Introduction

So, by popular demand (i.e. a couple of people have suggested it to me) I've been moved to start a blog about my time in Israel.

The reason I'm here is because my Dad's Israeli, I'm a citizen, and him and my sister live here, so it seems a good idea to give learning to speak Hebrew a shot, and generally get to know what I tend to think of in my head as 'my other country' better. My return flight is booked for 2nd March 2011 (and yes I will be expecting a welcome home party to have been arranged :P), so I've got a total of six months here, with an ulpan (Hebrew course) lasting five. I'm living with my Dad and Ilana, his lovely girlfriend, in Ramat Hasharon, studying in Tel Aviv at Ulpan Gordon, looking for work and, as to my other adventures, you'll have to stay tuned ;)! (Anyone who's shocked that I took a flight, it really is difficult/impossible to make it here overland, and I literally do limit my flying to coming to Israel periodically, which seems like less of a problem than if I had a holiday home in France that I flew back and forth to every other weekend etc., even if still something to be aware of and thoughtful about).

I've been here over two weeks now, and have generally been working on that whole settling in thing. Learning Hebrew is tough, but coming on reasonably well, and I'm hopeful that I'll be able to string together half coherent sentences and follow what's going on around me by the end of my course. Having said that, I'm in class aleph, and apparently the future tense is saved for the bet syllabus, so I am currently stuck in the present and will only ever be able to look backwards unless I take the initiative and teach myself how to look to the future. This seems rather symbolic.

Spending time with Dad and Anna (my sister) is a real treat, much as I miss people in England (which is a lot!), and I've got lots of friends here, both new and old, as well as having the chance to get to know Ilana and her family better, although sadly one of her daughters is in New York.

Politically, things have already got interesting, and a little difficult (not that anyone anticipated that when I was hatching the plan of coming or anything), but I shall save going into that for my next post.

I hope you are all well and happy in your adventures too.