The Nineteith Minute, Part 2

No, he is not hurt, he is kissing the "land" of Israel.

When we got off of the airplane I had a wave of nostalgia for the country I had left just several hours before. We got off the plane and walked down a staircase to the ground and boarding busses instead of walking straight into the terminal. Now this might sounds ridiculous, but I remember when you used to fly into Ben Gurion Airport and go through the same process. It used to be a little different because the when more religious passengers stepped onto the tarmac, they would get down on their knees and kiss the 'land,' which was sort of strange because the asphalt there hasn't even been there since the time of Herzl, let alone the time of King David.

Once through the teensy airport we got onto a chartered bus that took us to our hotel. On the way, an Israeli woman named Orit told us a little about the Island and some activities she organized for all of us (if we were interested). The two of us were surprised and happy that we could understand everything that she was saying in Hebrew. We decided that we were not interested in touring around Malta with a bunch of Israelis who were, on average, 15-20 years older than us.

Also, we had some scuba diving to do!

Krispini: a way to put Christmas
cheer on your hands and that romantic
garlic smell on your breath

We got to our hotel in the early afternoon. Josh decided to go for his first dive so he took a bus to the diving center while I took a nap and then went shopping for some groceries. In the area we were staying there were no big grocery stores, but there were lots of cute markets, sort of similar to a makolet in Israel. I bought us provisions for the coming days including a curious snack of garlic-flavored hollow crunchy sticks. We were surprised by how good they were when we ate them the next day, but I was a little creeped out by the Christmas-like green and red residue that they left on my hand that resembled glitter in look and processed garlic and salt in flavor.

On the first night Josh and I decided to take a nap before finding a place for dinner. When we woke up in the morning, we realized that we had taken a bit more than a nap. Rejuvenated and ready for the coming day, we packed sandwiches and headed down to the continental breakfast buffet. We liberated a few fruits from the buffet and then got picked up by the diving school.

In the process or scuba diving certification I had to watch three videos that looked like they were made in the 80's, replete with musical transitions of synthesizers and drum-kits, short-shorts, and different dated fonts for every important note that you needed to remember in order to prevent injury. At the end of the last video, the copyright date said 1999.

The other section is the practical, where you actually get to go into the water and practice the skills that you saw in the videos. My favorite skill that I had to learn is the controlled emergency ascent which involves taking your regulator (mouth piece) out and yelling "AAAAHHHHHHHHH" as you ascend to the surface. Yelling is not necessary, but I learned that it makes it a lot more fun. The idea is to prevent the air in your lungs from expanding too much and causing your lungs to burst, therefore you expel at a consistent rate until you reach the surface.

Me and Josh

The open water dives that I went on were very cool. I got to swim through schools of tiny fish and swim around the rusted metal skeleton of an old ship. I don't think I could tell you more about what I saw down there because I was too busy concentrating on maintaining my buoyancy and equalizing the pressure in my sinuses (think clearing your ears on an airplane).

The Nineteith Minute, Part 1

I apologize (sincerely) for my lack of posts. Every week of ulpan has gotten more intense: more material, more homework, and more grammar. We did, however, get a three day break (plus two days of weekend) off from class. What did I do, you ask? Flew to Malta and learned how to scuba dive. I'm sure you had a nice weekend too...

My trip started badakah hatish'im, that is to say, in the 90th minute. In Israel, the expression "הדקה התשעים" (hadakah hatish'im, the 90th minute) means the last minute. It is a reference to the 90th minute, the last, in a regulation soccer game. It is also the name of an Israeli travel website where you can book cheap last minute deals. Josh, my classmate from ulpan, would say that it is also a good metaphor for the Israeli culture, but that is another post.

For those of you who knew nothing about Malta
(which included me until a week and a half ago) here is a map
showing where Malta is relative to the rest of the Mediterranean. 

The aforementioned Josh approached me at the beginning of last week and asked me if I wanted to go scuba diving with him in Malta over the long weekend. I think you'll agree with me that it was reasonable for me to be skeptical. Traveling with a relatively new friend to a relatively obscure island country in the middle of the Mediterranean. On top of that, trying something new with potential risks like being eaten by relatively obscure scaly animal with teeth the size of my fists.

I simultaneously investigated and tried to convince my parents to let me go, in case I actually decided to give it the green light. It was a good price for the tickets and the hotel and, did I mention, I was going to learn how to scuba dive?!?! Josh confirmed the flight on Thursday and the flight was to depart at on Friday at 4:30am from Ben Gurion Airport. When we got to the airport, we found out that the flight was actually delayed for three and a half hours.

We spent an hour swept up in an angry mob of Israelis, who booked the same flight, looking for someone to get yell at. We tried to appeal to a manager, but he had already gone to sleep, not surprising since it was past 2 in the morning. Josh and I decided to take after the manager and found a corner to sleep until the check-in opened up.

We boarded the airplane at around 7:45 and I don't think that I could have stayed awake, even if I had chugged two Redbulls and ran an IV of Mountain Dew. Two hours later we woke up in Malta.