Shalom Hartman this summer

[cellio]

I just registered for the Shalom Hartman Institute summer program in Jerusalem (after confirming a sane refund policy in case the region goes pear-shaped in the meantime). My rabbi recommended this program a few years ago and I've been eying it every year, and this year the stars aligned (dates, interesting topic, timely responses to email queries

Comments

[mortuus]

How exciting! I've done the solo traveler thing, and it's awesome. I'm always more nervous when I first arrive (for some reason, even if my travel companion is as new to the place as I am, it's just less stressful to be wandering cluelessly with someone else), but once things start going, it's a lot of fun to just do what you want without having to coordinate with someone else's schedule and interests

[cellio]

Thanks for the advice. I have the impression that one can also often pay dollars and get shekels in change, at least in Jerusalem, so that's another way to get local currency. Otherwise, yeah, caah, ATMs, credit cards, but I wasn't planning to mess with traveler's checks.

[dragonazure]

In Europe, it is more customary to find people using "smart cards"--a debit card with a chip in it instead of a magnetic stripe. Credit cards are still looked upon with suspicion, and some merchants will outright refuse to accept them as payment (since it costs them money to accept them). If you do use a credit card, you may need to show the merchant how to record the transaction (aka "swipe" the card through the reader which is normally at the top right of the handheld device they use)--I ran into that issue a number of times last year.

You can still get a cash advance from an ATM using a normal credit card, though.

[ralphmelton]

I don't have any great advice to share, so I'll just say "Yay! How exciting!"

[cellio]

Thanks!

[magid]

Most major signage there is trilingual, actually: Hebrew, English, and Arabic.

And I agree that solo travel can be excellent; I end up interacting with local people more when I'm alone than when I'm with other people, which I tend to enjoy.

[cellio]

Thanks for all the helpful advice!

I love the phrase "the future is unevenly distributed". :-)

Thanks for the Kindle reminder; that's small enough to pack alongside the laptop and gives me extra versatility.

[ladymondegreen]

Ironically, this is the first year in about 15 years that my father isn't going.

I hope you have a wonderful time!

Keep track of where you eat so that if you get sick, you won't go back there.

[cellio]

Aw bummer -- I didn't know I might have had a father-of-a-friend connection there, and now I don't. :-) (Is he one of the rabbinic fellows there?)

[ladymondegreen]

He'll probably be back in the future, but my parents are moving this summer.

I'm actually not sure if he's a rabbinic fellow officially or not. I'll ask.

[magid]

Jerusalem is a fairly easy place to be a mostly-English speaker, actually. I've walked alone over much of the city and never had a problem (other than the usual irritations of traffic and whatnot:-), and it's an international-enough city that has whatever things you might forget in packing

[cellio]

Thanks for all the helpful advice! I know there will be some unstructured time but I don't know in what block sizes, so knowing about options to fill them is good.