Adventures and language barriers

So, true story ... I've made friends with several Catholic students here at the University. Several of them are students here like me, but there is a group of 35 people (33 men, 2 women) who are here from Rome's Pontifical Biblical Institute. Fabulously nice people, whom I've gotten to know through class and through my interest is seeing what the Catholic mass is all about (it seems super scary an intimidating until you go ... and I really like the people who go regularly so it's kinda like a social outing!!). Anyhoo, we were invited to stay after Saturday's mass for dinner and a tour of the archaeological museum they have! I got to see Alex the Mummy, the ONLY Egyptian mummy in Israel, and several REALLY cool ostraca and sherds and axe-handles 3000+ years old! After the tour we got to see the rooftop view which was AMAZING and then our hosts (several monks and priests!!) invited us to stay for poker and drinks. So I spent several hours in the refractory of the Catholic religious residence, 2 blocks from the King David Hotel (where McCain and Lieberman were staying LAST week when I ran into them on my way to mass with Meghan, Corinna, and Gavin. THAT was odd!) playing POKER and drinking alcohol (people were drinking things ranging from REALLY good Arab beer to hard liquor) with several monks, a nun, and some priests. I have to say, that is not something that I EVER thought I would say I've done.

Another true story, though not nearly so amusing or fun ... the main internet company in this country is Bezek. They are EVIL. Anyhoo, my credit card number changed in October. I called Bezek and TOLD them about the change ... but they failed to change the number. So, yesterday morning they shut off my internet. My Hebrew is decent enough to navigate the website and realize what the problem is. I even managed to get to the page to PAY ... but they wanted my National ID number ... and since I am not an Israeli I don't HAVE one. And my student ID card was NOT going to cut it. So, I spent 1.5 hours on the phone TODAY trying to explain in my limited Hebrew what the problem is (no one working at Bezek today spoke any English). BAsically, the woman told me that she would just have someone call ME who spoke English. 45 minutes later and still no call, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I found a friend who is French and speaks English beautifully if she could translate for me. HER Hebrew wasn't that great ... so she asked her friend who speaks French and Hebrew, but not much English if SHE would do it ... so I explained the problem to Girl 1 in English. Girl 1 explained it to Girl 2 in French, and Girl 2 spoke to the evil people from Bezek in Hebrew. Bill paid, receipt in hand, life is good. It only took 3 languages, but whatever. That's life – C'est la vie – זה החיים

Now that Evil Bezek has been dealt with, I'm off to get my International Student ID Card and then head back to my apartment to make SURE that my internet was turned back on!!! More from Jerusalem later ...