Some general background information...

Sheesh, I've just created it, and I'm already slacking on updating my blog. I will try and do better, I promise.

Let me start off with some general information, which most of you already know. My name's Leora, my birthday is April 7th, 1983, and I am a Biology student in a Canadian university. I like long walks on the beach and romantic candle-lit...oh wait, wrong kind of site. My apologies.

Anyway, I love to travel and basically spend all my money on my trips. I backpacked through Europe two years ago, and I'm studying here in Israel for half a year, which enables me to travel around Israel and neighbouring Arab countries. Starting in the end of January, I'll be going on another trip, this time back to Europe and through Asia. My absolute dream in life is to go to Antarctica. But more about that later.

I have an unhealthy obsession with eggplant, and I love Israel because they have many חצילים dishes. My favourite novel is Jane Eyre, and I love, love, love Mel Brooks movies. I have the worst taste in music. My CD collection includes such classics as Meatloaf, Rod Stewart, Britney Spears, and I have even paid to see Cher and the Village People in concert. I just like fun music. Okay, enough about my boring life. In fact, all this talk about me would be enough to put even my roommate Lydia to sleep, so let me describe who I'm living with here in Jerusalem.

The dorms in Hebrew University that I'm living in aren't exactly luxurious, but they're comfortable enough. I'm living in a three bedroom apartment, with five other girls, and we share two washrooms and a kitchen. I've actually been really blessed because I love all my roommates.

I share a room with a girl called Samantha, and she's a 24 year old graduate student from Chicago/Seattle/New York/Boston...you get the point. She's moved around a lot, and also loves to travel. Actually, she's been to every single state in the U.S. except for Hawaii. She's a photojournalist and a web-designer, and you guys should definitely check out her website: www.samanthafarbman.com because it's amazing. Without a doubt, it puts this blog to shame. Samantha's the fun one in our apartment, has an amazing sense of humor and is always laughing (she's "emotionally flamboyant"). I'm very lucky that I share a room with her, because she's fun, kind, and doesn't complain when my clothes are all over the floor. (Not that that ever happens, Ema!)

Next is Jessica, a 20 year old from LA. To be precise, she's from Beverly Hills, 90210 and lives beside Sydney Poitier (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001627/) and Jenny McCarthy, and right near the Osbornes and Aaron Spelling. Yet, amazingly, she's not spoiled AT ALL! She does have a massive collection of shoes, but luckily she wears basically the same size as me, and is always willing to lend me a pair. Jess is the nice one in the apartment. She studies Psychology at UCSD, and her goal in life is to improve the world. Yes, you heard me. Not to make lots of money. To improve the world! Who'd a thunk it?

Jess shares a room with Lydia, a 21 year old grad student from Toronto (yay!). She did her undergrad at U of T in Politics/Religious Studies, and she is most definitely the smart one. Lydia basically knows everything...about everything. Which I love, because whenever I have a question about something, instead of looking it up, I can just ask her! When did Burma become Myanmar? She knows. What's India doing about the all the dead bodies floating around in Varanasi? She knows. I also like her for two other very important reasons. One--she has a lot of Star Trek episodes on DVD. And two--she has a bit of an insomnia problem, and whenever she can't sleep, she cleans our apartment. Which is frequent. Sad for her, but great for the rest of us.

We used to have two Norwegian girls as our other roommates, Silje and Marianne, but at the end of September they moved out into an apartment of their own. Luckily, we're still friends. In fact, I went traveling around Israel and Egypt with Marianne, where she got a lot of attention, being blonde and blue eyed, and all. Now we live with Dalia, an Argentinean-born Israeli, and Joya, an Italian. I like living with them because they're fun, and because it's nice to live with people of different cultures. I particularly like talking with Joya about Italy, one of my favourite European countries.

Anyway, that was it for my super long e-mail, but I will write more soon, and it will be more interesting than this! I just needed to set the stage, but now I'll be able to write what I'm up to on a day-to-day basis. And maybe even include some pictures...So stay tuned!