I told you I wouldn't be good at this whole blogging thing...

Things I will discuss in this blog:

1. my birthday
2. Eilat
3. sprained ankle
4. Breast Cancer walk in Jerusalem
5. nose piercing
6. Ashdod basketball
7. daily life/schedule

While being in Israel, I have been lucky enough to have found amazing friends that made my birthday celebration like none other I've ever had.  Of course it's all down hill and 23 isn't a very exciting age to turn, but my people here made it special for me.  We wanted to have a fun themed party so we decided on 90s theme because why not?!  It is an often overlooked decade when it comes to themed parties.  Plus, any reason to let 'N Sync be acceptable music is obviously the best thing in the world! So we went shopping at the Shuk for ridiculous outfits and accessories and on the 6th we had a big party with everyone invited (including the new group who arrived a few days before -- ps. we were excited to have new blood in our group).  Arielle and Gabby surprised me with a bottle of rum which is not so easy to find here but so much more amazing than vodka and gross arak (this black licorice tasting drink that's nasty but all Israelis love it) and a fun bday hat.  The next day, when I got home from school they had decorated my room with tons of balloons and streamers and fun stuff! We also got delicious chinese food for dinner and they made me a cake and got my more presents.  It was a great and memorable birthday!  We also had a cowboys and indians party for Arielle's birthday last week so we aren't lacking in the fun department!

SHOULDER PADS!

Gabby, me, Dotan

Cowboys vs. Indians

The weekend after my birthday (so of course it became semi my birthday weekend for posterity's sake) we went to Eilat, or the Israeli Cancun as it is know as, with all of the Oranim groups (aka like 300 people).  This was the one place I didn't get to go on Birthright and I really wanted to so was very excited it landed on this weekend.  Needless to say, Eilat was a lot of fun...pun intended...We hiked, saw the borders of all the neighboring countries, went tubing on the Red Sea, laid out on the beach, went on a Booze Cruise, and went to some fun bars/clubs.  On Friday night, we went to a club called Three Monkeys and there was an amazing band playing basically what I consider to be Bar Mitzvah music, a good mix of oldies and classic rock and current hits.  We had a lot of fun dancing and singing with the crowd that included a bunch of awkwardly older ladies whom my friend tried to dance with and got turned down multiple times.  While I really liked Eilat, these big group trips tend to feel a lot like Birthright and aren't as much fun as traveling around with our smaller group, but oh well.  It was beautiful and hot and anywhere with a beach is heaven for me.

Oranim 42 Ashdod, what up!

being crazy bored on the bus

As you may remember, I twisted my ankle on our backpacking trip.  Though the ankle had healed fine and I wasn't having any problems with it, it clearly was still pretty weak because I went for a standard run/jog/walk because I can't run along the boardwalk here in Ashdod and I sprained my ankle again pretty badly this time.  It was really swollen and discolored so out of fear of a recent string of leg injuries (two girls in the program were supposed to have surgery at this point in time for various injuries, long story but both are ok, one is home now awaiting possible surgery, one is getting better here) and because our insurance here makes everything free, I went to the doctor more for the experience and the nod of approval that I wouldn't need surgery.  I got my first ever Xray (that's not of my teeth) and the doctor told me exacly what I knew already and prescribed me what is basically Advil.  Crisis averted.

**fortunately no pictures of this one

A couple weeks ago my roommates and I participated in the first ever Breast Cancer walk in Jerusalem.  While we were very scared at the thought of walking a whole 3.8 km (like 2 miles ish) we sucked it up and fought through the pain.  The walk actually ended up taking more than an hour because there were so many people and for parts of it we were walking on the sidewalk alongside a busy street so we couldn't move very fast.  It felt good to raise money and awareness.  I also enjoyed wandering around Jerusalem shops buying fun souvenirs like a Lakers in Hebrew shirt!  The only downfall was a minor incident we had with a shop owner.  While walking in and out of tshirt shops checking out the selection, I went into one store asking the guy if he had an Maccabi Ashdod shirts.  He asked if I was Jewish and when I answered yes, he told me he doesn't sell to Jews and to get out.  I was confused and surprised and a little unsure whether he was joking or not so I told my friends and they went in but got the same reaction, so needless to say we continued onto the next store.  We also ate amazing burgers at this place called Burger Bar...yum.

I've been talking about wanting to get my nose pierced for a while now, and for those of you who know my irrational fear of needles, this is BIG.  I don't even know why I wanted it so badly but I did, and after a couple girls from the new group got it done in Tel Aviv, I decided it was time.  My friends and I spent a few hours shopping at the big shuk in Tel Aviv and then made our way to the tattoo/piercing place.  I walked in, said I wanted to get my nose pierced, and literally two minutes later, there was a needle in my nose.  It actually didn't hurt really except for when he put in the stud and had to twist it around a little, but of course I had some tears because I think it's impossible not to when you get your nose pierced.  I love it and am so happy and feels like I've always had it (minus the fact I keep accidentally tugging at it when I pull shirts on and off but no big deal).

tears of joy

We made friends with a guy who plays for Maccabi Ashdod basketball team which is in the Premier League in Israel, but they aren't exactly the best team in the league.  We've gone to a couple games and they are fun, but they are more like high school basketball then professional NBA games.  For starters, they play in the gym at one of the high schools here.  Also, the cheerleaders are these fantastic high schoolers who do routines to all the top songs now during every time out, but their talent level is pretty low and my friend and I joke that after watching a couple performances, we are ready to join them out there.  I have yet to go to a soccer (sorry, football) match yet, but hopefully I will soon.

Now that we're more than half way through with the program (omg crazy I can't believe it already) and we have our schedules down pat, I thought I would finally share with you exactly what I'm doing here in Israel.  (side note for Melissa, I wanted to make a Lost joke about how I didn't make you wait very long to find out the answer but I thought that would be way too nerdy).  Let me just say, our crazy school has somewhat settled into a routine where Josh and I are actually working with and helping kids, and I'm really enjoying working with the kids at motor disabilities.  I quit Ulpan for the time being but might go back once in a while, so I have to figure out what to do with my new found free time, I'll probably start volunteering more but we'll see.
Sunday: teach at Mekif Bet (high school) from 10-11:45, volunteer at motor disabilities from 4-6
Monday: teach from 8:30-1:20
Tuesday: teach from 8:30-12:30, enrichment from 5-7
Wednesday: teach from 9:15-12:30, sometimes shuk in afternoon
Thursday: teach from 9:15-11:45
Friday: do nothing/hang out or travel
Saturday: do nothing/hang out or travel

and here's a few pictures without exciting stories attached...

when the new group came, we went on a little boat cruise to welcome them and get to know each other

with Daniel Kosher (there's 3 Daniels in the new group and this Dan lives in the kosher apartment, hence the name Daniel Kosher) at a Masa mega event, where we saw Idan Raichel in concert

I didn't get the memo on making faces...

our first family Shabbat as photographed by Josh, it should totally be on the cover of a Jew magazine!

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...