Let me preface this by saying I lasted almost two hours on this thing and found a rousing zero people. Also, like Chelsey, I full-on struggle with this thing and still really have not worked out many of the particularities. Ah well. After finding nobody in the first several places, my mind shifted to Israel. I visited a place called Israel Island, which seems to be a place for Jews and Israelis to connect (see the picture), kind of like how there are various networks in the Western world for Jews to connect through youth events, temple groups, and such. I wondered if this was an attempt to do that on a wider level. I saw that the Sim was owned by a group, so the whole peer connection thing makes at least a little sense to me. The description of the Sim is "Israel Island presents a comprehensive Israeli experience featuring: Seminar Hakibbutzim College, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Eilat, Caesarea, a Museum dedicated to the Peoples of Israel (Jews, Christians, Muslims and more), plus a village in the sky + much more." I was immediately invited to join the Israel Island group (see below), but I declined since I don't really see myself on SL much in the future. One of the first things I noticed was Israeli pop playing out of my speakers -- signs of an attempt to reconcile people through common cultural tokens. This place was modeled after an airport terminal, and there's ads in Hebrew, including a sign that says "Happy New Year" in Hebrew (that holiday was a couple months ago- something tells me this place isn't too great with the upkeep). I also found a bank modeled off Bank HaPoalim, the bank that actually exists in Israel, as well as a duty-free store, in which I was able to get some clothes for free by clicking on them. Too bad I haven't worked out how to put them on, I'm miserably bad with directions, but I kept on exploring.
In keeping with the airport theme, there was a place to teleport to various places within Israel. There was the option to go to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum (not the DC one), and I went there to see how it compared to the actual thing. I was invited to grab a kippah (head covering) and a memorial candle called a Yarzeit, but I didn't know the actual mechanism or where to grab them. Regardless, I found the attempt to replicate a cultural, spiritual and religious experience through engagement with these aspects of Jewish tradition (there is a holiday in Israel commemorating the Holocaust) to be extremely salient. The building itself looks similar on the outside, but is pretty much hollow on the inside. Immediately behind it, the place seems to be modeled off of a resort city called Eilat, and you have the opportunity to transport to other places, but I had already been on for a while. I wondered why there was a beach setting immediately behind the museum-- definitely not geographically accurate. I figure it's probably best just to take some things at face value in SL and not question too much. Also, somehow in the last twenty minutes, I managed to change my appearance, but now my avatar looks weird and I'm not entirely sure how to get it back to how it was, so hopefully that explains the slight difference in the last picture. Godspeed to those who use this on a regular basis, I am thoroughly impressed.
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