Living here, I've grown to be mostly desensitized to cultural differences, however, this week there was one thing that really shook me out of my comfort and made me remember exactly where I was.
This week holds three of Israel's big national holidays: Holocaust Remembrance Day, Memorial Day (for fallen soldiers) and then Independence Day. The sequencing of the three is deliberate, as well is how close they fall to each other. In honor of these days, there is a country-wide siren (the same siren that also goes off for bomb scares) that goes off for about 2 minutes each holiday, during which everything stops. Everything. Cars, conversations, radio, tv, public buses. It_ is_so_bizarre. Here is a link to a short article and video of the siren-time. It's not very interesting to watch, as it is a video of the nothing that happens during the siren, but it might give you some idea of what it's like.
You're supposed to stand up, which I did, but mostly to hang myself out the window and gawk at the rest of the city and remember that I'm definitely not in Denver anymore!
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