Monday, June 15, 2009

Gay rights and sushi

So, Sunday was the first day of volunteer work. Me and Jacob worked at the Jerusalem Open House for Pride and Tolerance (or just Jerusalem Open House), helping them prepare for the upcoming gay pride march in Jerusalem. Specifically, we were tasked with updating the English version of the website and getting the word out on english-speaking websites. It was actually pretty easy, and the people who work there are really cool. It's a small place; they hold meetings and events there, as well as a youth group and a clinic. The only person working when we got there wasn't actually expecting us; our contact at the place came later.

After work, a bunch of us went to a sushi place near the apartments. It wasn't great, but it was pretty good; I got a Tiger roll and it was pretty good, but not too filling. After that we all headed to the old city for the light show. "Light show" is a pretty vague term; basically, they lit up a bunch of stuff in the old city in cool ways, had some booths set up where you can buy cool light things, and had some other lighty attractions. The best part was a short film called "Ori". Basically they took one of the old buildings and put screens on three of the windows. These screnes each showed part of the scene, panorama-style. But a lot of the stuff interacted with the rest of the building, and the audience. Leaves would fall off trees and fall onto the ledge of the building under the screen, water would flow off the screen and trickle down the building's arches, and lights behind the lower windows changed based on the scene. When a car was driving, for example, the lights would reflect where the headlights pointed, and when they pointed at the audience, bright lights would shine. It kicked butt, basically.

We called it a night after that and a little bit of arguing over what we would eat; nobody could decide. So we went back to the apartments and went from there. This morning, we started work a little bit later, and we only had to be there for an hour; our guy wasn't there, and the stuff he asked us to do in his email was easy. So, after some more sushi, Jacob and I went back to the apartments until it appeared my computer charger died. As it turned out, it's just a crappy plug. Obviously it's working now, but not before I went to the other side of the city trying and failing to replace it. Tomorrow a few of us are going to check out the big mall in the city, but for now I think it's time for bed.

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