have email address for) when I officially launch this site. Till then GOD bless and be sure to brush those back molars!

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