A month in Review

There's so much I've realized in the past month while being abroad. I've rediscovered a lot of both inner and outer strenghth. The real kind that comes from overcoming obstacles. I've also learned to just appreciate the present while I'm here. Sometimes I think about stuff back at home or stuff thats gone by or I worry about the future; but thats no way to go about being here. Today the temperatures was 95 degrees and it was so hot at the beach. The only bareable way to be outside was to sit and wade in the Mediteranean sea...it was fantastic. I spent atleat an hour just floating and being still. Theres nothing like wading in the Med to put life in perspective..oh and to get a great tan :) I think everyone is a little worried about coming home after abroad and I was alittle anxious about returning home in 3 weeks a couple days ago. But now I've realized, my fun adventurous side that I've picked up here will last on. Theres more experiences to be had in Chicago and I will embrace that. Plus I'll be entering the real work world with a part time internship. :)

So more recap frm the month:
- Yom Hashoah and Yom Hazikaron: Holocaust and Memorial Day. They were a week apart from eachother but unlike you can experience anywhere in the world. A siren goes off at 10 am throughout Israel and the whole country stops! Cars stop, people at stores stop, no one walks, no one talks everyone just gets out from wherever they are and stand still. Its an amazing thing to witness adn something I've learnd since Hebrew School. It was great to be part of - to see eveyrone stand respectfully as they remember those who were lost. Incredible. No one disobeys and the whole country stands in silence.
OSP actually put on a program for Yom Hazikaron - as well as there was one in Rabin Square - about the silence. And there were testimonials that said even though you remember, nothing can bring the loved ones back. It was really moving and there were beautiful songs. I'm glad our program did something.
- Earth Day: The day mom arrived, I picked them up from the airport and checked in, grabbed dinner etc and when they walked me back to the bus stop on Rabin Square we saw a huge concert! Since it was EArth Day, everyone turned off their lights across teh city and there was a free concert in Rabin powerd by natural energy! It was lit up so cool and the band: balkan beat box was fantatsic! So many ppl were dancing and hanging out!
- Yom Haazmauot: ISRAEL INDEPENDENCE DAY! Following Yom Hazikaron, we had both days off of school and everything was closd for both holidays which is both respectful and a tad annoying. Everyone has bbqs ( "mangle" in hebrew) and blows e/o with foam. There were little club parties. But the big gathering was again on Florentine street. and this time it was even bigger than Purim! So many ppl crowding the streets, dancing on cars, yelling from balconies, it was so packed that the cops blocking off the streets stopped letting ppl in! The crowd was alittle hard to manage but all around fun. However, as we were leaving Florentine the BEST thing happend: Nachman Jews!! Nachman Jews are the Hassidic Jews that run around blasting hebrew cool music, dancing on cars, exciting the crowd. So there they were, driving parrarel to Florentine, very slowly so that a huge crowd danced around these moving cars - just celelbrating Israel's existance! We ran up and danced with them, its hard not to be excited when u see them - all ages just jamming throughout the streets! It really is a very special holiday to Israel. The country is still very young and many know a someone who fought in one war or another to presever this country. You can tell how precious it is to so many ppll..including me. When I heard Hatikvah - I've never felt so moved.
- Exploring: Especially with moms visit, there was lots of reason to walk the streets. Even now when theres nothing goin on in Ramat Aviv (everyday) I head out to Allenby and walk around, window shpping or try to find cool things. One day I walked from TLV Univ to the Namal (the docks) to the main beach; or from the beach to the Azreli Towers and back; or walked down all the way to Yafo. Friday I was having a relaxing day so I took a nice strol from the Shook on Allenby down the same path the bus takes me home, all the way to the dorms! Thats like an 1.5 hr walk. TLV is a small little city but thats why its so fun and easy to learn!
- On the bus one day I had a great conversation with an adorable little old couple. They started taking to me when they got on the bus but I dindt understand. The great thing is that it was ALL IN HEBREW. I found out that he moved here from Budapest 61 years ago to fight in the Independence War; after his parents died in Aushwitcz. She moved here 60 years ago with her family from Romania and they met! They have 2 kids and 6 grandkids. Their son studied in NY for alittle. She told me to be careful while in the sun. It was the happiest conversation I've ever had and I was really proud of my hebrew..I tried really hard.
- As i was leaving the bus from saying goodbye to Mom, I was walking towards the dorm when I recongized this cat: Charles - cuz hes black and white like Charlie Chaplin. Charles is a stray cat with a bit of a princess attitude. All day you'll find him always hanging out in front of Einstein D dorms (ours) sunning himself. And at night he roams into everyones rooms - literally if ur door is open, Charles will stop by to see wahts up! Well Charles wasnt in his typical spot so I waited for him to come out of the bushes and he recognized me! He even followed me home, on my heels! Eveyrone was saying "u know that cat is following u?"..he was just rubbing against me..it was so cute. He followed me upstairs so I told the kitty to wait outself. I grabbed alittle tuna and sure enogh when I opened the door, there he was! Waiting. What a cute little smart cat, I figured he deseved some food and honeslty I've never seen a kitty eat so fast, poor little one. He scarfed it down and purred the whole time!
- Theres also new baby kitties. A mama gave birth to the 3 most ADORABLE kittens youve ever seen. They're stray like all of Israel but I can tell who the fathers are since about 20 or so kittens live around the Einstein dorm areas. haha. the kitties are more afraid of humans than their mama but they are so cute and ive captured some really cute picstures of them..
- Another day it was 90 degrees and we went to the beach -- all of Israel was there! I was like..does no one have work? But it was such a fun environment! Im aiming to be so tan by my return :)
- Lag B'omer: the day Rabbi Akivas students stopped dying as well as the day the founder of Kabbalah died. Since he knew when he was gona die, he wanted it to be a celelbratory day - and he studied torah all day and night and very late at night he died. So you celebrate his honor among other things by having bonfires all over the country! Apparnetly Israelis just used to burn stuff like benches, so now the City Hall gives away lumber for free so theres no property damage. Kids are allowed to stay up late too. ("kumsitz" is bonfire in hebrew cuz it sounds like yiddish "come, sit!" haha) We went to the beach to see what was going on. On the way we caught a couple bonfires but the beach was littered with teen-aged kids. Everyone was camping out on the beach with food and tents! we even got some free food from some of them. it was really cool to see eveyrone just laying out at night on the beach - a part was watched over by security so u knew it was all ok
- Sat: We saw signs for a spring festival adn right in Ramat Aviv these Israel Scouts (boy scouts) hosted a little festival with crafts and music!
- Tongiht outside there was a little gathering to celebrate all the ppl in the dorm living together - namely the Arabs and Jews. There were some protestors cuz i think today used to be a mourning day for Arabs about the loss of Palestine. It was all kind of confusing but btwn 8- 11 right outside my window, in the courtyard there was a dj, slideshow, cotton candy, hotdogs, drinks, corn and dancing. little balloons. It was a cute little celebration and everyone was gettin pretty into it. Me and a Chicagoan showed everyone our "cotton eyed joe" dance. It was pretty humid tho and led to a pretty intense ashtma attack. sucks that its getting unbarebly hot..tho I wont complain just yet :)
- The thurs before the north trip, me and roomies finished our hebrew exams and took an expedition to Haifa/ Akko. The train ride to Haifa was about 40 min and we we saw the cool center, the university and then walked around the "paris square". we got falafel and stopped at this exotic meats shwarma place. basically u could put all these kabobs or hamburgers into a pita. After food, we found the only subway in Israel and let it take us up to the top of the Carmel Mountain. The man running the counter gave us a 3 sheckle dicsount each. The top was the last stop of course and by the very end we were on suchhh a diagonal it was a little scary. This one human ran trolley underground, very intense. very happy to get offf. the top of the carmel mountain was so fun and beautiufl. many shops and cafes and a gorgeous view of all of the haifa bay and harbor. its one of the biggest and most ancient ports. we could even see akko on the other side. then we walked down to the Ba'hai Gardens. Luckily one of the men working there was from NY, doing a volunteer year service at the World Ba'hai Headquarters. He told us a tour was starting in 15 min - which is the only way to get fuly inside. So for some of our first times ever, we got to be INSIDE the gardens! They are gorgeousss gardens and the Haifa location is special because its where the leader is buried. He had spent many years imprisoned in Akko and this felt like his home. Something of that sort. The tour was in Hebrew so it was a bit of an excercise to understand, but all in all we dint really hear or learn much, just felt happy to be inside. AT the bottom, an hour later, we walkd out and saw a couple take marriage pictures. If you could call it that. She was dressed in a seethrough lace top and a fluffy skirt with knee high stilettos. He was wearing a grey suit and a beret. Haha. We decidd to navigate our way back to the train station which was fun because we got to see more of the city and it was easy to find since next door is a very tall landmark. 25 min later we were there. We grabbed ice coffees and died cokes before our train to Akko arrived. We knew the walk to get to the ancient part pretty explictely and the modern city is rather cute. There were many little dress shops and it looked like Ashquelon a little. We arrived at the old city, everyone used to rave about Akko's beauty. However in the past couple years, riots have totally looted the city. Its no longer pristine and each special alleyway was dripping with dirt, litter and other things we were quite sure of. It held us back from appreciating some of the fun activiites, like seeing the synaggouge, mosque, tunnels and bathhouse. Still it was cool to see the transformation. Very tired and sore, we made our way back to the trainstation and arrived back to TLV content with our mini trip.

Field Trips:
- Jerusalem trip with my education class: Did a cool game tour of Nachalot - seeing, finding and searching out ancient artifacts and learning about the area. We did an interactive part about teaching on the Tayelit. For lunch we went to restaurant style soup kitchen. You sit down like in a restaurant and the food is pretty good. But you dont have to pay - at the front theres a donation box and u can give at the end as much as u want or as little as you can afford. I really liked that idea. Then at the end we heard a panel of Jewish Educators doing fellowships in Israel. It waspretty inspiring and I cant say I'm not ruling out the idea of learning how to teach in a Dayh school. One program is 2 years and you even get a stipend for the first 3 years with an agreement that you'll teach at a school in Day School in the states. All the educators were super cool and interesting to listen to. Plus we had deliciosu food liek bagels and toppings as well as fruit platters ..yumm
- Desert Jeep trek with Israel Environment class - we were picked up AT the dorms in these 10 person old school jeeps and then taken on a day long trek. We stoped in Jerusalem to see the water line where on one side its all green, and then slowly it becoems deserty. We went into the West bank. Did a hike to see a cool hidden oasis where the water fluckuates. We saw the streem where all Israel's sewage travels down! Its converted and cleaned and reused..We also so from far away an old monk monistary and all the caves next door where they used to study. Those caves are even referenced in the Torah. We saw beduions on donkeys and the coolest - these bedouins that looked Europeans. We went to the cliff where all the Jews' sinns used to be burnt on a donkey on Yom Kippur during times of the Temple. Its like "mt. hell" or something. there were lots of ancient artifacts still there. the town across the area tired europeans to do their artisan work 100s of years ago- these slaves from Russian provence areas.but over time the Europeans assimilated and married the Middle Easterners. Now, their kids look Euroopean (wiht red hair, freckles, light skin) but they're bedouins! SO COOL! We also saw the dead sea from far away and saw the sad receding line. We found these plants that sprouted during water fall only. So they never know theyre in a desert. We sprinkled water on them and SAW tHEM SPROUT! Then they;d shed their seeds and die. They have a very short life but it was cool to see them grow before our eyes. The food was awsome and we did a cool rock climbing hike where I walked down teh smallest little path - cuz we didnt know how to get off I swear I could have died. It was sooo narrow I was hugging the rocks whith all my might. We also tried to see animals at night, but it was too quiet since the water was still in other places. It was a bit of a bumpy ride - doing all this overoading in these squishy old jeeps. But whatev we made it work.
- North Trip!! Cool hikes around the Golan and the Galillee, hiked next to Tzfat, went to the hot springs, went to a camp for a bonfire where we could make our own pita! One night OSP threw us a party but you could tell it was totally for the staff since they wre dancing and enjoyin it more than us! haha they also gave away balloons. The kibbutz was pretty nice to stay on but rather buggy. We watched TV for the first time like ever and discovered random funny shoes like this South African drama "Life Is Wild". We also went thru a cute kibbutz "shomer shabbas town" and througah a national park. they took us to all the borders with Syria and Lebanon and some sad graveyards - some soldiers only recently having died. We learned about Eli Cohen, the Israeli spy that was excuted in Lebanon but who did so much good for the army. We also went rafting down the Jordan River, which was a little messy but AWSOME. I got soaked haha.

Overall this past month has been the best yet. i find myself constantly amused and excitged. i love it so much here. I think its only gonna get better