Hello, my dear friends. This having my computer thing is quite a pleasure.

So it's Monday, which means I have morning classes and then I'm finished for the day...no ulpan (Hebrew class) or evening classes! Today I went shopping with some lovely new friends. Of the group, I was the only American, which really made my day. Two are from England and one from South Africa. They all have amazing accents, and it's just such a pleasure for me to get to know people from all over the place. And there are so many amazing women here at Neve that I'm thrilled to have the opportunity to get to know.

Right now, I'm sitting in a coffee shop preparing to go for dinner and then to the kotel with my roommates. I haven't been to the kotel at night since I've been in Israel, and I really think the kotel at night is much more peaceful and special.

Life continues to be good. I've had some excellent classes in the past couple of days. One of them was about the mitzvot, particularly kashruth (keeping kosher), and it resonated quite a bit with me. The very simplified gist is that what we put into our bodies affects us spiritually, physically, emotionally, etc., and I thought that was a pretty interesting thought. We also talked about elevating the physical to the spiritual, an idea I also really like. The concept that we can make any moment holy by simply stopping and thanking Gd before we say, take a bite of an apple, is pretty inspiring stuff.