Same Blog, New Place

I've been in Jerusalem for ten days now, yet because of a huge fiasco with my rooming situation it feels like I'm only now starting to feel settled. And I'm supposed to be moving tomorrow, so this feeling may be fleeting. However, since I get wireless from my new balcony, I've decided it is time to begin updating the elusive blog everyone keeps waiting to see.
I will start with my infamous roommate Nina and see if I can piece together the long drawn out soap opera into a coherent story.
I live in the Student Village, which is about a 20 minute walk from the main Mount Scopus Campus. The buildings are set up into flats with anywhere from 2-5 single rooms, a kitchen, 1-2 toilets, 1 shower, and a common area. When I first arrived on Wednesday, June 20th, I was the first one out of the international students to move into my flat, which was one with five rooms. However, when I arrived it was apparent that someone else was already living in the apartment, although no one was there. This was a little surprising and it smelled like stale smoke which was disappointing, but my apprehension was eased when I saw that whoever lived there really liked the tv show "Friends" because she had the dvds under the tv. So, I unlocked my door and found that it was a fairly big room with a bed, desk, a nightstand, and a big closet thing (i can't remember what they're called and I always associate them with Germany)- but you know it was a normal room. The only thing missing was my mattress (which is one of the most horrifying sights when you are jetlagged.) So the madrich, which is the equivalent of an RA here, asked if everything was ok and I said, yes but that I didn't have a mattress. So she looked in the room next door, which was open and saw that this girl had two. You see we have these random wooden slats screwed into the wall right next to our beds, so Nina put the second mattress up against the wall so that she would not hit the wooden slat at night, I'm assuming. The madrich took her second mattress and we put it on my bed and everything was great. I began unpacking and then Sean arrived, a Korean from Dallas, but who I later found out lived in DC for a year. Sean is studying Arabic and is 26 years old. (Oh and for those wondering I had volunteered to live in a co-ed dorm, so I wasn't shocked and appalled when a guy moved in.) He's a bigger guy and is one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet. I would later secretly give him the nickname of "Papa Bear," because he always took care of us and always volunteered to talk to Nina when we had a problem. Ironically, as you will later see, Sean's room was the "shelter" room, which every house in Israel has to have. It's like a bomb shelter, with really thick walls, and we're supposed to go in there in case of emergency.
So Sean and I say hello and then we're both unpacking, when a third roommate shows up, ah yes, here enters the lovely Nina. Nina is a 24 year old, Israeli student. I don't know what she's studying, but this means that she has already served in the Israeli Defense Forces, is now living independently from her parents, so must pay for her schooling and living expenses on her own. The army apparently gives them some small stipend, but it's not much. Nina is a bit bigger, short, and has black curly brown hair that's about shoulder length. Nina was not having a good day on this particular day. I think she met Sean first and then a few minutes later left, and then a few minutes later knocked rapidly on both of our doors. So when I came out, she says, "Um hi, I'm Nina, did you take my mattress?" And I said, "Yes, because I didn't have one." So then she said "Ok, and that she had a few things." She brought us into the kitchen and explained that she kept kosher, which meant we were not to use any of her dishes or silverwear, and we must cook in our own pots and pans. We also had to clean up after ourselves, you know then the usual rules. Sean had put a newspaper he had found in his room, on the floor next to the trashcan, because I assume he was thinking it would be recycled, but Nina said irritably that it belonged in the trashcan and not on the floor, implying that Sean was already making a mess of the flat. So Sean tried to explain, but she didn't listen, and so Sean just apologized. She ended her lecture by saying, "And I'm smoking..." and then waved her hand as if to say "so if you have a problem with that it's your problem." And Sean and I said ok and went back to our rooms. Nina went and got herself another mattress. I think at some point there was more yelling, but I don't know what it was over. Sean left. And then our other Israeli roommate came home and I could hear Nina complaining/yelling to her, so I was thinking, 'Sean was smart. I need get out of here.' So I'm about to leave to go to registration, when Nina knocks on my door, reintroduces herself, asks what my name is, apologizes for the way she was acting, and then invited me to eat lunch with her. She had fixed pasta with peppers and onions and it was quite tasty. So I ate lunch with Nina and our other Israeli roommate, who's name I can't remember because I never saw her again after that. She had just finished her program, so she told me she would be moving out soon. Lunch was pleasant. That's how I learned Nina's age. She explained to me that she was really stressed over school because a friend was supposed to print some assignments off for her and turn them in, but he hadn't done it. Nina then had to run around campus all morning trying to print off her work and turn it in. Luckily the teacher accepted it, but she was still upset.
Now they call Israelis this s-fruit word, which I'm too lazy to go look up, but it means prickly pear. Like, on the outside they can seem rude and kurt, but on the inside they're nice people once you get past the exterior. At this point, I was thinking Nina was like that, I'd just have to learn to deal with her smoking, and that everything would be fine.
Everything would not be fine. Nina yelled at Sean about the boiler at some point. Either that night or the next day, she yelled at Sean at about 10:30 pm because he had 3 or 4 friends over and they were talking and drinking in the living room. They weren't getting drunk, especially not by 10:30. Nina yelled about how she was a student and she needed to sleep and blah blah blah. Sean cleaned up after himself, except for two beer cartons, which he left, intentionally, outside the door of his room, because Nina had yelled at him at least three times now. I slept through all of that, though.
By the time Josh, a Boston Jew who will be a senior at Harvard and is attending some kind of Harvard program about Judaism and Zionism here, arrived, our other Israeli roommate had moved out. And Sean and I were both avoiding Nina. Actually, Josh moved in over the weekend. Nina was really disappointed to learn that we were not going anywhere over the weekend and she told me, and left signs up, that we had to be really quiet during the day because she was working all night and sleeping during the day. I'm not entirely certain why she had to switch the normal routine of life, but maybe she's a night person. So when I first met Josh, Nina was asleep and I was scared Josh would wake her up so I did not feel really comfortable talking to him at first, which I felt bad about.
At some point Nina yelled at both Josh and I for the boiler, which I had accidentally left on, so I apologized and went back to sleep. Nina had put a note up about the boiler, explaining how she payed bills and we didn't. Nina also put up at some point a list of rules. She really likes exclamation marks.