"Winter"

I know that I'm not going to get any sympathy from anyone reading this in North America. They're having a brutal winter. But I honestly miss it, this is not winter at all and I'm a bit sick of it.

In January we finally started to see the "fall foliage". Some of the trees were showing yellow and browns. Some of the trees were shedding their leaves and it felt a bit like fall. But it was a few months late.



We had a few days of rain but it hadn't been nearly enough at the start of the winter. This is a scary thought because it would ruin the Israeli agriculture for the next year. But in the last week or so the "real winter" hit us. By that I mean, here comes the rain. It rains just about every day and the soggy cold is just annoying.

I have a twenty minute walk to and from school and in the rain it is just miserable. Wind in my face half of the walk to school and half of the walk home. Yeah, the temperature is still a decent 50 something Fahrenheit, but in the rain and wind that's pretty miserable. And here is the kicker, these buildings are not made to hold heat.

Our apartment doesn't have central heating, most of them don't have that here. So the only way to get relief from the chill is to sit near a heater that is running. Luckily we have three space heaters in our apartment, one for each of the larger rooms in the place. The problem with that is our wiring. The wiring in this apartment seems to be pretty poorly done.

We can't have two heaters on and turn on the electric tea-kettle or the water heater in order to take a shower. We're not really using that much electricity at one time, except that the heaters are such an energy hole. More on that on a later post.

On top of that, I have a wicked cold that will not go away.

I don't get sick that often, so this is pretty annoying. I have a congested nose thing and a cough every morning. It takes a cup of tea along with my coffee to clear myself up in the morning. To say nothing for trying to get ride of the headache. Ugh. I just want the cold in my body to go away along with this disgusting chill outside.

Man I miss real winter.

Kid A & Winter

I don't understand why I have this association, but Kid A, by Radiohead will always have an association with winter for me. It could be that the first time I heard the album was in the winter. Maybe it was the number of times I played it while driving to and from Fargo, thanks to Kaitlin for that high number of drives, many of which were in the winter. It might have something to do with the album cover, or just the quiet, calm sounds of the first tracks. I really have no idea the real reason, and maybe it is a combination of all of them.

I'm sitting here in Jerusalem with a nice warm cup of coffee reading an assignment or two for class tomorrow and one of those songs popped up on my iTunes. It felt very out of place to me. I looked out the window to a bright sunny day, and realized that I still have all the windows open wearing shorts and a t-shirt. The current temperature is 68 and it's supposed to get a lot warmer today. I'm left wondering, where is winter? What happened to Jerusalem being freezing? All I heard about the winters here, before I came, was that it gets much colder than you will anticipate. Be prepared. The houses don't keep heat during the winter because they are designed to stay cooler in the summer. What is going on?

From what I've heard floating around, this winter is abnormal. It's actually getting dangerous for the agriculture of Israel because there hasn't been any rain yet. I was really excited the first time I was poured on, because it hasn't really since I arrived. I'm sad to say that it hasn't really rained here since then either. The drought is so bad that for last Thursday, the Chief Rabbi of Israel made it a fast day, for those who listen to him, and told people to say additional prayers for rain. I take that with a grain of salt, or two, since I don't really follow much of what he says, but it demonstrates the nature of this problem.

There was a story in the Jerusalem post this week that blamed the recent butter shortage (yeah, there is a butter shortage right now) on the heat. Apparently, according to the story, in heat like this the dairy cows do not produce as much milk, or the right byproducts to create butter. I guess that explains why the butter was so expensive for me to buy to bake blondies last week.

Now before my friends and family back in Minnesota start complaining about the fact that I'm sitting here in a comfortable climate and they're stuck in a freezer with a potential snowstorm for Thanksgiving, (although I'm not sure how the weathermen could predict that over a week away) I miss the snow. I miss the cold. I miss the seasons changing. Don't get me wrong, I love the fact that I'm still wearing sandals and I'm going to go play football outside this afternoon. I just feel strange not bundling up to leave the house.

Until the "bone-chilling" rains set in, I guess I will just have to listen to a different album while I do my homework.

Winter in Israel... Already

Early on the first Sunday morning after Rosh HaShanah Israel switches back to standard time. From what has been explained to me, this is to make the fast day on Yom Kippur easier since the sun goes down earlier, the fast day will end earlier on Saturday night. Aside from royally destroying the rhythm I had going with being able to skype with people back home, this means it is winter in Israel... kind of.

In the daily liturgy, we haven't switched over to the traditional prayers for wind and rain, but the mood has changed. The nights seem cooler. I have slowly noticed the change since getting back from Haifa two whole weeks ago. Something was different in the air this Sunday though.

Part of this may have been the feeling I got on the roof of Rabbi N. Kalman's apartment Saturday night while we met for Havdallah. Some of it may have something to do with the fact that back in the states we just had the first week of the NFL season. Yet another piece could be connected to the Gophers' Football team getting there first loss (under Brewster I'm surprised it took them two weeks to lose their first game).

Another piece could be the fact that I was rained on a little on the way to school and noticed that there were clouds in the sky the last few days. There is just a different feeling in the air right now and it feels like it should be fall. The problem is that I'm not used to there still being so much green in the fall. The leaves should be changing colors. I should smell the crisp fall air.

As a final note, I'm still wondering whether or not I want to see snow in Jerusalem this year. I know it would be beautiful, but I'm torn between the aesthetic aspects and the fact that I would love to have a year without snow.We shall see.