The Big City

This week, I moved into my apartment in Jerusalem. I'm now living with 2 boys- Avi who has a type A personality and just graduated with a degree in finance and Warner, who lived in India the past 2 years. We're quite an odd mix, but so far it works. This is the first apartment I've had all year where we do dinner together. Warner and I trade off cooking and we all sit and have family dinners together. Warner had to push me and Avi a little into doing it but it's really nice.

What I did not previously know about this apartment is that it's actually a hotel room. I'm living in the kitchen. That means that of the ten months total I will spend in Israel, I will have spent 5 months living in a joint kitchen/living room, 1 month living on army bases, 2 weeks sharing a bed which the previous owners probably died in, 2 weeks having no home, and 2.5 months living in an apartment that actually could have been made for the amount of people living there.

It's really nice to be in a city. We live in the center of the city so its always busy and there are always people around. It's also nice to have more people from OTZMA around. Even though only 12 out of the 50 live in Jerusalem, that's still double the amount that was in Kiryat Malachi. It's also great to see stores being open past 7 and things like resteraunts and coffee shops- wonders almost too good to be true.

I've started my internship for Ethiopian National Project. ENP works to help integrate Ethiopian-Israeli teenagers into Israeli society. I'm doing a lot here- researching grants, writing grants, writing articles, putting together the newsletter, and preparing for next year's General Assembly. The GA next year is in Washington DC so I'll help put together the booth while I work here and then I'll probably be volunteering at it next year. Check out one of the articles I wrote for ENP at enpblog.blogspot.com

I really love what I'm doing here. It's a small office and everyone is really nice. It's also great to feel useful and productive. I think I'm really going to enjoy my time at ENP