Stranger on the Train

Ready for another story from my trip to Spain and Morocco? Most of my time in Morocco, sadly, was spent on the train. I rode from Tangier to Rabat on Saturday, from Rabat to Assilah on Sunday, and from Asilah to Tangier on Monday. If I did it again, I would definitely try to spend less time on the train and more time in Morocco.

The problems with the trains in Morocco, as in the rest of the Middle East, is you never know when they are going to come. You can be positive that they aren't going to be early, but they might arrive up to 5 hours late if it is a long-distance train, and that's totally normal and just something you have to plan for.

Looking out the train window

On the ride from Rabat to Assilah, I was feeling great. I had just gone to church and had a beautiful experience in the teeny congregation in Rabat with just a few expat families. I had ridden the train before, and this time I could actually see out the windows. What could go wrong?

After about an hour a man got on at one of the stops and, stopping by the empty seat next to me, said something to me in French. "I don't speak French," I said in Arabic. "Oh," he said in Arabic. "Is anyone sitting in this seat?" "No," I answered, which was good because he had already sat down.

"You don't speak French but you speak Arabic?" It was the same question I got all over Morocco. Why in the world would this foreigner speak Arabic but not French? "What do you do? Are you working here?" He was wearing a suit and seemed educated, so I assumed that this was harmless getting-to-know-your-seatmate small talk. I answered in short, simple sentences--I didn't want to be stuck talking to this guy for several hours--and started pulling my ipod toward me.

He didn't get the hint. He was friendly enough, but I have a hard enough time understanding Moroccan Arabic--and he kept flipping into French, which made him impossible to understand.

After several minutes, in which I learned that he was going to medical school in Casablanca or something like that and had studied in France, he asked me where I was getting off. "Assilah," I said. "Oh, I'm getting off at the stop right before that! I have a car there. If you want, we can get off together and I can give you a tour of the area before taking you to Assilah!"

No. No, no, no. I don't care if you are wearing a business suit and have business cards. I don't get off the train with strange men to get in their car alone with them. Not in Morocco, not in Egypt, not in Jordan, not in the West Bank. No.

I politely refused. Perhaps it was too polite. I turned to look out the window, feeling superbly uncomfortable. How to get this man to leave? 5 minutes later he nudged me with his knee. "What are you thinking about?" he asked. What?! Are we dating now? What I'm thinking about is none of your business! Unfortunately, I wasn't brave enough to say that (I really didn't want to cause a scene and I felt safe enough on the public train), so I said instead, "I'm looking at the green fields. We don't have a  lot of green where I live." And I pointedly turned and looked out the window again.

 

5 minutes later he was at it again. The food cart came around, and he asked if I wanted anything. "No." I certainly didn't want this strange man to start buying me food and drinks and think he was going to get a half-day date with me. "Coffee and a water," he said to the food cart guy, and handed me the water bottle. "Thanks," I said, wanting to put the water back on the food cart. "It's nothing," he said, which is true, because water costs like 20 cents. But still. I didn't want to be accepting favors from this man.

10 minutes later, after trying to start a few conversations with me, he asked, "Do you mind if I go out and smoke?" No, of course I don't mind, since I won't have to talk to you, but since when did you need your seatmate's permission to go out and smoke? (I guess you can smoke in the closed area between cars on trains in Morocco. At least you can't smoke in the cabins!)

While he was gone I thought about what I should do. Should I get up, grab my luggage, and move to another cart? But what if he saw me leaving? What if I couldn't get another seat? I wasn't worried, since we were on a public train and I speak Arabic, but I didn't want to deal with him any longer. Finally I decided to stay, realizing that he should know straight up that foreign girls don't get off the train with random strangers.

When he came back, he started talking to me again. "We're getting close to my stop. It'll be about another 30 minutes. (Oh no, I thought, do I have to sit by you for that long?) So, you're getting off the train with me, right? I'm excited to be giving you a tour."

"No." I said it firmly and unapologetically. "I'm sorry, but I can't." "Why not?" he asked. "Is it because you don't know who I am? Look," he said as he pulled out his id and medical school card. "This is me. Now you know who I am. I'm a safe person."

What the heck? How does showing me your id suddenly make me think that it would be a good idea to get off the train and ride in your car with you through a strange town? "No, it's not appropriate. I'm engaged," I said, trying the oldest trick in the book.

"I'm engaged too!" he said. Liar. "She lives in France." Liar. I don't believe you for one minute. "Ah, so you understand. I can't go out with strange men because I'm engaged." "No, no, it's ok! We're just going as friends!" "No, we aren't friends. I just met you on the train."

It went on like this for several more minutes. Finally, he said, "Are you rejecting me because you're afraid for safety reasons?" If I'm straight up with him, maybe he will leave me alone. "Yes. I don't know you. I don't care if you are trustworthy or not. I don't go out with strange men anywhere."

At this point he started getting mad. "I'm offended! This is my honor you're talking about! I can't believe you don't trust my honor. You are passing up a great opportunity. I can't believe you would say no to me." What, are we having a breakup fight now? "Well, I don't care about your honor. I care more about my safety. And the answer is no."

We argued back and forth for about 10 more minutes. I grew more and more astonished as the time went on. Does this man really think I'm going to change my mind? He finally threw in a last-ditch attempt at convincing me: "True, you shouldn't get off the train with any strange man. But you should trust your feelings. And I'm a trustworthy guy." And any man that gets mad and starts arguing when I won't get off the train and ride with him in his car definitely doesn't give me warm-fuzzy feelings. I said no a final time and turned to look out the window. I could feel him seething beside me. After a few minutes, I heard him get up angrily and walk away. Safe. He's gone for good. I quickly put my earphones in and left them there the rest of the ride. I didn't want anyone else to try and talk to me.

And what did I notice after the strange man left? I was sitting next to this sign on the window.

I know now that it says "emergency exit" in French (thanks google translate!) but to my limited French, it told me that the alarm bells in my head were correct. "Issue of Security," it seemed to say, as in "going out with a strange man in Morocco is a definite security issue."

Hebron

I have wanted to go to Hebron for years now. Not only is Hebron home to the Tomb of the Patriarchs, where tradition has it that Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, and Jacob and Leah (Rachel is buried in Bethlehem) are entombed (on the land that Abraham bought for Sarah when she died), but Hebron has been a hotly contested site in the past several years (it is a Palestinian city in the West Bank, but there are many Jews who want to live or visit there because of the holiness of the Tomb).

However, Hebron is behind the Separation Wall, deep in the West Bank, and when I was here several years ago it was a hotbed of violent activity. For these reasons I have felt like Hebron would be a very dangerous place to go and visit.

But I really wanted to go, so I checked the news (nothing violent for months!), found a friend (Sabra, who is from America and studying Arabic here in Jerusalem), and hopped on a bus.

It is actually quite easy to get to most big cities in the West Bank. There are two central Palestinian bus stations across from Damascus Gate in Jerusalem (one for busses going north and one for busses going south), and even if those busses don't go where you want to go, you can transfer in one of those cities to another bus.

The best part? Bus tickets are actually pretty cheap on Palestinian busses. It costs 7 shekels to get to Beit Sahour (next to Bethlehem and inside the Separation Wall) and just 6 shekels to get from there to Hebron.

The bus ride to Hebron was beautiful! I felt like I was in the Jordanian countryside...which I never thought I would miss, but it was so nice to get out of the city. I even saw one tree with leaves that had changed to red for fall! (It's stayed pretty green around here...olive leaves just don't ever change color!)

The bus dropped us off downtown, and we walked through the Old City to get to the Tomb. The dynamics in Hebron are really very strange. Hebron is a Palestinian city, as I stated before, deep in the West Bank, but since it is also holy to Jews, there are about 500 settlers there. And according to the Lonely Planet guidebook, there are about 4,000 Israeli soldiers posted there to keep the peace!

I usually try to stay away from too much political discourse on my blog. After all, I am studying Arabic and Hebrew in Jerusalem so I can promote peace on both sides. But I will say that I do not agree with the settlers' ideology at all. And actually, according to the UN and the rest of the world, the Israeli settlements scattered throughout the West Bank are illegal and only serve to delay the peace process. In order to create roads for the settlers to drive on, they have to take more land from the Palestinians, in addition to the land taken for the settlement. I have found Israelis, on the whole, to be quite kind. But it seems like the settlers' ideology is one of entitlement--that just because this land was holy to their ancestors, they should get it.

It is a difficult thing to live with anywhere, but I think the situation is particularly tense in Hebron. So it didn't surprise me at all to have to pass through two checkpoints to get into the synagogue side of the Tomb (we couldn't go to the mosque side because it was closed for Friday prayers). The Tomb is divided into two sides (with a wall in between and separate entrances) because both faiths lay claim to the site.

According to Wikipedia, it was Herod the Great that built the first big structure over the caves, the Byzantines that added a roof, and Salah Ad-Din that added the minarets and turned it into a mosque. The Byzantines worshipped there for hundreds of years, so I'm surprised that the Christians haven't laid claim to part of the building, too! (Oh wait, they did...in 1100 the Crusaders conquered the place and no longer allowed Muslims to worship there. But even though Salah Ad-Din conquered it back in 1188, he allowed Christians to continue worshipping there.)

Anyway. Enough with the history and politics. I think in keeping with the integrity of the site, none of the Islamic paintings on the walls have been covered up or painted over (and according to Wikipedia, the waqf, the Islamic ruling body, has control over the maintenance of the site). So the cenotaphs of Abraham and the rest are covered with Arabic writing, the walls are painted in Arabic, and Hebrew signs and Torah scrolls fill the rooms. It's very odd.

This holds the Torah scroll in the room between Abraham and Sarah's cenotaphs (the caves are underneath and inaccessible). See the Arabic on the wall? And see the Hebrew on the box for the Torah scroll?

This is on the cenotaph of Abraham. It's Arabic.

No one is allowed to get close to the cenotaphs. This is looking in on Abraham's.

This is looking in at the room between Abraham and Sarah's cenotaphs. Abraham's cenotaph is on the right, Sarah's is on the left.

Both the Jews and the Muslims have washing rituals to cleanse themselves before worship. This is a Muslim cleansing station (they wash their hands and their feet, which is why it is so low) that now serves as a Jewish cleansing station.

Standing at the top of the synagogue, looking out over the city. The Old City (where mostly Palestinians live) is on the left, the settlement is (I think) on the right.

Soldiers guarding the road. I don't know if everything was closed because it was Friday prayers or because the Israelis closed the road so the settlers could use it, like one of the residents told us, but it was a pretty empty street. I'll have to go back when it's not Friday and see what life is really like.

The left side, behind the barriers, is for the Palestinians and leads to the Old City and the mosque side of the Tomb. The rest of it is for the settlers and leads to the synagogue side of the Tomb.

Sabra and I were walking through the Old City when we saw something fluttering in the breeze above our heads (Sabra was so shocked she just stared):

There are lots of checkpoints (I don't know if they are active) throughout the city. Here is one of them. Behind this wall is an Israeli building.

My visit to Hebron was fascinating and very enlightening. I am anxious to go again, this time on a weekday so I can see normal life (most things shut down on Fridays for Friday prayers). It makes me feel ill when I think about the injustices and horrors done on both sides and how both sides are suffering for it now. But whenever I get too weighed down by these things, I see restaurants like the "Happy Bunny" and I laugh again. So just in case you feel too weighed down by this post, here's the Happy Bunny (taken from the bus window as we were leaving Hebron).

The Moshav Part 2: Sukkot

I had such a delightful time at the Moshav during Rosh Hashanah that I went back for Sukkot. Sukkot is the biblical "Feast of Tabernacles," in which the Israelites were commanded to live in booths for seven days so that, according to the Leviticus 23, "your generations may know that I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt."

In Israel, Sukkot is a festival of rejoicing. Having just finished Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur (both of which are very serious holidays), a week of Sukkot is like a week of partying here in Israel. One of my favorite parts of Sukkot, however, is the huge variety of sukkah that Jews build to eat (and sometimes sleep) in during the week.

This is a picture of Vered's family's sukkah.

A fun thing to do during Sukkot is to walk around West Jerusalem and the Old City and see the different types of sukkah set up all over. These next few pictures are just a few sukkot (plural of sukkah) in the Old City of Jerusalem.








This last one is overlooking the broad wall in Jerusalem, which dates back to the 8th century BC (and where the Assyrians and the Israelites duked it out during the reign of Hezekiah...the sukkah is inside the wall of Jerusalem, while I am standing where the Assyrians would have been, outside the wall). I get really excited about this wall because I love this story. Eat it, Assyrians!

Anyway. Many Jews in Israel eat in the sukkah, even the ones who aren't religious, but usually only the ultra-orthodox (and the children, who think it's great fun) sleep in the sukkah.

The trip out to the moshav was uneventful. Getting around Israel is quite simple, convenient, and cheap, comparatively--I went to the central bus station, got on a bus, paid about $5, and rode for about an hour before I got to the moshav. While Israeli bus drivers may not be the nicest people in the world (although some are!) and often make me feel like an idiot (I had to say the name of the moshav at least 6 times before the bus driver understood what I was saying, and he wasn't exactly patient with me!), they are usually pretty willing to tell you when you get to your stop. Just don't be offended if they grunt at you when you ask them to tell you when to get off.

This is what the bus stop closest to the moshav looks like: fresh air and miles and miles (kilometers and kilometers just doesn't have the same ring) of open space.

In my opinion, Jerusalem is a very exhausting city to live in (the clash of politics and history and culture seems to permeate everything), so it is wonderful to leave for a while and take a breath of fresh air. It's kind of like working in an office where everyone is smoking--no matter how much you love your work, it's such a relief to leave the smoke-filled rooms and step outside for a few hours!

My time at the moshav was wonderful. Vered and her family are superb hosts (and hopefully one day she will come visit Utah!) and although it was much less eventful than my adventure-filled stay during Rosh Hashanah, we ate our meals in the sukkah, which was delightful. And Vered is hilarious. Just a few examples: I have a bad habit of wiping my wet hands on my jeans after washing them in the kitchen (too many years of not having a dry dishcloth available, I guess). Anyway, Vered caught me once as I started wiping my hands on my jeans and said, "Use the dishcloth! Your pants will thank me." Another time I was telling her that in one of my apartments in Taiwan I poured bleach down the drain to kill the cockroaches that would come up out of the sink every day. When I mentioned that the bleach killed the cockroaches, she said, "Maybe. Or maybe they just came up the next day with blonde hair! 'Thank you' [she said as she flipped her long black hair], 'thanks for the new hair color!'"

I don't know if you all find that as funny as I did, but I was laughing about it for days and days.

My favorite thing, though, was when I told her I was Mormon. "You are?!! But you're so...normal! I thought Mormons wore long dresses and black suit coats with top hats..."

"Well, they did in the 1800's," I said, "but so did everyone else!" I laughed for hours when I realized that she thought Mormons and Amish were the same thing (we're not, by the way!).

[Side note: her mother did know what Mormons are and told me that she absolutely loves the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. "One day I was driving home and one of their broadcasts came on," she told me. "When I got home I just sat in the car to finish the broadcast, because I couldn't bear to miss even three minutes of the concert to come inside and turn on the radio!"]

So happy Sukkot, everyone. The holidays are over now and life is back to normal. My grad classes start tomorrow, and I will admit that I am just a little bit terrified! I'm not sure what to even expect, but I'm sure it will be the ride of my life...

Dear Bus 42

Dear Bus 42,

I didn't want to have to break the news to you in such a public fashion, but it's time the world knew. It's over between us. You've disappointed me too many times for me to fall for your tricks again.

When I first heard about you, I thought you were too good to be true. Could there really be a bus that stopped two blocks away from my house and went straight to Hebrew University with only 10 stops in between? I was delighted that my commute would bypass all the downtown traffic and would only take 25 minutes each day! And the best part of all was that I had to share you with so few people. I got my own seat and even my own row most days. None of this crammed-like-cattle-falling-on-other-passengers nonsense like I get on the other busses. Nope. You were special.

I should have been suspicious when I found out that you only run once an hour and the first bus doesn't come until 8:19. I rationalized that I could cut it that close because you were so fast and convenient. But I wasn't happy when you were 20 minutes late the first morning. I waited at the bus stop in the heat for 30 minutes because I didn't want to be late. I finally moved off the bench and stood in the only shade nearby--the shade from the pole of the bus stop sign. However, when you finally came, you were all smiles and I decided that I could be forgiving. Maybe you got caught in traffic. Maybe there was a bad accident. The quick trip to the university made it almost worth the wait, and I was only 10 minutes late for class.

The next day I was ready. I stood in the shade of the bus stop sign and waited and waited. And waited. 45 minutes had passed before I finally had the sense to check and see if you even worked on Fridays. Thank you, free wireless at the bus stop. And guess what? I'm still wondering why you are one of the only busses in the city that doesn't even run on Fridays.

I was patient. I walked to another bus stop and took bus 19 to class. It was crowded, traffic was bad, and I was 45 minutes late for class.

But I was ready on Sunday. I checked the bus schedule ahead of time and yep, sure enough, it said Bus 42 would be running according to schedule. And I trusted you. You had let me down twice, but I was forgiving. I thought that this relationship was really meant to be.

Guess what Sunday found me doing? Waiting in the 4-inch-wide shade of the bus stop sign. And waiting. And waiting. I wasn't the only one you fooled with your tricks, though. Two other guys were waiting with me in the heat. And I was standing in the only shade nearby. And by the time I left, after waiting for 40 minutes, one of the guys left with me and offered to let me share a taxi with him to get to the university on time. I graciously refused, since I obviously don't have qualms with getting to class late and I didn't want to fork over that much for a taxi. He was disappointed, obviously, since that meant he had to pay the whole fare himself, but I was more disappointed in you, Bus 42. This was the last straw.

I've moved on to other things after putting up with your tricks for too long. Although Bus 19 didn't initially appear as attractive as you, it's a lot more reliable. It starts running at 6:30 in the morning, it comes every 10-15 minutes, and guess what? The bus stop for Bus 19 is in the shade. It's all in the shade.

So, dear Bus 42, I've learned my lesson. Thanks for teaching me about broken promises and bitter end to relationships. You can be late for others, but I'm sticking with Bus 19 now, even though it takes sometimes twice as long and I do kind of feel like cattle when I ride it with all those other passengers.

But your twin brother, Bus 42 that runs from the university to my home, and I are still going strong. He's a lot more reliable than you and gets me home every night.

Your loss, Bus 42.

My Daily Commute

So I have about 100 blog posts that I want to write about. And approximately 8 days until I am in Israel with tons and tons of things to blog about but even less time. Which means, dear readers, you will be gypped of some blog posts. Sorry.

But this post will be about my daily commute. Because really, sometimes it is the most interesting part of my day.

For most of the summer I lived in Georgetown, which is right in the middle of The District. My commute to work was pretty simple: leave the house by 6:33, walk 6.5 minutes to the Foggy Bottom metro stop, run down the escalator stairs, catch either the blue or orange line to L'Enfant plaza (about an 11 minute ride), take my work shuttle to the Coast Guard building (7-9 minutes), and then walk to my building. 4 legs of the journey, 27 minutes of travel, and I'm at work.

It was great.

Unfortunately commute-wise (but fortunately living-situation wise) I couldn't stay in Georgetown forever. There came a time when I had to move on. I found a beautiful house (for a beautiful price) up in Maryland, just two miles away from a Metro stop. It was a beautiful house, a beautiful neighborhood, and a beautiful life, but naturally it changed my commute from 27 minutes to 1-1.5 hours (depending on the wait time between transfers).

My new commute went something like this: Run out of my house and down the hill to the bus stop, catch the 6:48 bus to the Wheaton metro station, run down the escalator stairs of the longest single-span escalator in the Western Hemisphere (and which was broken most days), jump on the red line metro to Ft. Totten, transfer to the green line and ride it to L'Enfant plaza, get on my work shuttle, get off at the Coast Guard building, and walk into work.

If the bus came right at 6:48, didn't have more than 2 stops for people, and only had to wait for one red light, I would get to the metro stop with enough time to run down the escalator and make the 6:59 metro--that is, if the escalator was working. Unfortunately a working escalator is quite a rare find in the Washington, DC metro, so I had to run down this thing every day.

Looking up

Looking down

Intimidating, no? Friends, this is what I faced every day. I think I lost 5 pounds running up and down those steps. It was such a great free exercise program.

Anyway, if I made the 6:59 metro, I could make it to Ft. Totten, run down the stairs, catch the green line train to L'Enfant, get on the shuttle, and make it to work by 7:48. However, if I missed the 6:59 train, I had to wait 6 minutes for the next train, and then just miss a green line train at Ft. Totten and wait another 6 minutes for the next train and then have to wait another 5 minutes for the shuttle to fill up at L'Enfant, getting me to work a little after 8.

Yep, commuting in DC requires enormous amounts of strategic planning (and a fair bit of running!).

The commute home was the same, except sometimes I walked the two miles from the metro stop to my house. The bus only comes every 30 minutes, and if I just missed it it was faster to walk.

Unfortunately, it only comes every 30 minutes in the morning, too, so if I missed the 6:48 bus I either had to wait until 7:18 or walk in the heat and humidity. It's not a bad walk, but the damage done to my straight hair just wasn't worth it to me. Because really, the choice between dealing with hair ruined by humidity all day or being late to work and having to work late to make up for it is a simple choice. I hate dealing with hair ruined by humidity.

I used to try and make the 6:18 bus, thus getting me to work 30 minutes earlier and giving me more time to study Hebrew after work before going home, but after I missed it four days in a row (and finally realized that it came at 6:16, not 6:18, which is why I missed it every day), I decided it wasn't worth it.

My commute might sound a little dreadful, but it is actually quite productive. As I am about to take off for graduate school in Jerusalem, my one focus in life right now besides work is Hebrew. I'm hoping to test into a higher level of Hebrew than I tested into at the beginning of the summer, so I bought two Hebrew textbooks and take them with me everywhere. I study it on the bus, on the metro, on the shuttle, and for an hour and a half after work before I commute home. When my building was evacuated after the hurricane last week, my Hebrew textbook was the only thing I took outside with me. :)

Commuting is also fun because of the people you meet--especially if you see them every day as you run down the escalator steps to catch the train! There are two especially quirky things about me that are memorable: my noisy shoes and my Hebrew textbook. As usual, my shoes broke a little while ago. The heel covering broke off of both of my shoes on both pairs that I wear to work, making the plastic/metal exposed bottom of my already loud shoes clank loudly against tile floors, cement sidewalks, and escalator stairs.

Especially escalator stairs.

When I run down the Wheaton escalator in the mornings, I never have to ask people to move aside so I can catch my train because they can hear me coming from the second I walk into the station! My purposeful stride is a very measured "clank clank clank," but running down the escalator sounds like "clankclunkclankclunkclankclunkclank."

At the L'Enfant plaza metro there is a shuttle coordinator that stands outside the shuttle I take to work. One morning as I passed her and said "good morning," she said, "I can always tell when you're coming because I can hear your shoes!"

Yeah. They're pretty noisy.

Anyway. In addition to my shoes, my Hebrew textbook is also somewhat of an anomaly. For some reason it is a huge conversation starter, even though me sitting on the metro with my headphones in, my concentration face on, and my face buried in a huge 500 page Hebrew textbook is not exactly the image of the most approachable person on the train, right?

Wrong. I will share three stories to illustrate my point.

One day I was coming home from work and I sat down by a woman wearing a hijab. I pulled out my Hebrew book and started memorizing vocabulary, when all of a sudden the woman looked at what I was reading, pulled out her headphones, and asked, "Are you studying Hebrew?"

I pulled my own headphones out, answered in the affirmative, and was shocked to hear her say, "I've always wanted to learn Hebrew!"

Turns out she was from Qatar, had studied at a university in Virginia, and had just graduated in international relations. Random that she wanted to study Hebrew, but very cool. We exchanged numbers and now we're friends on facebook--which means that this is the start to a very meaningful friendship. :)

One day I was standing against the wall next to the escalator stairs, trying to finish a muffin as quickly as possible before going into the metro station. I had my back to the doors to outside and I was holding my Hebrew book with one hand and my muffin with the other. I was clearly not the picture of approachability. This guy walked past me, did a double take, and stopped and asked, "Are you studying Hebrew?" When I answered in the affirmative, he somewhat too-enthusiastically said, "Me too! I study at the such-and-such place downtown! Where are you studying?"

I think he almost fell over with excitement when I told him I was going to study in Jerusalem!

And the third experience. I had just left a Nationals game that I had gone to with my coworkers. It was late at night and I was, naturally, studying Hebrew with my headphones in. The guy sitting in the seat behind me tapped me on the shoulder and asked, "Did you go to Brandeis?" (The textbook was a Brandeis Hebrew textbook). Unfortunately, this time I had to answer no, but it turns out that he had gone to Brandeis, and randomly, the guy sitting next to him had lived near Brandeis and his parents had taught there. It was like a metro reunion of me reading a Brandeis textbook, a guy who studied Biology at Brandeis, and a guy whose parents had taught there.

Crazy.

Anyway, my commute this summer has been filled with crazy stories that will hopefully one day be told. Until then, though, you can all be jealous that you don't have random strangers talking to you about Hebrew on your daily commute!