Football and Shabbat in Rehovot

Hello again! It's been a while since I've written (oops), but now that I'm back at HebrewU full time it's very easy to get sucked into the routine. Get up, go to class (and I always get up with just enough time to get to class...whether my class starts at 8:30 or 2:30), come home, eat, go to activity, go out, go to sleep, do it all over again. I love to be busy but it doesn't leave a lot of down time.

Last Monday we had a football scrimmage, which we lost, but to be fair we played against girls who had played on the Israeli national flag football team - so they were really good. This Monday, we had our first game, which we also lost, to seminary girls - not such an honorable loss. It's very hard when our team has 38 girls (Nativ doesn't want to split us up because they don't want us to play against each other) and every other team only has about 10. In trying to get everyone, regardless of skill level, a fair amount of playing time, we sometimes end up sacrificing our chances of winning. But we do have fun and we ALWAYS have the loudest cheering section =).

This weekend my friend Kesha and I went with Keren to visit her family in Rehovot. As usual, it was a lot of fun. We were fed well and allowed to nap, and Friday night we stayed with Keren's younger cousin and his wife. At about 12:30 we left and went to a club, and returned home at about 5:30. It was a lot of fun, and really cool to experience a real Israeli club (the clubs we have near us in Jerusalem are located in a place that Nativ affectionately refers to as 'the armpit' - needless to say it's not the nicest place to hang out).
Saturday we went back to Keren's aunts house and had a wonderful lunch with all her cousins, including all 6 of her little boy cousins. That house is never quiet when they're all there, that's for sure.

On Saturday night in Tel Aviv there was a memorial concert for Yitzhak Rabin (one of Israel's best prime ministers who was assasinated 13 years ago), so we met up with the rest of Nativ there. It was amazing to see all these Israelis (and also quite a few Americans) who came out to support the memory of Rabin and all that he stood for.

I just finished reading my book for book club, called Someone To Run With. It was AMAZING and I highly recommend it. Also it was really interesting to read a book by an Israeli author, because a lot of it took place in the park across the street from my dorm building (which is where lots of Nativers and hang out) and there was even a time when the book mentioned Agron street, which was the street that I live on. I'm really excited for our discussion on Sunday night.

Finally, the most exciting news of the week by far, is that yesterday I bought my plane tickets for winter break. My friends Carmie (who's from Colorado) and Emily (who's from Texas) and I decided we wanted to travel together over winter break. I'm really excited about the group of the three of us, because I really like these girls and we click really well together. We only have a 13ish day vacation, so we won't get a chance to do everything we would have liked to, but as of now, our itinerary is this: 3 days and 3 nights in Rome, 2 days and 1 night in Sienna, 2 days 2 nights in Florence, 1 day and 1 night in Milan, 4 days and 4 nights in Paris, and 1 day and 1 night in Germany with Emily's cousins, who will take us back to the airport in Frankfurt. I'm VERY excited and it should be a wonderful trip!

That's all for now, thanks for reading!