Sukkot Break, Pt. 2 - Road Trip Around Israel

After our Yam l'Yam failure, Josh picked us up in our rental car and we spent the next few nights driving around Israel, hiking and camping and seeing the sights.  Since I know pictures are the more exciting things to see and I rather post pictures than write a lot, here goes!

We went to the Teldan Nature Reserve where there were beautiful springs, Winnie the Pooh's Tree, Paradise, and amazing views.  It felt nice to cool off in fresh clean water, and it felt even better to be hiking without the 30 lbs or so on our backs!

Winnie the Pooh's Tree

We went to the Naot Factory because Arielle and Josh wanted to buy some sandals that apparently are amazing, but I will never leave my Rainbows behind!  We had Lebanese falafel for lunch and had an amazing dinner at a fish restaurant called Dag al Hadan.  They serve you all you can eat salads and bread and potatoes along with the full fish with head (or you can be normal and order it without the head like I did).  We devoured all that food because we hadn't been having many satisfying meals on this trip.

We spent the night next to the Syrian border in these cool teepees, and the owner of the campsite was this crazy drunk man riding a horse everywhere.  It was a lot of fun to all be together and it felt nice to finally have a mattress to sleep on!

The next day we went rafting down what was basically a big lazy river, so I enjoyed relaxing and laying there without doing much and it was quite a pleasant experience.  At night, we went to Hamat Gader Hot Springs and then we all drove down to the Kinneret and barbecued and camped nearby it with plans to go to the Dead Sea the next day.

hot springs

We drove down the highway through the West Bank (don't worry it's safe-ish) and went to the Dead Sea where we played in the mud and water and floated and such.  We then drove down to the Negev Desert and camped in the crater at Mitzpe Ramon, stopping a lot on the way to take pictures.  It was by far one of my favorite nights here, there were a billion stars out and it was so nice and peaceful and was what I wanted this whole time, to see a bunch of stars.  We also had a fun photoshoot with lights and different camera techniques thanks to Josh and his camera.

Palestinian license plate

Yam Ha'Melach

camel from the car!

crater

Bedouin campsite

nightsky

thanks to Gabby's ability to write everyone's name in cursive backwards

Sukkot Break, Pt. 1 – Yam l’Yam

*I want to preface these next blog posts by saying they are long and filled with details mainly because I want to remember this amazing and challenging experience and because my mommy wants to know.  I won’t be offended if you skim over it, I just won’t talk to you again…   J

In the Jewish calendar, a plethora of holidays fall in September with Sukkot kinda culminating the holiday season. We (and the rest of Israel) got a week off from school and work during the Sukkot break, though we actually had 10 days off. My friends Arielle, Gabby, and I had been talking about doing a very long and intense hike across the width of Israel from west to east. Yam l'Yam (Sea to Sea) is intended to be a 3 or 4 day hike in which people hike from the Mediterranean Sea to Lake Kinneret. We bought hiking and camping equipment, nuts and other non perishable food (i <3 Nutella), got a very detailed but very in Hebrew trail map of Israel, and mapped out a route to take that would take 4 days to complete. Our plan was that we were going to rent a car with our friend/roommate Josh and he would drop us off at the trail head, pick us up when we ended, and then we would continue our break taking a road trip around Israel (because it's such a big country...). We started break by camping on a random beach in Nahariya with another group of friends planning a similar road trip. We drove down to the beach on Nahariya and attempted to find a secluded spot to camp but unfortunately we had to compromise to sharing our space with fishermen who were out the entire night/early morning and to camping next to a somewhat busy boardwalk.

getting ready to start the hike

Day 1: We tried to get and early start at 6 AM, but unaccustomed to the camping life and time consuming tasks such as rolling up sleeping bags and the tent, Josh didn't drop us off at the start until 730 ish. We started our journey in Achsiv with our heavy backpacks, lots of drinking water, and a small bottle filled with water from the Mediterranean because that's what you're supposed to do, take water from one sea and pour it into the other at the end. We spent hours hiking through banana trees, a nature reserve, and other less exciting lands, all the while enjoying beautiful views and stopping to drink plenty of water and eat snacks. We went through the Nahal Achsiv (riverbed), and halfway through we climbed out to camp in Park Goren where we thought there would be food and water and bathrooms. Unfortunately, there were no food or bathrooms so we had a delicious dinner of nuts and fruit and Nutella, and we passed out by 8 PM.

eating a pomegranate, my friends thought I liked way intense and armyish and loved this pic

view of Monfort from Park Goren

Day 2: People in the tent near ours felt bad for us because they knew we didn't have real food so as we were getting our stuff together in the morning, they brought over a giant tub of packed food for us to have for lunch. They were so nice and it felt good to have real food while hiking. We climbed down from Park Goren, while enjoying the view across the riverbed of the Montfort Fortress, and we continued through the nahal. I turned my ankle a couple times so I had to work through that the rest of the trip but it was all good. We walked through two springs, Ein Tamar and Ein Ziv, which were beautiful and refreshing to have cold water around. We passed a couple with a dog whom we thought was theirs, but as we hiked out of the nature reserve in the afternoon, the dog was laying by the exit and it would end up following us for more than a day. As we quickly learned, people don't do Yam l'Yam without tramping or hitchhiking. We were told numerous times to but Oranim doesn't let us and we wanted to be able to say we walked the whole thing, so we and the dog whom we named Mevich (awkward in Hebrew) because it looked awkward and mangy and awkwardly followed us started walking up a ginormous road to exit the nahal area. We then had to walk alongside Highway 89 where we soon realized because of the extra walking we did without tramping we were behind and wouldn't make it to where our second night’s campsite was. We called Kineret, one of our city coordinators, asking what she thought we should do and she had Ron (an Oranim tour guide) call us. Ron is possibly the best and funniest and most energetic tour guide ever, and he raised our spirits because everything was sababa and butterflies were flying. We were sitting at a bus bench and I told him we saw a sign that said Ma'alot to the left so he could know where we were and he responded that Ma'alot is to the east like China or something. He told us to find a park to sleep in and continue the next day since it was getting dark.  Knowing it was Shabbat and not much would be open, we stopped at the only gas station slash thing we saw which happened to be right next to a park.  We basically moved into the gas station, and after a much needed makeshift shower in the bathroom, we ordered pizza to be delivered to the station.  We went to sleep, setting our alarm for 445 AM hoping to get an early start and make up for lost time.  Sleeping in the park was a bit creepy because there were kids there hanging out late at night, but knowing Mevich was only a few feet away from our tent we felt safe ish, though we did have my Swiss Army knife readily available…

Day 3:  Before our alarm had a chance to go off, we were woken up around 430 AM by intense thunder and lightening and rain so we grabbed as much f our things as we could and ran to the gas station to seek shelter.  We waited out all the craziness, gathered all of our stuff, and continued on our trip by walking along the 89 for what seemed like forever.  The girls weren’t as big of fans of Mevich as I was and we felt bad he hadn’t eaten or drunken anything all day so we tried to leave our leftovers from the night before hoping he would take them and stop following us but we were clearly the better option.  What felt like a continuous uphill battle on the highway, we fought on, taking lots of breaks in whatever shade we could find (dog with us the whole time - according to my sister he was Nicki’s soul spending time with me after she died).  While stopped along the road, a car pulled up and man got out an asked if the dog was ours, and we said no and he said it was his even though it had been following us for a full day and night.  He took our dog which was a bit upsetting because we got used to having him around.  Fun findings alongside the road included a dead wild pig with a gross chunk missing from its abdomen and 2 skulls on the side of the road.  We walked through Hurfeish (a Druze village) and got frozen peas and carrots to ice our wounds and ate sambusak, some pastry calzone type dish they specialize in. We met up with our friends in the other car to camp at the base of Mount Meron and had a barbecue of delicious meat fulfilling our need for real food and protein.

hanging out at the gas station during thunderstorm

Mevich being taken away :(

the highway we walked along for forever

Hurfeish

Day 4:  We started early in the morning knowing we had to climb all of Mt. Meron, the highest mountain in Israel).  The whole day it was overcast and we couldn’t see a view of anything, which we saw as a blessing in disguise because it meant it wasn’t hot hot hot.  Parts of the trail looked like it was the apocalypse which was very eerie.  We made good timing to make up for our setbacks, but it turns out, you're crazy to walk the whole Sea to Sea -- everyone hitchhikes and cheats so there was no way we could do it in 4 days.  While figuring out where to sleep and what to do about the rest of the hike and break, we learned that the following 2 days it was going to be forbidden to hike because of Level 6 heat (in Israel there are different levels and 6 means basically you can’t hike or do anything active outside from 10 in the morning to 4 in the afternoon), so we decided God wasn't on our side to finish this and we wanted to experience more of Israel and not waste the money we put into the rental car.  After bad news from home and Arielle’s waterfall of emotion, we were ready for a change of pace.  We had Josh pick us up so we didn't die the next day because hiking would have not been an option since we'd be in the Nahal Amud without water or a way out.  Josh drove us to the Kinneret so we could pour our Mediterranean water into it like we were supposed to and have some closure (though we plan on completing it at some point before leaving Israel).  In need of food and a shower, we met up with our friends and camped in a pay campsite with real showers, which we enjoyed VERY much.

apocalpsy looking

cool reddish tree on Mt. Meron (I don't know how to turn it the right way)

pouring the Mediterranean water into the Kinneret

To be continued…

And pictures to be added...

Who would have thought Israelis wander the streets on Yom Kippur like it's Isla Vista & DP!!

Yom Kippur in Israel was like nothing I've ever experienced.  First, my roommates and I made pre-fast dinner and we ended up making way too much so we had a few friends join us, and after feeling like I was gonna vomit if I moved we started fasting.  On Yom Kippur, the entire country shuts down and since there are no cars on the road (except for emergency vehicles) everyone in Israel gathers in the middle of the streets walking around.  It was an amazing thing to see, everyone in the city in white just hanging out, kids riding bikes in the street, and people playing games to pass the time without using electricity or anything like that.  We starfished in the middle of the street just because we could and that was really cool.  A few of us who were fasting decided to stay up as late as possible Friday night so we could sleep as late as possible Saturday and avoid the feelings of starvation.  We played cards and charades and talked until I crashed at 4:30AM.  The next day we did the same thing until we went to synagogue to hear the Shofar blow at the end of the holiday, and then of course had a delicious break the fast.  Unfortunately, you really aren't supposed to take pictures of what happens, but I found pictures to show what this experience looks like.

We have a 10 day break for Sukkot coming up and my friends and I are planning on doing a 4 day hike called Yam L'Yam (Sea to Sea) where you hike across Israel from the Mediterranean to Lake Kinneret which I'm very excited about.  Then I think we're renting a car and driving around Israel and stopping in a bunch of places like the Negev and the Dead Sea and hiking and camping and roughing it.  We don't have any for sure plans yet so we shall see what happens!!

Lindsey

Blooooggggggg (I couldn't think of a clever title...)

Happy new year to all you Jews out there, everyone else, happy start of school...? For Rosh Hashanah, Julian and I went with our host dad to a kibbutz (Givat Hayim) that his friend lived on where we had that biggest holiday dinner I've ever been to, but it doesn't take much to beat the size of our family functions.  There were 30-40 people from all over Israel -- the lady who was hosting the dinner had posted on a message board inviting anyone who didn't have family to go to for whatever reason like divorce or travel plans.  Everyone was super friendly and there was so much food and it was all very good (minus the gefilte fish that I obvs didn't touch).

Avi, Julian, and me

The next day I went to services because I couldn't be in Israel for the High Holidays and not see what it was like.  Not surprisingly they were long and boring and hot and incomprehensible and we woman had to to be shunned to the back on the 2nd level.  I then joined my friends Arielle and Michelle at their host family for lunch where I played chess with a hilarious 7 year old boy AND BEAT HIM 3 TIMES!  When I told the mom, originally from Maryland, that I was from the Valley, she commented that I didn't look like a JAP which I thanked her for.  The rest of the weekend was spent watching Entourage and other random stuff on our computers which makes dead holidays like Shabbat more interesting.

We've started working in our schools, and by working I mean hanging out with high schoolers and talking about fun things like T.V. and sports and music.  In 11th and 12th grade here, the kids have oral English tests where they pretty much just have to talk about their lives and our job is to practice with them.  We've already heard some funny lines (besides all the annoying Justin Bieber fanatics everywhere).  A kid asked me at least 10 times if I liked to live in California because of earthquakes and if they were scary.  I said no not really, they usually aren't a big deal, and then I shook the table and said that was how it is and he thought that earthquakes seemed fun.

I haven't started volunteering at the motor disabilities place but I will on Sunday.  My Hebrew is improving I think/hope.  I'm working on my USC application which is tedious and frustrating...I forgot what applying to colleges was like and I don't really want to have to do it again!

Going to sleep now.  Tomorrow we are packing food for the holidays and Thursday we are going hiking in the Israel Valley which should be fun!  (Especially because the weather has cooled down a little and it's really nice out now)

If you want to mail me a beautiful package, our address is:

Har Metzada 89/17ב (that is the Hebrew letter bet for you non-Heb people, I think a B will get to me too  though)

77711

Ashdod Israel

Loves youuuu

!!סלומ החברים ומשפחה שלי

Tel Aviv!

I've been a bit of a failure at updating this blog, but I am using the lack of a camera until now as an excuse! I bought a cheapy digital camera, and that's just gonna have to get me through this time abroad.  I've really enjoyed these last few weeks in Ashdod (and our various trips to Tel Aviv for a more entertaining nightlife that Ashdod doesn't quite have much of).  Besides Ulpan, we've been meeting with the teachers of the schools where we will be teaching English in -- my roommate Josh and I are going to be working in Mekif Bet, which is unfortunately a religious high school, so not only do I need to buy some more long skirts, but the kids will most likely look older than me, but whatever! I can speak better English :)

our view of the sea

my bed/half of the room while still organizing and unpacking

living room with couches that look like butt are quite comfy though we've tried switching with the other apartment's leather couches

my fav pasttime!

We work in the schools Sunday through Thursday from like 8-1, and they want us to have every afternoon also filled with some type of activity.  Monday and Wednesday is an option continuation of Ulpan, which I will be doing because I figure I should try as hard as possible to learn the language while I'm here and get as fluent as possible.  Tuesdays we have a group enrichment where the coordinators talk to us about different aspects of Israeli/Jewish life, history, etc.  Therefore, at least one afternoon a week we must do at least one other volunteer project.  We've been visiting places over the last couple weeks, and I think I'm going to go to a center for kids with motor disabilities.  Josh and I have Sundays off I think though, so we have to work at a different school/youth at risk center thing during the time.  And some Thursdays, I might volunteer at a coup kitchen where they package food for poor families in Ashdod just as a fun, rewarding bonus way to spend time.

working at the soup kitchen for Rosh Hashanah

Since we still have a good amount of free time before work work starts, much of that time is spent going to the beach (a whopping 5 minute walk), laying on the couch on balcony and reading or enjoying the view of the ocean, or wandering the city getting lost on buses for hours at a time (this has happened on more than one occasion).  I've gone to Tel Aviv a couple times with my roommates to visit friends of theirs and it was really fun.  Tel Aviv is obviously a much bigger, livelier city but I'm very happy with living in Ashdod because we can make whatever fun we want out of life -- we can go to a hookah bar or a pub or just hang out at our apartments without feeling the need to go clubbing every night or spending a lot of money which I think would happen if I lived in Tel Aviv.  We saw the accommodations the Tel Aviv Oranim program is living in now and let's just say I'm very happy I chose the FREE program right next to the beach.

Apartment 17 Bet! (Julian, Gabby, Me, Arielle, Sophia, Josh)

beach in Ashdod

September is really whacky because of all the holidays so we don't really start consistently working until October, instead we're kinda more observing and figuring out what exactly our jobs will entail.  This week is Rosh Hashanah and I think Julian and I are having dinner/doing something with our host family which will be nice.  Last week, my roommates and I didn't have Shabbat with our families so we made a precious and delicious Shabbat dinner.  One of the most difficult things to get used to living in a smaller city in Israel is that almost everything shuts down on Shabbat and the few places that remain open (mostly Russian owned businesses) are hard to get to without having to take a cab.  If you need to go to the market on Friday, you have to make sure you get up and out by the early afternoon.

pub/club in Ashdod (so sweatyyyy)

I am going to continue to try to update as much as possible.  I apologize if I forget to or think that not enough super exciting stuff has happened, because while I am having fun, it might be doing things that are hard to come across on a blog about life in Israel as being really cool (aka learning some crazy Canadian version of crazy eights).  And I cannot stress this enough, Birthright Birthright Birthright! Do it.

And I just decided it's late and I'm tired and need to steal some pictures from people so I will post this now and then tomorrow post pictures.

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