SO! I live in Yerucham now. Basically it is a tiny little Podunk (why Microsoft Word just automatically capitalized the word ‘podunk’ for me, I will never know) town in the middle of the Negev desert.
We moved in last Wednesday afternoon, all seven of us girls in a four-room apartment. My room is made up of four girls: Me, Kesha, Misha, and Beth. Beth was in Hagalil before she moved to Chicago. Kesha is from LA, and Misha is from Cherry Hill. A word about these girls: Kesha and Misha are two of my closest friends on Nativ, and both of them are really funny and really great friends to me. That being said, Kesha doesn’t really like to show her feelings, and Misha doesn’t like people to touch her or show her any displays of affection. How I, the world-champion of feelings, hugging, cuddling, and all things touchy-feely, ended up with these friends on Nativ is a mystery to everyone, including the three of us. But we have a really great time together and I’m really happy to be living with them. In the other room is Ashley (one of my best friends from home who lives down the street from me, for those of you who didn’t know), Sarah who is from outside of Philadelphia and is HILARIOUS and always making outrageous statements like “Let’s use all our stipend to build an apartment boat and just not eat anything!” or “Guys we NEED to make an apartment seal!” and Becky, my roommate from first semester who is from Chicago. Overall, our apartment really got what we wanted and we’re all very excited to be living together.
About the actual apartment…well…Toto, we’re not in Jerusalem anymore. It took over a week for our shower to get hot water (we’ve had to shower in the boys apartment) and about four days for them to replace our broken refrigerator (we had to store all our food in our staff’s apartment across the hall). And our toilet leaks water all over the floor from time to time, and when we do shower we will have to shower quickly and then squeegee so that the water doesn’t seep into the hallway. But we unpacked and started organizing quickly. All of our bedrooms are already decorated with tons of pictures, and in my case, cards from Nanny (Ashley wondered aloud today why I have so many pictures of birds and flowers on my wall). Additionally, the bathroom (in our apartment in the middle of the desert, mind you) has a sort of winter-wonderland theme, thanks to Aunt Karen’s many snowflake decorations – sparkly blue ones on the door, cling ones in the shower, and scented holiday candles with snowmen on them. We arranged all the furniture and got organized much faster than any of the other apartments, and it’s even starting to feel like home, despite the fact that the floors are too cold to walk around on barefoot. And our second day here we even went to the hardware store to get some additional shelves, towel hangers, etc etc…which, as our first Yerucham experience, was quite a production. I don’t think the tiny hardware store ever had seven teenage girls in it before, never mind seven who spoke very little Hebrew and wanted to split the bill on seven different credit cards. It ended up in a ride home from one of the non-English-speaking guys who worked in the store, so we wouldn’t have to carry everything. We’re definitely settling into the small town life now.
The first three days were mostly devoted to unpacking and getting organized, with a few introductory meetings with Yoram, who will be our coordinator while we’re here. Last Thursday night was the first night that we really cooked dinner for ourselves and sat down as an apartment to eat together. It was really adorable. Kesha and Misha made delicious stir fry, and there was a huge salad, and we all played grown-ups for a little bit. It’s definitely a huge adjustment to live with six other girls – we have to work out things like groceries, cooking, doing dishes, and learning to clean up after ourselves in an apartment where we’re solely in charge of cleaning. It’s a lot of fun but also a definite challenge, and needless to say I don’t have a ton of space for all my toiletries. Plus all of our clothes live in the hallway, so that’s where all seven of us get dressed – in front of one mirror. Every time I get cranky about this (which is fairly often), I have to remind myself that 1. I signed up for this and 2. it’s all part of the learning and growing experience.
Last Shabbat, our first in Yerucham, was closed, which meant no one was allowed to leave. We all went to services at the synagogue across the street, and then we all went to dinner at our host families’. I was really looking forward to this, because host families were the reason I chose Yerucham over one of the other options on Nativ, volunteering in Be’er-Sheva. My host family consisted of one man named Shlomo. This is where the story gets slightly complicated – Shlomo’s wife and two of his children live in the states, because (I think I’m remembering this right), his wife teaches at University of Washington. His third child, a son age 15, lives with him here but was away this weekend so I didn’t get to meet him. Basically the whole family has been moving back and forth from Israel to the States every few years because they just can’t make up their minds, and so now for work or whatever reason, the family is split across the continents. They do get to visit each other quite frequently though. So my friend Ryan and I were paired with Shlomo as our host family, and he was really great. Although I was sad there weren’t little kids for me to play with like at some of the other host homes, Shlomo was an excellent cook and a really great guy. He’s also in charge of running a discussion group for Nativ on Wednesday nights, so he asked Ryan and I our opinions about what we would like to talk about and how he should go about doing it. He even offered to let us borrow some books from his collection (the Yerucham library is definitely lacking in English books for adults) and even some of his cookbooks. It was overall a really nice night and I hope that Ryan and I will end up spending time with him regularly.
Next blog post: updates on my new jobs. Brace yourselves!
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Pictures
Pictures to match my latest blog posts (Friends visiting in Israel and Gadna) can be seen here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/kaleibowitz
Additionally, my pictures from Europe are also up (although they are not captioned and do not have blogs to go with them yet) as are pictures of my apartment's new puppy, details of which will be coming in the next blog post =).
http://picasaweb.google.com/kaleibowitz
Additionally, my pictures from Europe are also up (although they are not captioned and do not have blogs to go with them yet) as are pictures of my apartment's new puppy, details of which will be coming in the next blog post =).
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Israel Today Seminar and Tiyul
Hello again everyone! I’m sure you’re all tired of my apologies by now, but I do have to apologize again…this blog-catch-up is making my head explode a teensy bit, so you’ll all have to bear with me. I’m going to do some chronological jumping around for the sake of being able to write what’s fresh in my mind right now. So, this blog is going to be about Israel today seminar, Tiyul, and next will probably be moving into Yerucham and my European Adventures will have to be blogged later, out of chronological order. If this bothers you, don’t read this blog til after I blog Europe, which might be a while. That’s all the advice I have to offer.
After coming back from winter vacation, we had a closed Shabbat, during which time I rested and caught up on some much-needed sleep. After that we went into our week of the “Israel Today Seminar.” Sunday brought us to Tel Aviv. That morning we had a short tour of Jaffa and Tel Aviv and in the afternoon we went to the Blind Museum. The blind museum was really interesting. If any of you ever went to the touch-tunnel at Liberty Science Center, it was an extended version of that. It was a forty-five minute tour through several different rooms, completely in the pitch black. In the jungle, at the market, on a cruise ship, in a music room, in a regular living room, and ordering in a cafeteria we all had to find our way and figure out where we were in the dark, with the help of a blind guide. At the end we all sat down to have a discussion with our guide. Overall it was a really interesting, eye-opening (all joking aside) experience. We then all ate dinner at the mall in Tel Aviv and ventured on to our next blind experience. This was a performance, a play, performed entirely by actors who are both blind and deaf. This is the only performance troupe like this in the entire world. The show was performed through a combination of mediums – some of the actors, those who weren’t always deaf, spoke to the audience. Other people signed into the hands of those sitting next to them, who then signed into the hands of others, all the way down the line until it reached someone who could speak. The spoken words were then translated into English on a screen at the side of the stage. One man communicated using knuckle type, a system of tapping letters of the alphabet onto his hand, which each joint of the knuckle representing a different letter. Others had to translate Russian sign language into Hebrew or English sign language. They way that the troupe communicated and interacted with each other was complex and extremely fascinating.
Monday was devoted to being in Jerusalem. I signed up for the religious seminar, so in the morning we toured a church and then in the evening we went through the Jerusalem tunnels. The Jerusalem tunnels were really cool because although everyone goes and prays to the Kotel, which is a remaining bit of the outer wall surrounding the temple, there’s actually a lot more of the wall remaining than we see. First, some background information: the Kotel (or Western Wall) is holy not because it’s a wall of the old temple, but because it was part of the outer wall that protected the Temple and the temple mount, and it’s the closest thing we have today that remains of the Second Temple. But at some point or another, neighborhoods were built over some of the remainder of the wall. So the Kotel is the only exposed part that remains, but underneath all of these neighborhoods is an even bigger part of the remaining wall, and the part that was directly in front of the Second Temple, making it much closer to the spot where the ‘Holies of Holies’ was, inside the Temple, than the Kotel. So the Jerusalem tunnels lead all along the remaining wall that is buried underneath all of those neighborhoods, and that is what we got to see.
On Tuesday we traveled up north to go to a Kibbutz and had some seminar lectures on Arab-Israeli conflict and Arab settlements within Israel. But Tuesday night was undoubtedly my favorite part of the week. We went to the lights show at the David Citadel. The citadel used to be a fortress and is all outdoors and made of crumbling Jerusalem stone, with lots of stone arches, walkways, and towers. The lights show was projected onto all of the walls surrounding us, and it was completely AMAZING. There were various scenes depicting the history of Jerusalem, and other scenes that were just fun to watch – such as a crumbling sandstorm and a library with floor-to-ceiling books. It was definitely one of the coolest things I’ve seen since coming to Israel, it was absolutely phenomenal.
Wednesday was devoted entirely to packing and putting our things into storage for the week. We then said goodbye to our cozy homes in Jerusalem last Thursday. Thursday morning we set off for a hike in which we had a choice between hard and easy. I hadn’t been feeling so well (between coming back from vacation, living together all again, and cleaning up and packing our disgusting rooms, half of Nativ was sick), so I chose the easy hike. It turned out to be pretty rough for me, and I was coughing a lot and had a pounding headache by the end of it. That night we went to the Bedouin tents, which I’d luckily already visited (and ridden a camel at) on pilgrimage, so I spent most of the night (except for a quick dinner) sleeping. The next morning, thankfully, we could choose to visit the colorful sand dunes, which I did (they were nothing special, just some pink sand), and so I didn’t have to hike again. We then traveled to Kibbutz Ketura, a kibbutz in the south that I had visited on pilgrimage, for Shabbat. Being a guest at the Kibbutz was great – our rooms were really nice and it was GORGEOUS weather, perfectly warm and sunny during the day. It makes me a little less homesick to sit outside in the sun in shorts and a t-shirt reading and then call Mom and have her tell me that she’s driving to work and her car thermometer reads 19 degrees.
Monday started our vacationy part of Tiyul, and we all went to Eilat. We were staying at the same beautiful hotel that I stayed at on pilgrimage, and it was really nice. Monday afternoon was supposed to be a boat ride, but due to unfavorable-for-boating-weather that was canceled and we were given a few other options instead. The option I chose was to do a ropes course and go paintballing. I was really excited for this, because I’d never been paintballing before. Turns out, the paintballing wasn’t that exciting – the rounds were really quick and there wasn’t a lot of ammunition, so I ran out right away. Plus, those things HURT. I got hit in the elbow one time and I literally fell to the ground and was writhing around in pain, everyone thought I had actually been seriously injured but really those things just hurt a lot. But the ropes course was a LOT of fun. I just want to take a second to point out how differently things are done in Israel than in America. There was no waiver form, no helmets, no demonstration. We were harnessed into a beltish-type-thing and instructed on how to hook ourselves onto the (flimsyish) safety-wire, and off we went, 25 feet above the ground, doing the ropes course. Obviously it was really great and no one got hurt, but it still made me laugh to see how casually they did it.
Tuesday, after having made a full recovery and after having been assured that this hike was really great, I signed up for the hard hike. Services started promptly at 6:15 AM, because Yossi (our director and for the day, trail guide) told us we had to be the first group up the mountain. Now this wasn’t a tiyul hike that everyone on Nativ had to participate in. This was a hike that you CHOSE to go on and you CHOSE to have it be hard. And it was hard. I started getting nervous about two minutes after we got off the bus and saw a sign that said “Warning: For Experienced Hikers Only.” Truth be told, the hike was tough. There were points when we were just going up VERY steep rock by pulling ourselves up via a zigzagging steel bar that had been drilled into the side of the mountain, and a lot of parts where there was no visible path at all. But we made it up in only about an hour or so, so the pain was over pretty quickly. It was, again, not great weather – very cloudy, and freezing on top of the mountain. But the worst part of the weather was that a huge advantage to that particular hike (up to the tallest mountain in the Eilat region) is that from the top you can see four countries at once – Israel, Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. Unfortunately for us, it was so cloudy that morning that the only country we could see was Israel, which was definitely a disappointment. Additionally, it took us about three hours to get down, and then another half hour of walking along the road because the buses didn’t show up where they were supposed to and we had to walk until Yossi got cell reception. Overall, it was an exhausting hike.
That afternoon it was time for WATER SPORTS. Even though it was coldish and not sunny, we all went to the marina to go banana boating and tubing. Banana boating was only okay – most of the time we were out of the water, so that was pretty cold (the water was significantly warmer than the air). Tubing, however, was great. It actually didn’t involve a tube it all – it involved four of us laying down on a flat, half oval shaped raft thing and hanging on to the two handles and the boat dragging us through the water. It was really a ton of fun.
Tuesday night was our last night together as all of Nativ, so obviously we all had to go out one last time. We went to a bar called The 3 Monkeys. They had a live band that was pretty good, and it was basically just Nativ going crazy on the dance floor, so we had a really good time. Plus, the band ended the night by playing “Living on a Prayer,” which is our Hagalil song, so the Nativ Hagalilers had a lovely time dancing in a corner like we did at every dance and convention. It was a really fun, relaxed last night together.
And so ends the first semester of Nativ. In a lot of ways, I feel like exactly the same person I was when I left. I think I’ve done a good job keeping in touch with the people at home that I wanted to, and right now I don’t feel like this experience has changed me that much, although it’s obviously affected me. On the one hand, I can’t believe how much time has passed, because it doesn’t feel like I’ve been away from my family for so long (it probably helps that I talk to them every day) and the time has really flown by. On the other hand, when I sit back and think of all the wonderful things I’ve been lucky enough to experience I can barely wrap my head around the fact that I haven’t seen my Mom and Dad, or Marcus, in nearly six months. I can’t wait to see them again, but I also want my Nativ experience to last forever. I think that there were things I could have done differently, and better, in the first semester, but overall I’m really happy with the way my year is going and I have nothing but optimism for the next three and a half months.
After coming back from winter vacation, we had a closed Shabbat, during which time I rested and caught up on some much-needed sleep. After that we went into our week of the “Israel Today Seminar.” Sunday brought us to Tel Aviv. That morning we had a short tour of Jaffa and Tel Aviv and in the afternoon we went to the Blind Museum. The blind museum was really interesting. If any of you ever went to the touch-tunnel at Liberty Science Center, it was an extended version of that. It was a forty-five minute tour through several different rooms, completely in the pitch black. In the jungle, at the market, on a cruise ship, in a music room, in a regular living room, and ordering in a cafeteria we all had to find our way and figure out where we were in the dark, with the help of a blind guide. At the end we all sat down to have a discussion with our guide. Overall it was a really interesting, eye-opening (all joking aside) experience. We then all ate dinner at the mall in Tel Aviv and ventured on to our next blind experience. This was a performance, a play, performed entirely by actors who are both blind and deaf. This is the only performance troupe like this in the entire world. The show was performed through a combination of mediums – some of the actors, those who weren’t always deaf, spoke to the audience. Other people signed into the hands of those sitting next to them, who then signed into the hands of others, all the way down the line until it reached someone who could speak. The spoken words were then translated into English on a screen at the side of the stage. One man communicated using knuckle type, a system of tapping letters of the alphabet onto his hand, which each joint of the knuckle representing a different letter. Others had to translate Russian sign language into Hebrew or English sign language. They way that the troupe communicated and interacted with each other was complex and extremely fascinating.
Monday was devoted to being in Jerusalem. I signed up for the religious seminar, so in the morning we toured a church and then in the evening we went through the Jerusalem tunnels. The Jerusalem tunnels were really cool because although everyone goes and prays to the Kotel, which is a remaining bit of the outer wall surrounding the temple, there’s actually a lot more of the wall remaining than we see. First, some background information: the Kotel (or Western Wall) is holy not because it’s a wall of the old temple, but because it was part of the outer wall that protected the Temple and the temple mount, and it’s the closest thing we have today that remains of the Second Temple. But at some point or another, neighborhoods were built over some of the remainder of the wall. So the Kotel is the only exposed part that remains, but underneath all of these neighborhoods is an even bigger part of the remaining wall, and the part that was directly in front of the Second Temple, making it much closer to the spot where the ‘Holies of Holies’ was, inside the Temple, than the Kotel. So the Jerusalem tunnels lead all along the remaining wall that is buried underneath all of those neighborhoods, and that is what we got to see.
On Tuesday we traveled up north to go to a Kibbutz and had some seminar lectures on Arab-Israeli conflict and Arab settlements within Israel. But Tuesday night was undoubtedly my favorite part of the week. We went to the lights show at the David Citadel. The citadel used to be a fortress and is all outdoors and made of crumbling Jerusalem stone, with lots of stone arches, walkways, and towers. The lights show was projected onto all of the walls surrounding us, and it was completely AMAZING. There were various scenes depicting the history of Jerusalem, and other scenes that were just fun to watch – such as a crumbling sandstorm and a library with floor-to-ceiling books. It was definitely one of the coolest things I’ve seen since coming to Israel, it was absolutely phenomenal.
Wednesday was devoted entirely to packing and putting our things into storage for the week. We then said goodbye to our cozy homes in Jerusalem last Thursday. Thursday morning we set off for a hike in which we had a choice between hard and easy. I hadn’t been feeling so well (between coming back from vacation, living together all again, and cleaning up and packing our disgusting rooms, half of Nativ was sick), so I chose the easy hike. It turned out to be pretty rough for me, and I was coughing a lot and had a pounding headache by the end of it. That night we went to the Bedouin tents, which I’d luckily already visited (and ridden a camel at) on pilgrimage, so I spent most of the night (except for a quick dinner) sleeping. The next morning, thankfully, we could choose to visit the colorful sand dunes, which I did (they were nothing special, just some pink sand), and so I didn’t have to hike again. We then traveled to Kibbutz Ketura, a kibbutz in the south that I had visited on pilgrimage, for Shabbat. Being a guest at the Kibbutz was great – our rooms were really nice and it was GORGEOUS weather, perfectly warm and sunny during the day. It makes me a little less homesick to sit outside in the sun in shorts and a t-shirt reading and then call Mom and have her tell me that she’s driving to work and her car thermometer reads 19 degrees.
Monday started our vacationy part of Tiyul, and we all went to Eilat. We were staying at the same beautiful hotel that I stayed at on pilgrimage, and it was really nice. Monday afternoon was supposed to be a boat ride, but due to unfavorable-for-boating-weather that was canceled and we were given a few other options instead. The option I chose was to do a ropes course and go paintballing. I was really excited for this, because I’d never been paintballing before. Turns out, the paintballing wasn’t that exciting – the rounds were really quick and there wasn’t a lot of ammunition, so I ran out right away. Plus, those things HURT. I got hit in the elbow one time and I literally fell to the ground and was writhing around in pain, everyone thought I had actually been seriously injured but really those things just hurt a lot. But the ropes course was a LOT of fun. I just want to take a second to point out how differently things are done in Israel than in America. There was no waiver form, no helmets, no demonstration. We were harnessed into a beltish-type-thing and instructed on how to hook ourselves onto the (flimsyish) safety-wire, and off we went, 25 feet above the ground, doing the ropes course. Obviously it was really great and no one got hurt, but it still made me laugh to see how casually they did it.
Tuesday, after having made a full recovery and after having been assured that this hike was really great, I signed up for the hard hike. Services started promptly at 6:15 AM, because Yossi (our director and for the day, trail guide) told us we had to be the first group up the mountain. Now this wasn’t a tiyul hike that everyone on Nativ had to participate in. This was a hike that you CHOSE to go on and you CHOSE to have it be hard. And it was hard. I started getting nervous about two minutes after we got off the bus and saw a sign that said “Warning: For Experienced Hikers Only.” Truth be told, the hike was tough. There were points when we were just going up VERY steep rock by pulling ourselves up via a zigzagging steel bar that had been drilled into the side of the mountain, and a lot of parts where there was no visible path at all. But we made it up in only about an hour or so, so the pain was over pretty quickly. It was, again, not great weather – very cloudy, and freezing on top of the mountain. But the worst part of the weather was that a huge advantage to that particular hike (up to the tallest mountain in the Eilat region) is that from the top you can see four countries at once – Israel, Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. Unfortunately for us, it was so cloudy that morning that the only country we could see was Israel, which was definitely a disappointment. Additionally, it took us about three hours to get down, and then another half hour of walking along the road because the buses didn’t show up where they were supposed to and we had to walk until Yossi got cell reception. Overall, it was an exhausting hike.
That afternoon it was time for WATER SPORTS. Even though it was coldish and not sunny, we all went to the marina to go banana boating and tubing. Banana boating was only okay – most of the time we were out of the water, so that was pretty cold (the water was significantly warmer than the air). Tubing, however, was great. It actually didn’t involve a tube it all – it involved four of us laying down on a flat, half oval shaped raft thing and hanging on to the two handles and the boat dragging us through the water. It was really a ton of fun.
Tuesday night was our last night together as all of Nativ, so obviously we all had to go out one last time. We went to a bar called The 3 Monkeys. They had a live band that was pretty good, and it was basically just Nativ going crazy on the dance floor, so we had a really good time. Plus, the band ended the night by playing “Living on a Prayer,” which is our Hagalil song, so the Nativ Hagalilers had a lovely time dancing in a corner like we did at every dance and convention. It was a really fun, relaxed last night together.
And so ends the first semester of Nativ. In a lot of ways, I feel like exactly the same person I was when I left. I think I’ve done a good job keeping in touch with the people at home that I wanted to, and right now I don’t feel like this experience has changed me that much, although it’s obviously affected me. On the one hand, I can’t believe how much time has passed, because it doesn’t feel like I’ve been away from my family for so long (it probably helps that I talk to them every day) and the time has really flown by. On the other hand, when I sit back and think of all the wonderful things I’ve been lucky enough to experience I can barely wrap my head around the fact that I haven’t seen my Mom and Dad, or Marcus, in nearly six months. I can’t wait to see them again, but I also want my Nativ experience to last forever. I think that there were things I could have done differently, and better, in the first semester, but overall I’m really happy with the way my year is going and I have nothing but optimism for the next three and a half months.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Catching Up, Part 2: Gadna
Immediately after the (very sad) departure of my friends, Israel Experience Week began. For this week, we had three options to choose from – volunteering in Haifa, participating in Gadna, or doing an archaeological dig. Knowing that digging wasn’t for me, and deciding that I would be volunteering all of second semester, I decided to challenge myself and do Gadna. Gadna is a five day long stint in Israeli Army Basic Training. While it is all simulation, it is pretty close to what basic training in the Israeli Army is actually like. The program was designed both for foreigners who wanted to get a taste of the Israeli Army, whether just out of curiosity or to see if they actually wanted to join the real army, and also for Israeli high schoolers as a way of preparing them for what they would be doing in the upcoming years.
Thirty-three Nativers signed up for Gadna. We were driven, bright and early Sunday morning, to the Gadna base, which is located on Kibbutz S’de Boker in the middle of the Negev desert. We stepped off the bus and were told (in Hebrew) to form three lines. We were then split up (also in Hebrew…little did we know that the entire week would be conducted in Hebrew with everything being translated by one of the bilingual Nativers) into three separate groups – our tzevets. This is the group that we would do everything with for the entire week – all of our lessons, activities, chores, and meals would take place with our tzevet. There were twelve of us in my tzevet, including (luckily) my friends Ashley, Liora, and Sarah, but I wasn’t really close with many of the others in my tzevet. Each tzevet has a leader, or mifakedet, who is basically the commander of the group. After being split up into our groups, we learned how to take commands (the Mifakedet would give us a certain amount of time to do something, say 10 seconds, and say “Ten Seconds, Move!” and we would repeat ‘Yes Mifakedet, 10 seconds, 10…9…8…7…, but all in Hebrew) and we got our uniforms. The rest of that day basically consisted of running different places in different time increments so we could get accustomed to following orders. We also had an opening ceremony, where we met the higher-ups. Directly above our mifakdot was the samelet, a terrifying tiny redhead who told us that if we couldn’t breathe quietly we shouldn’t breathe at all. Above her was the Mem-Mem, short for something I don’t remember, who was less scary and even let us sit when he talked. Standing up at attention was my least favorite part of Gadna – not only did we have to stand with our hands making a diamond behind our backs, we also had to stand with our heels touching, feet pointed out. Anyone who has seen me walk for more than four seconds knows that my feet do not naturally go this way – and after the first fifteen minutes of standing like this, I was dying to point my toes inwards.
After the opening ceremony, my tzevet, lucky us, got a rushed ten minutes to eat dinner and then began our chore for the day – kitchen duty. Kitchen duty didn’t merely consist of ‘cleaning up’ after dinner – it consisted of three and a half hours of washing (fish) dishes in our uniforms, which we still had to wear for another three days…and we were in the middle of the desert at night, so while we were soaking wet, it was also freezing. It was this task that induced me to call my mother crying about how miserable I was, which in retrospect was a terrible idea, because in my absence my mother’s sanity is waning to say the least, and this caused her to be beside herself with worry for the entire week, no matter how much I assured her that the first day was by far the worst.
That night we curled up, all the Nativ girls, in our cozy tent with our putrid sleeping bag and blankets and cots. At night we had about an hour of free-time in which we were to do everything we didn’t get to do during the day, at the end of which we were to report back to our mifakedet, who would then give us about five minutes to get back in bed before lights out.
Monday morning we woke up bright and early at 5:45 (I can assure you, this did not make me a ball of sunshine) and be outside and dressed in our uniform to meet the mifakedet at 6:05. A word about our uniforms: they were VERY difficult to get on and off. The shirt had to be tucked into the pants, which was sometimes hard when I was wearing a sweatshirt underneath because of the cold, and was also difficult because my shirt only had one button. The pants came with a belt that was very hard to buckle because of my full canteen that weighed it down. We also had a giant coat that had to always be zipped and buttoned up completely, and which made me look so round that Ashley nicknamed me the ‘Weeble Wobble,’ which is an egg-shaped toy that has such a low center of gravity that you can throw it all around and it will rock a little and then stand straight back up. As a result of this less-than-convenient uniform, I went to the bathroom as infrequently as possible, because it took a good seven minutes to get redressed each time.
Mornings always started with prayer time, which luckily was optional and gave the girls a good 40 minutes to finish getting ready for the day (twenty minutes is not enough!) and to relax for a little, and call those at home, since it was only around 11:00 for them. We then usually did some cleaning up around the tents, including making sure all of our ‘civilian things,’ sleeping bag, and blankets were in order, and we rolled up the sides of our tent. Then it was breakfast time, and then on to our activities for the day.
Monday was field day, the most physical of all the days. We traveled by bus to the makdesh, or open area in the desert. When we were in the desert, instead of standing in two lines in front of our mifakedet, we had to stand in a circle, and answer only ‘yes’ instead of ‘yes mifakedet,’ so that if our enemy was watching he wouldn’t be able to know who was the leader and who wasn’t. Once in the makdesh, we learned all sorts of different army crawls, which were fun except I got sand down my pants, and I don’t like sand. We also learned how to run from ‘Rimonim’ or grenades (literal translation: pomegranates. Why the Hebrew words for pomegranate and grenade are the same, I’ll never know). Our mifakedet would throw a ‘rimonim’ (aka a rock) at us, and we would have three seconds to run as far away as we could and then get on the grounds and cover our heads. If we didn’t get far enough away, we were pronounced ‘dead’ by the mifakedet. We also learned the art of camouflage by decorating ourselves with desert brush and rubbing our faces with black powder. My favorite part of the day, however, was when our mifakedet picked up two rocks, a big one and a little one, and passed them around the circle, asking us what the difference between them was. Each person gave a different answer – “this one is sharper than that one” “this one is darker than that one” or “this one is heavier than this one.” When everyone had given his or her opinion, the mifakedet took the rocks and said to us ‘You’re all wrong. This one’s just a rock and this one is a RIMON!!!!’ at which point she proceeded to throw the rock down while we were all scrambling away to take cover. The morning finished with a few army-style games and relay races that were actually really fun.
That afternoon we had our first gun lesson – with the Mem-mem – in preparation for the shooting range on Wednesday, where we would all be shooting M-16s. We learned the nine safety rules of shooting a gun, which would be continuously drilled into our heads over the next three days.
That night, while we still had a duty, it was FAR better than kitchen duty – we got to sweep rocks. For forty minutes we were blessed with the chore of sweeping the rocks and dirt off all of the sidewalks. While it was definitely mundane, to say the least, after being subjected to kitchen duty I was truly grateful to be doing anything else. And at least that night for dinner we had more than ten minutes to sit down, relax for a little, and eat. The rest of the night was spent in different kinds of lectures and discussions, which were hard to sit through after such a long day. We then got our free hours and went to bed, to wake up and start basically the same process over again the next day.
Tuesday morning went the same as Monday, but since Tuesday wasn’t field day, the entire day was dedicated to lessons preparing us for the shooting range on Wednesday. In addition to going over the nine safety rules numerous times, we learned the names for the parts of the gun (in English and Hebrew), how to disassemble and reassemble the weapon, and the proper procedure and commands for how to enter the shooting range, load the gun, cock the gun, and when to fire. We practiced this procedure several times so that when we were in the shooting range with the Mem-mem on Wednesday, everything would be familiar to us. Although these lessons were quite interesting, our days were so long and I was running on so little sleep that it was extremely difficult to stay awake, which resulted in my Mifakedet having to make me get up and run a lap as punishment for falling asleep. These lessons were followed by some more relay-races, this time involving the disassembling/reassembling of the gun, some team-building games, more lessons and discussions, and (hooray!) a duty-free day.
Wednesday, the highly anticipated day at the shooting range, started out normally, except that after a hurried breakfast we were bussed to the shooting range. While things were being set up, we went over the rules one more time, and did some more relay-races and army style games. Of all the Nativ groups, we were the last to shoot, so we had already had a chance to watch two groups of our friends. We each had a test shot, to get the feel of the recoil, and then ten bullets. The gun was big, and a little bit awkward for me to hold, but once I started shooting it went really fast. It was a lot of fun. It’s not something I think that I’m necessarily dying to do again, but it was a really great experience and I think that learning about and using the weapons that we see soldiers our age carrying every day – walking around, at security checkpoints, and on buses – is an important part of living in Israel.
After the shooting range, the rest of Gadna went fairly quickly – we had a few more discussion groups, and Thursday morning we were privileged with bathroom duty, which was not fun but still not nearly as bad as kitchen duty. The best part of the week by far though, was the second that Gadna ended. That was when our Mifakedet – who had been giving us orders all week, yelling at us, not smiling, and laughing only on the rarest of occasions, only to then compose herself into a straight face and say “Lo mazcheek” (not funny) – was able to break character and introduce herself. This girl who had been giving us orders all week was less than 4 months older than me. As soon as she was able to, she had so much to say to us that the translator couldn’t translate fast enough – and she was so happy to be able to finally be at the part of the week when she could smile, talk, and laugh with us freely. Best of all, after worrying all week about how much we liked her and how she wouldn’t remember us because she had a different group of kids every week – she confessed that we were her first group. We were thrilled, because this meant that she would always remember us! Our group, most of whom weren’t good friends at the beginning, had really cemented into a team. We had even made up our own cheer, which we shouted at roll-call – “Tzevet Tesha, Lo Chookoomookoo!” which meant “Squad 9, Not A Mess!” and this was the cheer that even succeeded in getting the hard-assed Samelet to break character and laugh.
Although it wasn’t a week that was always easy or fun, I’m certainly glad I chose to do Gadna (Yes Dad, you were right). The kids that were in Haifa had more fun and were far more relaxed than we were, but I don’t think they got nearly as much out of the experience. Living in Israel, especially during that week when the operation was going on in Gaza, it’s impossible not to be acutely aware of the fact that the people risking their lives to defend this country and make sure that I’m safe during my year of playtime, are my age. Almost every kid in Israel spends years doing what I only had to do for five days. I think that it’s really important that I took the time put in a little bit of extra effort to really try to understand what it is that these kids have to go through. And I’m sure that being in the army is something I never want to experience again (not that they would even let me if I wanted to thanks to my pigeon toes), and so it was great to do it for a little while to appreciate those who defend my life, in both of my home countries, a little bit more…but let’s just say I’m glad it’s behind me.
Thirty-three Nativers signed up for Gadna. We were driven, bright and early Sunday morning, to the Gadna base, which is located on Kibbutz S’de Boker in the middle of the Negev desert. We stepped off the bus and were told (in Hebrew) to form three lines. We were then split up (also in Hebrew…little did we know that the entire week would be conducted in Hebrew with everything being translated by one of the bilingual Nativers) into three separate groups – our tzevets. This is the group that we would do everything with for the entire week – all of our lessons, activities, chores, and meals would take place with our tzevet. There were twelve of us in my tzevet, including (luckily) my friends Ashley, Liora, and Sarah, but I wasn’t really close with many of the others in my tzevet. Each tzevet has a leader, or mifakedet, who is basically the commander of the group. After being split up into our groups, we learned how to take commands (the Mifakedet would give us a certain amount of time to do something, say 10 seconds, and say “Ten Seconds, Move!” and we would repeat ‘Yes Mifakedet, 10 seconds, 10…9…8…7…, but all in Hebrew) and we got our uniforms. The rest of that day basically consisted of running different places in different time increments so we could get accustomed to following orders. We also had an opening ceremony, where we met the higher-ups. Directly above our mifakdot was the samelet, a terrifying tiny redhead who told us that if we couldn’t breathe quietly we shouldn’t breathe at all. Above her was the Mem-Mem, short for something I don’t remember, who was less scary and even let us sit when he talked. Standing up at attention was my least favorite part of Gadna – not only did we have to stand with our hands making a diamond behind our backs, we also had to stand with our heels touching, feet pointed out. Anyone who has seen me walk for more than four seconds knows that my feet do not naturally go this way – and after the first fifteen minutes of standing like this, I was dying to point my toes inwards.
After the opening ceremony, my tzevet, lucky us, got a rushed ten minutes to eat dinner and then began our chore for the day – kitchen duty. Kitchen duty didn’t merely consist of ‘cleaning up’ after dinner – it consisted of three and a half hours of washing (fish) dishes in our uniforms, which we still had to wear for another three days…and we were in the middle of the desert at night, so while we were soaking wet, it was also freezing. It was this task that induced me to call my mother crying about how miserable I was, which in retrospect was a terrible idea, because in my absence my mother’s sanity is waning to say the least, and this caused her to be beside herself with worry for the entire week, no matter how much I assured her that the first day was by far the worst.
That night we curled up, all the Nativ girls, in our cozy tent with our putrid sleeping bag and blankets and cots. At night we had about an hour of free-time in which we were to do everything we didn’t get to do during the day, at the end of which we were to report back to our mifakedet, who would then give us about five minutes to get back in bed before lights out.
Monday morning we woke up bright and early at 5:45 (I can assure you, this did not make me a ball of sunshine) and be outside and dressed in our uniform to meet the mifakedet at 6:05. A word about our uniforms: they were VERY difficult to get on and off. The shirt had to be tucked into the pants, which was sometimes hard when I was wearing a sweatshirt underneath because of the cold, and was also difficult because my shirt only had one button. The pants came with a belt that was very hard to buckle because of my full canteen that weighed it down. We also had a giant coat that had to always be zipped and buttoned up completely, and which made me look so round that Ashley nicknamed me the ‘Weeble Wobble,’ which is an egg-shaped toy that has such a low center of gravity that you can throw it all around and it will rock a little and then stand straight back up. As a result of this less-than-convenient uniform, I went to the bathroom as infrequently as possible, because it took a good seven minutes to get redressed each time.
Mornings always started with prayer time, which luckily was optional and gave the girls a good 40 minutes to finish getting ready for the day (twenty minutes is not enough!) and to relax for a little, and call those at home, since it was only around 11:00 for them. We then usually did some cleaning up around the tents, including making sure all of our ‘civilian things,’ sleeping bag, and blankets were in order, and we rolled up the sides of our tent. Then it was breakfast time, and then on to our activities for the day.
Monday was field day, the most physical of all the days. We traveled by bus to the makdesh, or open area in the desert. When we were in the desert, instead of standing in two lines in front of our mifakedet, we had to stand in a circle, and answer only ‘yes’ instead of ‘yes mifakedet,’ so that if our enemy was watching he wouldn’t be able to know who was the leader and who wasn’t. Once in the makdesh, we learned all sorts of different army crawls, which were fun except I got sand down my pants, and I don’t like sand. We also learned how to run from ‘Rimonim’ or grenades (literal translation: pomegranates. Why the Hebrew words for pomegranate and grenade are the same, I’ll never know). Our mifakedet would throw a ‘rimonim’ (aka a rock) at us, and we would have three seconds to run as far away as we could and then get on the grounds and cover our heads. If we didn’t get far enough away, we were pronounced ‘dead’ by the mifakedet. We also learned the art of camouflage by decorating ourselves with desert brush and rubbing our faces with black powder. My favorite part of the day, however, was when our mifakedet picked up two rocks, a big one and a little one, and passed them around the circle, asking us what the difference between them was. Each person gave a different answer – “this one is sharper than that one” “this one is darker than that one” or “this one is heavier than this one.” When everyone had given his or her opinion, the mifakedet took the rocks and said to us ‘You’re all wrong. This one’s just a rock and this one is a RIMON!!!!’ at which point she proceeded to throw the rock down while we were all scrambling away to take cover. The morning finished with a few army-style games and relay races that were actually really fun.
That afternoon we had our first gun lesson – with the Mem-mem – in preparation for the shooting range on Wednesday, where we would all be shooting M-16s. We learned the nine safety rules of shooting a gun, which would be continuously drilled into our heads over the next three days.
That night, while we still had a duty, it was FAR better than kitchen duty – we got to sweep rocks. For forty minutes we were blessed with the chore of sweeping the rocks and dirt off all of the sidewalks. While it was definitely mundane, to say the least, after being subjected to kitchen duty I was truly grateful to be doing anything else. And at least that night for dinner we had more than ten minutes to sit down, relax for a little, and eat. The rest of the night was spent in different kinds of lectures and discussions, which were hard to sit through after such a long day. We then got our free hours and went to bed, to wake up and start basically the same process over again the next day.
Tuesday morning went the same as Monday, but since Tuesday wasn’t field day, the entire day was dedicated to lessons preparing us for the shooting range on Wednesday. In addition to going over the nine safety rules numerous times, we learned the names for the parts of the gun (in English and Hebrew), how to disassemble and reassemble the weapon, and the proper procedure and commands for how to enter the shooting range, load the gun, cock the gun, and when to fire. We practiced this procedure several times so that when we were in the shooting range with the Mem-mem on Wednesday, everything would be familiar to us. Although these lessons were quite interesting, our days were so long and I was running on so little sleep that it was extremely difficult to stay awake, which resulted in my Mifakedet having to make me get up and run a lap as punishment for falling asleep. These lessons were followed by some more relay-races, this time involving the disassembling/reassembling of the gun, some team-building games, more lessons and discussions, and (hooray!) a duty-free day.
Wednesday, the highly anticipated day at the shooting range, started out normally, except that after a hurried breakfast we were bussed to the shooting range. While things were being set up, we went over the rules one more time, and did some more relay-races and army style games. Of all the Nativ groups, we were the last to shoot, so we had already had a chance to watch two groups of our friends. We each had a test shot, to get the feel of the recoil, and then ten bullets. The gun was big, and a little bit awkward for me to hold, but once I started shooting it went really fast. It was a lot of fun. It’s not something I think that I’m necessarily dying to do again, but it was a really great experience and I think that learning about and using the weapons that we see soldiers our age carrying every day – walking around, at security checkpoints, and on buses – is an important part of living in Israel.
After the shooting range, the rest of Gadna went fairly quickly – we had a few more discussion groups, and Thursday morning we were privileged with bathroom duty, which was not fun but still not nearly as bad as kitchen duty. The best part of the week by far though, was the second that Gadna ended. That was when our Mifakedet – who had been giving us orders all week, yelling at us, not smiling, and laughing only on the rarest of occasions, only to then compose herself into a straight face and say “Lo mazcheek” (not funny) – was able to break character and introduce herself. This girl who had been giving us orders all week was less than 4 months older than me. As soon as she was able to, she had so much to say to us that the translator couldn’t translate fast enough – and she was so happy to be able to finally be at the part of the week when she could smile, talk, and laugh with us freely. Best of all, after worrying all week about how much we liked her and how she wouldn’t remember us because she had a different group of kids every week – she confessed that we were her first group. We were thrilled, because this meant that she would always remember us! Our group, most of whom weren’t good friends at the beginning, had really cemented into a team. We had even made up our own cheer, which we shouted at roll-call – “Tzevet Tesha, Lo Chookoomookoo!” which meant “Squad 9, Not A Mess!” and this was the cheer that even succeeded in getting the hard-assed Samelet to break character and laugh.
Although it wasn’t a week that was always easy or fun, I’m certainly glad I chose to do Gadna (Yes Dad, you were right). The kids that were in Haifa had more fun and were far more relaxed than we were, but I don’t think they got nearly as much out of the experience. Living in Israel, especially during that week when the operation was going on in Gaza, it’s impossible not to be acutely aware of the fact that the people risking their lives to defend this country and make sure that I’m safe during my year of playtime, are my age. Almost every kid in Israel spends years doing what I only had to do for five days. I think that it’s really important that I took the time put in a little bit of extra effort to really try to understand what it is that these kids have to go through. And I’m sure that being in the army is something I never want to experience again (not that they would even let me if I wanted to thanks to my pigeon toes), and so it was great to do it for a little while to appreciate those who defend my life, in both of my home countries, a little bit more…but let’s just say I’m glad it’s behind me.
Catching Up, Part 1: My Friends in Israel
Hey everybody! Remember me? Sorry, I know it’s been a long, long while. January has by far been the craziest month of Nativ so far. I’m going to try and separate the month into three distinct blog entries, in an attempt to break things up for you, my reader. But I will say that if you’re going to sit down and attempt to read all three of these entries at once, you should 1. get a certificate of completion at the end and 2. get yourself a snack or a cup of tea or coffee or something right now, because it’s going to be a long haul.
That being said, I’m going to go back to the ‘beginning,’ or at least what was the beginning of all this craziness. So aside from Ginsburg, who came to Israel on an Emory program and who you were introduced to in the last blog post over a month ago, Jenna was the first friend of mine to arrive in Israel. Jenna is one of my best friends from USY, and she’s a year older than me and goes to Barnard. She was coming to Israel for a cousin’s wedding and made some time to see me. So the Shabbat after Christmas, Jenna invited me to spend the weekend at her uncle’s house in Haifa. It was a much-needed, wonderful weekend. Her family is really sweet and I was there for the post-wedding dinner, so everything was a great celebration. It was also great to see her parents, since I’ve spent a significant amount of time at her house at home. Having them around was really comforting, especially after Christmas without my own family. Her cousin Annie, who is a few years older than me, also took us to a club on a Kibbutz that night, and it was really fun just to be hanging out and dancing with Jenna again – almost like being at another USY dance, but with more Israelis.
Jenna then came back with me to Jerusalem, where she stayed with me in my dorm for a few days. Mostly we just relaxed and caught up, and as much as I love my new Nativ friends, nothing compares to being with the old friends of mine who I hung out with throughout all of high school. It was just really great to have her around. It was also an amazing feeling to be able to show someone around Jerusalem – to show her my favorite places to eat and to hang out and to know my way around this city that is my home right now.
The following Tuesday, while Jenna was still around for one more day, my USY friends from my grade arrived – Jake (my prom date), Jeff (who lives down the street from me and who I went to high school with), Rachel (who is the reason I spend so many Shabbatot in Teaneck) and (Ariel) Touger (who was one of my first friends in USY and a big part of the reason it became such a huge part of my life). Keren, Adam, Ashley, and I all waited outside our building as their sheirut (a sort of taxi van thing) dropped them off from the airport. It was a movie-like, picture-perfect reunion, complete with lots of hugs and high-pitched screaming from the girls. The four of us waiting for them had even had to decide who got to hug who first, and our friends barely stepped off the sheirut before they were attacked, let go of, and attacked again, a process that was then repeated three or four times.
That morning the whole group of us (I can’t remember exactly who came and who didn’t, but there were at least nine of us) went out for breakfast at CoffeeShop, one of my favorite places to eat in Jerusalem. It was really unbelievable to have everyone there, all together, again. Only this time, we were all together in Jerusalem, and our friends had traveled (literally) across the world to see us. We all missed Todd, the absent member of the group, but no worries, he arrived a few days later as well. I have to take a second here to say that I am absolutely one of the luckiest people I know to have such great friends. Over the next few days there was a lot of schwarma being eaten, a lot of hanging out and running around Agron, a lot of hugging (we’re a very touchy group of friends, to say the least), and a lot of joking and laughing. Although at times it was very much overwhelming to have all of my best friends staying with us in such cramped quarters after having been away from them for so long, it was beyond glorious to be together with everyone and I managed to get some alone time with each one of my friends.
Of all the time with my friends here, most of it was spent just doing ‘stuff’ in Jerusalem, but there are a few things we did that stand out. One of them was that on the night of new years eve, 13 of us (including some Nativ people) went to a really nice dinner at River Noodle Bar, a great Asian restaurant that’s nearby. It was just a lovely evening to have everyone all dressed up and go out and eat good food. The rest of New Years Eve was fairly uneventful, although I did miss seeing the ball drop.
Another thing that was a lot of fun that we did was that we went to the Science Museum in Jerusalem. I’d never been there before, but it was close and something easy to do on Friday morning before Shabbat, so Ashley, Rachel, Jeff, Jake and I got up early and went. It was actually really fun. We were the only people there over the age of 7 who weren’t parents, but we made our own fun – we even did the craft in the kiddie craft room. There was also (and this is for you Aunt Trudi) a great Einstein exhibit, with his original manuscript on the Theory of Relativity, and the original letter he wrote to a little girl where he said “Do not worry about your troubles with mathematics, I can assure you that mine are still greater.” That was really interesting to see. But the best part about the science museum might have been what happened after the fact. Two of our friends, Matan and Jason, hadn’t wanted to wake up with us to come to the museum. So we decided to tell them that it was AMAZING and the BEST THING EVER so that they would be sorry they didn’t come. Somewhere along the way, someone also decided to tell them that the science museum has an anti-gravity room.
Upon hearing this, Matan said “We HAVE to go, I’ve ALWAYS wanted to go in an anti-gravity room.” Additionally, coming up this week we have three days called the ‘Israel Today Seminar’ as part of Nativ programming. One of these days is spent in Jerusalem, and we all had three options of what we wanted to do that day. One of the options included the Science Museum. When we were filling out forms listing our choices, Ashley overheard Matan telling everyone around him to sign up for the Science Museum…because they have an anti-gravity room.
Another day, Keren, Rachel, Touger, Misha (my friend from Nativ) and I all went to the Biblical Zoo (I have no idea what makes it a Biblical Zoo as opposed to just a regular zoo). Even though I’d already been there on pilgrimage, no one else had. It was a great day, partly because the Biblical Zoo is a very nice zoo with lots of animals, and partly because it gave us an excuse to take all sorts of funny pictures.
One of my very favorite nights of having all my friends here, however, was Girls’ Night. There are five of us who are best friends from home, and usually we all chip in to get each other birthday presents. This year, with everyone so spread out and far away, we decided that instead we’d all just treat ourselves to a nice dinner while they were here. So Keren, Ashley, Rachel, Touger and I spent quite a few shekels going to dinner on Emek Rafayim one night. Dinner was great – it’s really nice to feel like you can order whatever you want after months of being on a budget – and it was wonderful to be together the five of us again.
Overall, it was truly amazing having all of my friends here to experience my new home with me...and I'm already counting down until when I can see them again =).
That being said, I’m going to go back to the ‘beginning,’ or at least what was the beginning of all this craziness. So aside from Ginsburg, who came to Israel on an Emory program and who you were introduced to in the last blog post over a month ago, Jenna was the first friend of mine to arrive in Israel. Jenna is one of my best friends from USY, and she’s a year older than me and goes to Barnard. She was coming to Israel for a cousin’s wedding and made some time to see me. So the Shabbat after Christmas, Jenna invited me to spend the weekend at her uncle’s house in Haifa. It was a much-needed, wonderful weekend. Her family is really sweet and I was there for the post-wedding dinner, so everything was a great celebration. It was also great to see her parents, since I’ve spent a significant amount of time at her house at home. Having them around was really comforting, especially after Christmas without my own family. Her cousin Annie, who is a few years older than me, also took us to a club on a Kibbutz that night, and it was really fun just to be hanging out and dancing with Jenna again – almost like being at another USY dance, but with more Israelis.
Jenna then came back with me to Jerusalem, where she stayed with me in my dorm for a few days. Mostly we just relaxed and caught up, and as much as I love my new Nativ friends, nothing compares to being with the old friends of mine who I hung out with throughout all of high school. It was just really great to have her around. It was also an amazing feeling to be able to show someone around Jerusalem – to show her my favorite places to eat and to hang out and to know my way around this city that is my home right now.
The following Tuesday, while Jenna was still around for one more day, my USY friends from my grade arrived – Jake (my prom date), Jeff (who lives down the street from me and who I went to high school with), Rachel (who is the reason I spend so many Shabbatot in Teaneck) and (Ariel) Touger (who was one of my first friends in USY and a big part of the reason it became such a huge part of my life). Keren, Adam, Ashley, and I all waited outside our building as their sheirut (a sort of taxi van thing) dropped them off from the airport. It was a movie-like, picture-perfect reunion, complete with lots of hugs and high-pitched screaming from the girls. The four of us waiting for them had even had to decide who got to hug who first, and our friends barely stepped off the sheirut before they were attacked, let go of, and attacked again, a process that was then repeated three or four times.
That morning the whole group of us (I can’t remember exactly who came and who didn’t, but there were at least nine of us) went out for breakfast at CoffeeShop, one of my favorite places to eat in Jerusalem. It was really unbelievable to have everyone there, all together, again. Only this time, we were all together in Jerusalem, and our friends had traveled (literally) across the world to see us. We all missed Todd, the absent member of the group, but no worries, he arrived a few days later as well. I have to take a second here to say that I am absolutely one of the luckiest people I know to have such great friends. Over the next few days there was a lot of schwarma being eaten, a lot of hanging out and running around Agron, a lot of hugging (we’re a very touchy group of friends, to say the least), and a lot of joking and laughing. Although at times it was very much overwhelming to have all of my best friends staying with us in such cramped quarters after having been away from them for so long, it was beyond glorious to be together with everyone and I managed to get some alone time with each one of my friends.
Of all the time with my friends here, most of it was spent just doing ‘stuff’ in Jerusalem, but there are a few things we did that stand out. One of them was that on the night of new years eve, 13 of us (including some Nativ people) went to a really nice dinner at River Noodle Bar, a great Asian restaurant that’s nearby. It was just a lovely evening to have everyone all dressed up and go out and eat good food. The rest of New Years Eve was fairly uneventful, although I did miss seeing the ball drop.
Another thing that was a lot of fun that we did was that we went to the Science Museum in Jerusalem. I’d never been there before, but it was close and something easy to do on Friday morning before Shabbat, so Ashley, Rachel, Jeff, Jake and I got up early and went. It was actually really fun. We were the only people there over the age of 7 who weren’t parents, but we made our own fun – we even did the craft in the kiddie craft room. There was also (and this is for you Aunt Trudi) a great Einstein exhibit, with his original manuscript on the Theory of Relativity, and the original letter he wrote to a little girl where he said “Do not worry about your troubles with mathematics, I can assure you that mine are still greater.” That was really interesting to see. But the best part about the science museum might have been what happened after the fact. Two of our friends, Matan and Jason, hadn’t wanted to wake up with us to come to the museum. So we decided to tell them that it was AMAZING and the BEST THING EVER so that they would be sorry they didn’t come. Somewhere along the way, someone also decided to tell them that the science museum has an anti-gravity room.
Upon hearing this, Matan said “We HAVE to go, I’ve ALWAYS wanted to go in an anti-gravity room.” Additionally, coming up this week we have three days called the ‘Israel Today Seminar’ as part of Nativ programming. One of these days is spent in Jerusalem, and we all had three options of what we wanted to do that day. One of the options included the Science Museum. When we were filling out forms listing our choices, Ashley overheard Matan telling everyone around him to sign up for the Science Museum…because they have an anti-gravity room.
Another day, Keren, Rachel, Touger, Misha (my friend from Nativ) and I all went to the Biblical Zoo (I have no idea what makes it a Biblical Zoo as opposed to just a regular zoo). Even though I’d already been there on pilgrimage, no one else had. It was a great day, partly because the Biblical Zoo is a very nice zoo with lots of animals, and partly because it gave us an excuse to take all sorts of funny pictures.
One of my very favorite nights of having all my friends here, however, was Girls’ Night. There are five of us who are best friends from home, and usually we all chip in to get each other birthday presents. This year, with everyone so spread out and far away, we decided that instead we’d all just treat ourselves to a nice dinner while they were here. So Keren, Ashley, Rachel, Touger and I spent quite a few shekels going to dinner on Emek Rafayim one night. Dinner was great – it’s really nice to feel like you can order whatever you want after months of being on a budget – and it was wonderful to be together the five of us again.
Overall, it was truly amazing having all of my friends here to experience my new home with me...and I'm already counting down until when I can see them again =).
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