4 Stars out of 5

            There is a phenomenon that has been taken up among college girls (and guys) across the country, and it is so wrong it’s right. Alexandra Cooper and Sophia Franklyn’s “Call Her Daddy,” a weekly podcast with episodes each Wednesday, is filthy, raunchy and in some ways a feminist’s nightmare, but it’s nearly impossible not to listen to, and even harder not to laugh at. Despite some of the blatant honesty and hot takes that could be perceived as rude (because they often are), the podcast has somehow found a way to be empowering and something to band girls together. 

            If you’re just tuning into “Call Her Daddy” for the first time, and you’re anything like me, you might listen to about three minutes and think, “this is awful.” This summer, after hearing about it constantly for months and dragging my feet so as to not hop on the bandwagon and support Barstool Sports, I finally, begrudgingly, put my headphones in and decided to give it a shot.

             In under a minute, I was already rolling my eyes, questioning how girls listen to this. Aren’t we better than this? I asked myself. Haven’t we evolved past this attitude of do-anything-for-boys, this need to be “hot” or “cool” specifically for the opposite sex and this fixation on reputation and looks? I continued to scoff at not only what they were saying, but also their style of delivery. The girls use profanity nearly every other word, and they do not shy away from the vulgar topics. I was certainly rolling my eyes… but I was also still listening.

            After seven minutes or so, they’d won me over. Their direct style, though appalling at first, becomes impressive as you realize that these girls aren’t pretending — they really do not care about what they’re saying or how they’re perceived. Their episodes discuss sex, reputation, looks and more, containing tips and advice on all of the above. Their honesty is shocking, sometimes brutal; in a recent back to school episode, “College Life: Being Hot vs. Not,” the girls discussed the social scenes at various schools and how to navigate them and play to your strengths. 

            “Know your interests and stay in your lane,” they advise in the episode. “Maybe you don’t wanna f—in’ go to the humongous athlete party.” 

Throughout the episode, they also address the so-called “scale” to rate girls, and how it differs between schools.

“Pay attention to the school you are at because the school is going to determine where you are on the scale,” they say, before advising how to act depending on where on this scale you fall. 

Explaining that, even typing those words, sounds incredibly degrading; I cringe when I think about it. However, there’s something about the way Cooper and Franklyn address these topics that just works. The pair address how awful what they’re saying is, they admit it and they say it anyways – because, let’s face it, they clearly have the social scene figured out. They deliver their horrific advice in such a blunt manner it’s impossible to not only laugh with them but to also kind of agree with them. 

“This sounds a little f—ed up,” they often preface their messages with. Or, as they at one point say in the College episode, “this is gonna hurt feelings, this is gonna rub people the wrong way – but it’s the f—ing truth.” 

At the end of the day, it’s their shamelessness that makes their messages acceptable. Their brutal honesty carries over into their stories about their own lives as they completely overshare, giving listeners the chance to realize that though these girls seem to have it all figured out, they had plenty of cringe-worthy experiences to get there. 

So although not everybody’s made for the “Daddy Gang,” as they call their fan base, the podcast is worth checking out, but allow yourself at least three minutes of eye-rolling before you judge their content. And try not to take it too seriously.

Falling on the third weekend after Labor Day each fall, the Common Ground Country Fair, put on by the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA), is one of Maine’s biggest events of the year. Home to hundreds of Maine-based vendors and businesses selling their crafts, farms selling their products, animal shows, educational speakers and more, the Common Ground Fair draws about 60,000 people to the fairground each year. And although there’s much to unpack each year when the fair comes and goes, one of the most interesting aspects of the event is the food for sale, since it is far from your typical fair food.

With classic options like hot dogs, french fries and fried dough available, it’s easy to forget the fair’s guidelines: all food must be locally sourced and organic — with no added sugar. Whether it be vegetables and cheeses for sale by a farmer, or full meals from a food truck, all vendors must go through a bit of a process before they’re approved to make an appearance at the fair. The process in place strictly ensures that the food follows these guidelines. So, the dessert you enjoyed at the fair this past weekend might not have been as guilt-inducing as you’d expect.

With the no-added-sugar guideline as a constraint, food vendors get creative with their sweetener options. Pie Cones is a vendor that was created specifically for the Common Ground Fair in 1992 and has been a staple of the fair ever since. This year they had two locations within the fair’s grounds. Jessica Small, daughter of Pie Cones owner and creator, Frances Walker, talked about the guidelines.

“We don’t use any sugar — it has to be organic and locally sourced with no sugar,” said Small. “We use honey and maple syrup and molasses to sweeten [the pies].” 

The pie cones Small sells resemble flatter, wider ice cream cones, slightly smaller than a piece of pizza. The cones are then filled with a choice of pie fillings, such as blueberry or strawberry rhubarb, and can be layered with a creamier option, such as cheesecake, pumpkin cheesecake or chocolate. They also sell Indian pudding sweetened without any added sugar. 

MOFGA’s website calls the Pie Cone “one of the unique products to surface” from the fair, and although Walker opened a take-out Pie Cone stand in East Belfast years ago, she has since designated it as a Common Ground Fair-specific business, now preparing year-round for this single weekend in the fall. 

Although Pie Cones is an impressive example of creativity in following MOFGA’s guidelines, there are many other notable food options at the fair that make it an organic foodie’s dream. From tofu fries and veggie burgers to butternut-squash pizza on a whole-wheat crust to classics like the bloomin onion and fried dough, the fair has something for everyone. The variety of food makes it easy to overlook the guidelines each vendor had to adhere to. There were lemonades and limeades sweetened with honey, as well as Maine-made sodas, chai tea sweetened with cinnamon and spices and more. 

The rules on MOFGA’s food policy are spelled out in a fairly simple decision tree, which begins by asking vendors if the product, ingredient or item is organic and produced in Maine, and if not, is there a reasonable substitute that is? According to the food policy, ingredients or items from outside of Maine are acceptable, but only if the farmers who produce it share the mission of MOFGA and produce their items organically and sustainably; the application process even states that “Area Coordinators give preference to applicants who make their products with sustainably harvested natural resources from Maine.” 

To get approved to sell food products at the fair, even if those products are just a small part of a vendor’s items for sale, the vendor must read and adhere to the food policy before applying, which very specifically spells out the farming and production practices that MOFGA accepts and defines as sustainable. The Fair office then approves of the application after “a thorough review of ingredients and ingredient sources,” according to MOFGA.org. 

In addition to being locally sourced and organic, the Common Ground Fair also has significantly more vegan and vegetarian options than an average fair. There were options such as hummus and eggplant wraps, falafel, vegetarian pizzas, vegetarian curries, a mushroom station and more. A standout each year is Hiewa Tofu, a stand that sells unique twists on the staple vegetarian protein source, including maple cinnamon tofu sticks and tofu fries. 

If you missed the fair this year, they’ll be back in 2020, three weeks after Labor Day, waiting with open arms to fill not only your (reusable) shopping bags but also your stomachs. So come hungry and leave knowing that the Common Ground Country Fair has only the highest of standards.

Last November, a movie called “Green Book” hit theaters in the United States and made quite the splash. In February, “Green Book” won Best Picture at the 91st Academy Awards. But rewind back a couple months, and the future award-winning movie was nowhere to be found at movie theaters in Bangor, or at many of the larger theaters around the state. Yet just an hour south, the Railroad Square Cinema can always be counted on as a home for the low-key indie movies before they’re in the news.

Tucked just past the railroad tracks in Waterville, Railroad Square Cinema is a quaint, three-screen independent movie theater that has been bringing indie movies to central Maine since 1978. Over the past 40 years, “The Square,” as it is sometimes referred to, has grown from one screen to three, been rebuilt after a fire and made the switch from film to digital. But it all started with a group of five friends who just wanted to watch good films.

 “It really was for personal reasons,” Alan Sanborn, one of the original five owners, explained. “It was mainly so we could see movies.”

In addition to Sanborn, the group included Gail Chase, Ken Eisen, Lea Girardin and Stu Silverstein. Together, they decided that the best way to see good movies was to start their own movie theater; and so they did.

They opened the original theater in a former beverage warehouse with some money and equipment that each of them had scavenged together. The five did all of the construction themselves, with blueprints drawn up by Sanborn.

The original theater had a long way to go before it became what it is now. Initially, the cinema had just one screen, and due to the limited projectors that the group was able to scavenge up, the cinema was restricted to running a smaller size film than that of the industry standard. This left them no option but to wait until films came out in this smaller gage — usually about six months.

“We were falling further and further behind,” Sanborn said.

However, in 1994, the cinema received a blessing in disguise. A fire burned down the original location in the middle of the night, leaving the group wondering if they should attempt to move forward and reopen. Next to the cinema, a bookstore had put up a donation jar for the cinema’s reopening, and after someone put in a check for $1,000, the group realized that it wasn’t really a question. Nine months and $150,000 of donations later, Railroad Square Cinema reopened where it is today.

Now, the cinema is the quintessential indie-theater that central Maine needs. For students at the University of Maine, opportunities to see movies that aren’t necessarily Hollywood hits are slim. Movies such as “Green Book” might only make it to Bangor or Orono if they get nominated for an Academy Award, and many others don’t make it this far at all. Yet the ride to Waterville is short and well worth the experience.

And now, the Square is just that — an experience. Rather than stopping short at just films, the lobby of the cinema is home to a collection of art for sale by various Maine visual artists. Rather than the bright carpets and children’s birthday parties that are found in a typical movie theater, the Railroad Square Cinema lobby has the vibe of a modern art museum, a bright, quiet space with a modern color scheme. The cinema also sells a selection of wine and beer in addition to the typical movie snacks — although the popcorn, light and airy, seems to be a staple of the Square as it differs greatly from the bright yellow, salty popcorn of an average theater.

Of the original five owners, only Sanborn and Eisen still work for the theater, while the others have worked there on and off over the years. But regardless of the staff, the movie selection has stayed consistent throughout. So how does a three-theater indie cinema choose which movies are worth showing?

“When we started out, we would have meetings every so often with the five of us,” Sanborn said. “We all beat up on each other to see which films we were going to have and push our agenda.”

Within a few years, the role fell to Eisen, who now is the full-time programmer for the theater.

“Programming involves seeing an awful lot of films, staying on top of what’s out and coming out and in the works, and figuring out what will work to keep the theater solvent balanced,” Eisen said.

Eisen recently attended the Toronto International Film Festival, a nine-day festival that involved seeing about five films each day. Eisen also explained that part of the process is determining what needs to be screened “because it’s great art, regardless of whether it appeals to as large a constituency as some other films.” With his choices, Eisen brings movies to central Maine that likely will never reach the larger theaters. However, oftentimes these films end up at the Oscars, proving his taste to be spot-on.

Up next for the Square is a move to downtown Waterville. The new cinema will be in a new building, owned by Colby College, and will include rehearsal spaces for the Waterville Opera House, as well as the Colby College Museum of Art. The move is slated for 2021.

Overall, the Railroad Square Cinema aims to make going to the movies “an experience rather than a distraction,” as Eisen explained. And for the past 41 years, they’ve succeeded.

For more information on the cinema, check out railroadsquarecinema.com or mainefilmcenter.org.

A few years ago, back home in Maine, my family was observing Passover per usual. By this, I mean we were abstaining from eating any bread or grain products for the eight days of the holiday (this includes oatmeal, pasta, and even beer and most liquor). As a family, we’ve always observed the holiday; regardless of the religious obligation, it’s a fun change for eight days of the year, a fun challenge to follow a totally different diet, to be on your toes every time you’re offered food or head to the kitchen cupboard for a snack.

During this particular Passover a few years ago, in the middle of the eight-day breadless stint, I spent an afternoon running errands with my dad. Upon arriving home with my dad in his car, I went to the trunk to bring in some groceries and, lo and behold, in the corner of the trunk I found a half-eaten sandwich with just about the thickest bread I’ve ever seen. My dad had clearly given in to temptation and tried to keep it hidden from us by storing it in the trunk of his car. We’ve given him a hard time about it every Passover since.

In Israel, even finding a sandwich to hide in the corner of your trunk would have been pretty difficult. As of Friday at sundown, Passover ended here in Israel, allowing us to indulge in some Israeli pita once again (and pasta, and beer, and so on). But in the week of Passover, I found that not only was it incredibly easy to keep, but also quite fascinating. The grocery stores had entire aisles covered with plastic, the restaurants had replaced bread with grain-free tortillas or potato bread, and in the Shuk (the bustling outdoor market in the middle of Tel Aviv), things such as matzah-wrapped hot dogs and stuffed-matzah snacks were being sold left and right. I have never been in a place that so wholly embraces Passover, but also does so in such a creative way. It’s never been less of a challenge keeping Passover. All over the city, the words “Chag Sameach” (but written in Hebrew letters), meaning “happy holiday,” were on storefronts and even on the electronic screens on the front of busses. Israel really knows how to do its holidays.

Not only was Friday night the final night of Passover, but it also marks exactly one month until I leave Israel and head back to the woods of Maine. With the end approaching faster than any of us would like it to, my friends and I are getting increasingly sentimental about this country, this being aided by the fact that Israel’s Independence Day (Yom Hatzmaut) is coming up in early May, so Israeli flags have been put up lining most streets throughout the city, increasing our Israeli pride. But in general, during this week off from school (for Passover), I’ve had a lot of time to explore the city even more and think about what I’ve learned since being here.

I chose Israel for a wide array of reasons. A huge reason is that being Jewish, I automatically feel connected to this place and felt that way before I even came the first time (on Birthright). Another reason is that Israel is a controversial country whose future always seems a little unclear, and as a place that means a lot to me regardless of how much time I’d spent here, I wanted to come to support it and understand it from within its borders. And, of course, I wanted to get some sort of understanding of the politics here, the tensions and the issues that seem to plague the Middle East. And I did, and it’s been eye-opening beyond belief. Studying abroad in Israel is different in that way than in many other places in the world; this country is really, truly hated by many people in a way that is painful to think about considering why the country exists to begin with. Its borders are tense, and while here, hundreds, possibly thousands, of missiles have been fired at Israel from the north and south. I’ve watched videos of girls my age, just a few hours south of me, spending the night in a bomb shelter with the noise of bombs echoing in the background. I’ve listened to Israeli Defense Forces commanders discuss the issues and the procedures they go through to ensure that when they’re responding to attacks on Israel, they’re not intentionally attacking civilians, regardless of who in Israel was targeted. I’ve learned about Israel’s efforts to give aid to Syria and about the life of an Anti-Terrorism commander, how his wife sits by the door each time he responds to an attack and waits there until he comes home.

And I’ve experienced firsthand how Israelis embrace visitors, how patient they are with my slow Hebrew and how welcoming they are to anybody who wants to come to their country. Every Friday night, if you want to attend a Shabbat dinner and you tell a single Israeli this, you’ll receive a handful of invites into strangers’ homes to enjoy Shabbat with them. The same went for Passover Seders.

Overall, it’s a controversial place, and that probably won’t change for a long time. But being here, where it’s so starkly different than America in so many ways, has caused me to really fall in love with the country and the people that inhabit it. And as I look ahead on my calendar to the date that I fly home, I’m already planning my next trip back.

A few years ago, I went to see the movie “Brooklyn” on New Year’s Eve with my sister. I cried intermittently throughout the whole movie — not because it was sad, but because it’s just a movie that evokes a lot of emotion. Shortly after, I read the book (I don’t usually do things backward like that but sometimes it happens), and I decided that for once, I preferred the movie. I loved them both, but the movie included a scene that the book did not, and I found it to be crucial to the conclusion of the story.

For those of you who haven’t seen it, “Brooklyn,” in summation, is about a young woman who moves from Ireland to Brooklyn, New York, in the 1950s. On the way there, she’s kind of a mess; she’s alone on a ship full of people, she’s violently seasick, she’s overwhelmed, and quite frankly, she seems kind of lost in every way. In contrast, at the very end of the movie, the young woman visits her family in Ireland and once again returns to Brooklyn, but this time around, Brooklyn is what she considers home. On the ship, she encounters a young woman who’s just like she was on that first trip to New York: clueless, scared and in need of some serious help. So she gives the young woman a few simple pieces of advice, nothing too sappy, all reflecting what she learned on her first trip over, and the movie ends with that. It’s one of the most wholesome scenes of any movie I’ve ever watched. I cried again at this part, obviously.

When I showed up in Tel Aviv in January, I got my two giant suitcases from baggage claim and then kind of just stopped in my tracks in the middle of the airport, realizing I had absolutely no clue what to do next. I knew I needed a train or a taxi, and I had an address I needed to get to, but I really had no clue how to actually make it from point A to point B. Nearly everything in Israel is in Hebrew, which is a completely different alphabet so it’s impossible to even infer what a sign might say. Somehow, by asking someone every 15 steps I took if I was going the right way I made it almost to my destination by taking the train. Then I gave up and found a taxi. And got totally ripped off, of course.

On Wednesday, I landed back in Tel Aviv from Cyprus and, similarly to when I returned from my last trip to Europe at the end of February, I felt a sense of relief when I looked out the window and spotted the skyscrapers of Tel Aviv below me, even managing to find my own building. When I got off the plane, I headed to the train platform and was about to get my ticket when I saw a girl about my age whose demeanor absolutely screamed that she was American and very lost. She looked just like I did three months ago.

I approached her, asked if she needed help, and she, visibly relieved, told me where she needed to go. It happened to be the same stop as me, so I got her a train ticket and rode with her until we got off, where I pointed her in the direction of where she was going and was able to tell her (almost to the exact minute) how long it’d take her to get there on foot. Then I turned in the direction of my building and went home.

The girl’s name was Hunter, and she’s from Florida but has come to Israel until August to live and work on a Kibbutz. A Kibbutz is a type of self-sustained community, found only in Israel where people work to fulfill the needs of the community and, in turn, live there in exchange for their work. They were originally based off agriculture and the first one was founded in 1910, shortly after people started immigrating to Israel (making Aliyah). All members of a Kibbutz have different jobs, from working in the kitchen to working in agriculture, and there’s even a dining hall for the members to eat community meals in. Originally, most things in a Kibbutz were shared, and even today many Kibbutz still live this way. About a week ago, I was re-watching an episode of “Gossip Girl” (great educational television) and one of the characters joked about moving to Israel to take up a relative’s invitation to live on a Kibbutz – the line was humorous, but life on a Kibbutz really is a perfect escape from the rush of the real world for a little. I can’t deny that I’d love to do what Hunter’s doing for a few months. Life on a Kibbutz is very unique, and there’s a lot to learn from living in such a simplistic community.

After I left Hunter at the intersection and she headed towards her destination, I immediately thought of the end of the movie “Brooklyn.” I thought of how I felt when I first got here, how foreign everything seemed to me, how lost I was, how grateful I was to everybody I asked for help. I would have been so relieved to find another American my age to help me out a bit that day. It’s an incredibly wholesome feeling being on the other end of it, being the one to help, realizing I actually know more than I thought about this city I’ve been living in. By no means am I a local, exactly — I still forget about the lack of busses and stores on Shabbat sometimes, and my Hebrew is slow and requires much patience — but when I’m in Tel Aviv, I no longer feel like somebody who’s merely studying abroad here. I feel at home.

Hello from Paphos, Cyprus! I’m writing this from my hostel while nursing a sunburn from many hours spent on the beach today. I’m here from April 10-17, and I’m hoping to soak up as much of the Mediterranean sun as possible.
A bit on Paphos before I dive into the reason I’m here — Paphos is a city (though a small one) in Cyprus, an island in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea located just to the west of Israel, about an hour away by plane. The island is full of ancient ruins, gorgeous beaches and plenty of nature to fill up every day of my visit. It also is the birthplace of the Greek goddess Aphrodite, and interestingly enough, half of the Island is Greek, while the other half is Turkish, though Cyprus itself is its own country. It’s a bit of a confusing concept at first.

So far, I’ve visited Aphrodite’s bath, hiked the Aphrodite trail through the coastal mountains in western Paphos and spent some time walking along the rocky coast of Coral Bay, which forms beautiful natural pools from the ocean and smooth, white rocks from thousands of years of being beat down by water. On Sunday, I’m renting a car and heading east to Limassol, a city just over a mile away. The only obstacle (aside from having no phone service and having to rely on real, old-fashioned, paper maps) is that they drive on the opposite side of the road here — hopefully I remember that while I’m behind the wheel.

The reason I’m in Cyprus is because we have a large chunk of time off from school for Passover break. Passover is a Jewish holiday — one of the major ones no matter where you are in the world — and is my personal favorite. The background story of Passover surrounds the Jewish people escaping from Egypt long ago, before they inhabited Israel.

The typical Passover traditions include a Seder, which is a meal that takes place on the first night of Passover in Israel, while in America there’s a Seder on both the first and second nights. During the Seder, the story of Passover is retold throughout the course of the evening, and each part of the story has different actions that go with it – many of them being eating different kinds of foods that are representative of parts of the story. For example, we eat bitter herbs (typically horseradish) as a symbol of the bitterness of the Jews’ enslavement in Egypt. Seders are usually attended by a large group of people, often extended family and friends. The evening usually last for a few hours, as the Seder not only includes the story of Passover, but also a break for dinner, the continuation of the story after dinner and other activities such as finding the “Afikomen,” which is a piece of matzah that’s hidden somewhere in the room for one of the young attendees to find after dinner. This is typically a very popular part of the Seder among the younger kids – when I was that age, it was really the only part I paid much attention to, if we’re being honest.

Now that I mentioned matzah, I should explain what exactly that is, because it’s a huge part of observing Passover. Possibly the most well-known tradition of Passover is that for eight days and eight nights (the duration of the holiday), you can’t eat anything that has been leavened, any sort of bread or yeast-containing food that has been allowed the time to rise. This is because when the Jews escaped Egypt, they didn’t have time for their bread to rise or else they might not make it out, so they rushed off with the unleavened bread that we now call matzah.
Israel takes the typical Passover traditions up a few notches. For example, prior to Passover, a ritual takes place in which Jews remove all leavened food products from their home and thoroughly clean the entire home to remove any traces of these foods. Yet in Israel, this doesn’t only occur in homes; many hotels partake in this tradition as well, and therefore the prices rise for the hotels during this time to cover the effort they had to make to do so. Additionally, many restaurants in Israel observe Passover by creating a special kosher menu, offering matzah dishes and potato bread as a substitute for anything leavened. The grocery stores, too, clean the entire store prior to Passover, just as people do in their homes, and during Passover, sheets are placed over all items in the store that are not kosher for Passover. Apparently it’s not completely forbidden to sell the items during Passover, but it’s not exactly socially accepted to buy them, either.

Passover has always been my favorite Jewish holiday. Year after year, it’s a fun challenge to see if I can remember not to eat anything leavened for a week, and it’s a nice change from what I’m used to. It certainly helps that matzah tastes delicious with almost anything on it, from butter and jam, to chocolate-covered matzah and matzah pizza. But considering how much I love Passover at home, I am absolutely ecstatic to have the opportunity to experience the holiday in Israel, where the story of Passover technically ends (as the Jews arrive after their escape) and the entire country embraces the traditions. I can’t wait to watch the country adapt to the holiday, and although our Passover break from school actually lasts until April 29, I was sure to schedule my trip to Cyprus in time to get me back for the Passover Seder on the first night, so I could spend the entire holiday in Israel and see it all for myself.

On Thursday night, Tel Aviv was the target of rockets, launched from Gaza, for the first time since 2014. The threat passed just a mile from my apartment.

Around 7:15 p.m., the air raid sirens abruptly started going off throughout the entire city of Tel Aviv. From my apartment, my roommates and I immediately recognized the difference between this siren and the typical ambulance or police sirens we hear on a regular basis in the city. This siren was booming, loud enough to be heard over all of the city noise, and had an all-encompassing type of power. It was clear that it wasn’t an average siren.

From inside of our apartment, we didn’t hear the impact of the rocket being intercepted by the Iron Dome (Israel’s aerial defense system), but in videos, you can hear a loud boom and clap sound. After just a few minutes, updates started rolling in, and we were able to confirm that the sirens we heard were, in fact, rocket sirens. Soon after, the mayor of Tel Aviv opened the city’s bomb shelters.

Phones started lighting up left and right. The Israeli Defense Forces’ (IDF) Twitter account tweeted live updates, giving followers the story; two rockets had been launched from the Gaza strip (a serious zone of tension located near Egypt). The Iron Dome is able to determine the projected path of the missiles and intercept any that are heading for inhabited areas, and Thursday it was put to the test once again. One of the rockets landed in an open area slightly north of Tel Aviv but had I been standing on my balcony, I would have been able to watch and hear the interception of the other missile, as it happened over a skyscraper no more than a mile from my apartment.

Initially, when we watched the videos of the rocket being intercepted in Tel Aviv, we didn’t realize that the building it was intercepted over was so close. Eventually, one of us said what we were all thinking, which was how familiar the building looked. We went out on the balcony and spotted it immediately, one of the closest buildings to ours.

Starting out the evening with an air raid and some intercepted rockets put everybody in an uneasy mood. With no casualties and the Iron Dome seeming unstoppable, we were anxious. Other students from our building joined us in our apartment to talk about what just happened, all of us still stunned. The mood was similar to when a huge storm is coming and everybody is gearing up for it, brought together by something that’s not supposed to be exciting but in a strange way, is. Throughout the evening many of us spoke with our parents as well as friends who reached out to us as videos of the rockets made their was to Twitter and the news. We just let it all sink in.

The attack was the first on Tel Aviv in five years, but in and around the Gaza Strip, attacks take place quite frequently. Looking at the IDF’s updates the next morning, I found out that the Tel Aviv rockets were the first of many to be fired that night. The IDF responded by striking terror sites in Gaza; they successfully hit 100 Hamas (a terrorist group in Gaza) military targets by the time morning rolled around, including an underground rocket manufacturing site, the headquarters responsible for orchestrating Hamas terrorism in Judea and Samaria, and the Hamas center of unmanned aerial aircraft. Throughout the night, in southern Israel just outside of the Gaza Strip, air raid sirens continued through the early hours of the morning as the Iron Dome intercepted more rockets that were launched in that area.

Coming to Israel I knew there would be risks, but Tel Aviv is not typically where the action takes place. In my first couple of weeks here, I remember marveling at an air raid attack near the border of Syria, but I certainly didn’t expect to have one take place right outside of my apartment. The conflict here is incredibly real and complex, and though having an attack so close to home (literally) was shocking, I can’t help but think about the Israeli cities near Gaza that spent the night with a soundtrack of air raid sirens.

On another note, my parents are in Israel visiting the country for the first time, and I’ll be joining them on a trip to the south of the country, as well as on a day trip to Petra, Jordan. So, after the break, I’ll have something a bit lighter to report on. Hopefully, I won’t be hearing any more sirens between now and then.

While pondering what to write about this week, I realized that I somehow made it almost two months in Israel without writing anything specifically about food. That is some sort of feat.

Israel has phenomenal food. Mediterranean cuisine is one of my favorites, but Tel Aviv in particular is quite the city for foodies. A very modern city, Tel Aviv has a trendy food scene. In some ways, it’s similar to places like Los Angeles, with a vast amount of vegan, plant-based, organic and whole food restaurants and cafes all over the city. According to israel21c.org, Israel actually has the most vegans per capita in the world and the vegan population is continually growing. But in general, trendy health food cafes, juiceries and smoothie bars are all over the city, vegan or not.

But the LA-type health food sphere is just one of Tel Aviv’s many food scenes. An interesting part of Judaism is the concept of keeping kosher, which involves a lot of very specific rules. One of the most well-known rules forbids eating meat and dairy together at the same meal, as they don’t want to take two things from the same animal. There are also rules against eating shellfish and any meat that hasn’t been blessed by a rabbi. In the United States, if you keep kosher you most likely have to eat vegetarian or pescatarian whenever you go out. In Israel however, most restaurants are kosher; Tel Aviv is the most secular city of Israel so it has the most non-kosher restaurants. Even here I’ve become so accustomed to seeing the Hebrew insignia for “kosher” on restaurant signs and windows that I barely notice it anymore. Even some of the McDonalds are kosher, meaning they don’t serve cheeseburgers or anything with meat and cheese together. Such specific rules might play into why Israel has such a large vegan and vegetarian population.

The most classic Israeli cuisine is falafel and shawarma. Both can be found in the United States as well as all over Europe and the rest of the Middle East, but I’ve found that each country seems to put their own spin on it, and I love Israel’s style. As someone who’s so accustomed to almost always having some sort of dairy and meat together when I eat, I didn’t realize how much this combination changes cuisine. Shawarma is shaved meat, typically lamb or chicken, and is served in either pita or laffa, a thick, flatbread type of wrap. Accompanying the meat is typically hummus (lots of it), cabbage slaw (with vinegar rather than mayonnaise), pickles (again, lots of them), eggplant (often fried) and tahini sauce. Falafel is served the same way, but falafel balls (fried chickpea balls) replace the meat. There are also additional toppings, but these ones are the staples.

Falafel and shawarma stands are all over the streets and although it’s typically served as fast food, there are traditional restaurants for it as well. Although falafel and shawarma can be found all over the world, in Israel it has a certain prominence as it’s a kosher fast food that incorporates classic Israeli flavors. The no-meat-and-dairy constraint is something I would never usually think about, but it comes up nearly everywhere. Salad dressings are another example; so many salad dressings are cream or dairy-based, but in Israel the common dressings are lemon juice and tahini, the same sauce that goes on the falafel, so that salads can include meat. Sandwiches are also incredibly popular in Israel. They’re a very common breakfast and pretty different than the sandwiches in America, as none of them have meat and dairy together. Some common sandwiches that I see at every café are “omelet” (literally a sandwich with a small, plain egg omelet inside, and, believe it or not, typically pickles and cream cheese on it as well) and “hard cheese” (a cheese sandwich with lettuce, tomato, and mayonnaise on it, and the cheese is something similar to cheddar and gouda mixed together). Tuna salad is popular as well, as fish is something that makes the cut for kosher Avocado sandwiches with cheese and veggies are also common.

With the popularity of sandwiches, falafel and shawarma, fast food here is relatively healthy. Salad bars are also very common, similar to places like Sweetgreen that we have in the States. Mediterranean cuisine in general is one of the healthiest types of food, emphasizing fresh vegetables and healthy fats like nuts and olives. Israel was recently ranked the 10th healthiest country in the world, according to the Bloomberg Healthiest Country Index for 2019, and although this takes much more into account than just food and diet, when I look at the food I’ve been eating the past (almost) two months, it’s easy to see why.

In a stark contrast to the single week of vacation I’m used to during spring semester at the University of Maine, Tel Aviv University is quite liberal with our vacation time. Instead of just a single spring break, we have two different long vacations in the course of the spring semester during which everybody takes advantage of the proximity to Europe. For this first break, my roommates and I booked flights from Tel Aviv to Rome, from Rome to Barcelona, and from Barcelona back to Tel Aviv for a nine-day trip.

Before coming to UMaine, I took a gap year to travel around Europe a bit. I went alone, with a backpack and a train pass, and hit nine countries in Europe, in addition to spending half a month in Israel to start the trip. So unlike my roommates, this brief trip to Europe wasn’t my first rodeo.

There are many different ways to travel in Europe. You can opt to stay in hotels, hostels, Airbnbs, or even Couch Surf (an app where people offer open beds or rooms in their house to backpackers and travelers for free). I try to have the most authentic backpacker experience when I go (and I like to take it easy on my wallet), so I stay in backpacker hostels and have used the Couch Surf app twice. This style isn’t for everyone though, and traveling with people who were not used to it was something new for me. On this trip, my roommate and I stayed in hostels everywhere we went, and she, as a first-time hostel-stayer, got to see firsthand that it can be kind of hit-or-miss.

The first morning in Italy, we took a train to Florence. Florence was what I had expected in some ways, but also completely different. The streets are gorgeous and remind me of the streets that I’d seen in some other countries during my gap year: narrow and lined with very old buildings, many of them colorful with sculptures casually littered along the buildings or in a plaza. What surprised me however, was how small the city was. After one day, my roommate and I felt like we already knew our way around. We covered about 13 miles in that first day, weaving through the streets, doing some shopping, splitting a bottle of wine casually as we walked around (can’t leave that detail out as it might be the best part of Europe).

My favorite thing to do when traveling might be simply walking around a city until I feel like I know it, at least a little bit. After this first 13-mile day, that became our norm. I think museums are amazing and there’s so much to learn from them, but when traveling alone or backpacking, I find that I’d rather just explore.

I think because Florence is so small, the amount of American study abroad students is more noticeable than in larger cities. This was something I didn’t love about the city; I don’t love traveling somewhere and feeling like I’m just amongst other tourists rather than the locals, or feeling as if everything I’m partaking in is a tourist trap. I always try to choose hole-in-the-wall places to eat or places that seem to be favorites for the locals rather than places that cater to tourists, but sometimes the places with the best reviews and ratings end up being packed because of their reputation, so I just have to accept it and enjoy the food.

We spent about a day and a half in Rome before flying to Barcelona, and the contrast between Florence and Rome was astonishing. As small and quaint as Florence is, Rome is large and busy, crazy and honestly a bit dirty. I found the ruins fascinating though, as you might stumble on some incredibly old structure on any corner. The Colosseum was a must and it didn’t disappoint, nor did the Roman Forum and the Pantheon; the history there is pretty breathtaking. I did prefer the quieter, cleaner, more colorful streets of Florence to the busy and packed streets of Rome, however.

The last half of the trip we spent in Barcelona. If I could do it over again I’d flip the order, and spend the first half there instead, when I was less exhausted — it was by far my favorite city and possibly one of my favorites that I’ve been to in all of Europe so far. It reminded me of a cross between Ecuador (where I spent some time in high school), Tel Aviv and America. The Ecuador resemblance came from the outskirts of the city, where the houses seem to climb the hills and mountains that surround it. The Tel Aviv resemblance comes from the warmth, the palm trees and the beach, and the slight American resemblance came from the city center, not in looks but in modernity and variety of shops and food places (but the fact that there was a Five Guys, a Taco Bell and a KFC in the city center probably also aided this resemblance).

Traveling, as I’ve come to know, is exhausting. I’ve done it alone for months and now I’ve done a bit of it with some friends, and there are pros and cons to both. Alone, it can be lonely; there are times when all you want is to share the experience with someone. At the same time, it’s liberating to be completely on your own, with your own agenda. With friends, it involves compromise, planning and a lot of time together. I can’t say I prefer one way over the other. It can be challenging, difficult and certainly uncomfortable. Staying in hostels, having to lock up your things, showering in common showers, listening to strangers snore from a few beds away — it’s a lot, and it can have you missing home. But it’s also amazing and rewarding, and when you walk through the streets of a city you’ve never been to before but immediately love (Barcelona I’m talking to you), there are few greater feelings.

One great feeling however, was when I realized how excited I was to be home, and then immediately realized that “home” in my mind wasn’t America, but Menachem Begin 144, the Midtown Tower in Tel Aviv. On the flight home, when we flew over the city and I saw our skyscraper, where we live, from the airplane, I think I smiled out the window all the way until our plane touched the ground.

Today I took my final exam for my Ulpan class. The past four weeks, as I’ve briefly described, me and the rest of the study abroad students here at Tel Aviv University have been attending an intensive Hebrew course every day from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. The course is mandatory for all students, but students aren’t the only ones who take it; people who make Aliyah to come live in Israel take Ulpan as well, so my class had a couple from France, a graduate student from Amsterdam, a young woman who just moved from California and a young woman from England.

Hebrew is a fascinating language, and a very difficult one. The alphabet is comprised of 22 letters, but five of those letters have two different forms: the normal form that appears in the middle of a word, and a separate form for when that letter is the last letter of the word. On top of this, there are two silent letters in the Hebrew alphabet and two letters for each the T, V, S, C, and the “Ch” throat-clearing sound that’s very common in the language. So as you can imagine, spelling is pretty difficult. I still don’t really know how to spell my name in Hebrew — I just kind of toss in one of the options for S to begin with, then maybe a silent letter somewhere in the middle and call it good.

In addition to the common “Ch” noise of Hebrew, there are also other sounds in the language that don’t exist in English, such as the letter tsadi, which makes a “tz” kind of sound, and the letter reish, which is similar to an English “r,” but is pronounced from the back of your throat, something I still haven’t mastered. And all of these letters, as you might already know, aren’t from the English alphabet and look completely different from the letters we know. So before you can learn any words or grammar in Hebrew, you have to learn how to read.

Possibly the most unique thing about the Hebrew language is that somewhere along the line, it stopped including vowels. This is kind of hilarious to me, although there’s certainly a reason for why this happened, but the thought of a language being created and then someone deciding hundreds or thousands of years later to just stop using any vowels is so absurd to me that I can’t help but laugh. When I learned Hebrew at home in my early days of Hebrew school, I learned how to read it with vowels. But in Israel, nothing has vowels. Signs, menus and bus schedules leave you to fend for yourself. You have to be able to recognize the word without the vowels, and if it has the same letters as another word, you figure it out by its context. Like I said, it’s not an easy language to master.

After four weeks, I’ve certainly learned more than I imagined I’d be able to in a month. I can read and understand paragraphs, I know many verbs and the infinitives that go with each of them, and my vocabulary has expanded greatly. I can order at a restaurant and tell the time, I can count to 100, I can describe a room or an apartment and I can tell someone what I did over the weekend. I can also make small talk about what I like to do or where I’m from. I also know very well how to say “I don’t speak Hebrew” in Hebrew, a convenient line to have on hand.

However, something I’ve been struggling with a lot is bringing Hebrew off of the page and speaking it out loud. This is my first time really focusing on learning a language, and I underestimated how difficult it is to find the words in my head when I’m trying to talk out loud. On paper, I make few mistakes and can write long paragraphs or dialogues, but when I get called on in class and try to answer a question, I often draw a complete blank and answer with a long, drawn-out “uh” before anything comes to me. This is slowly improving however, as I work on speaking Hebrew out loud a little more. Trying to listen to conversations around me when I’m on the bus or at a restaurant helps too.

Though Ulpan is over, I’ve chosen to continue taking Hebrew for the rest of the semester as one of my courses. It’ll be only an hour and a half each day instead of four and a half hours, but I hope to really be proficient by the time I head home. For now though, we have our week long break before we begin our semester of regular classes, and I’m heading to Rome, Florence and Barcelona. It’s my first time in both Italy and Spain, so I’ll report back on the experience next week. Yom Tov! (Good day)