Israel'd

[theyellowhobbit]

Thursday
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I had stayed up till pretty late packing and doing laundry. In the morning, I still had to get money and drag all my stuff up to Hillel. I davened the 2nd half of shacharit, since it took a while for me to drag my suitcase. It was taanit Esther, which for you non-Jews means I had to fast until sunset. Our flight made sunset a little sooner, but not much, because the flight was late in taking off.

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Friday

Yay! Israel. We arrived, got our stuff, went to the hostile, got food for lunch on Ben Yehuda Street.

We had a speaker and introductiony stuff. We were all falling asleep, and I napped before shul.

I went to "The Great Synagogue" with Shlomo and Reuven. They had a choir, so no one was singing along. It irked me. Even though the choir sounded pretty, it did nothing for my shabbat experience.

we all went to bed pretty early. 8 pm!
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saturday

I was woken by andrew at 8:30 but I was still very jet lagged so i went back to bed. at 12 I really woke up

we had a text study with someone from the conservative yeshiva, and then shlomo, reuven and i went to Dassi's house. she gave us food.

that night we moved to Beit canada.

before that, I saw Ari Kaiman from my Hillel trip. we talked for a while and I made havdallah with his friends.
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sunday

we packaged mishloach manot, and the entire time we were being interrupted by this sketchy photographer guy, who kept on messing things up by having us take stuff out of bags so it looked like we were doing work. however, we were doing work, so he could have just photographed us as we were. we ended up being late to delivering them because of this.

the soldiers had just gotten back from gaza, and we thought they weregoing to hate us, since they probably wanted to sleep. but they were really nice and showed us their weapons and we got to play with them. [the weapons, not the soldiers!]

that night I went to Kol Hanishma for Megilah reading, and I got to see Becky. I also saw Dan Garwood, [who I gave 2 hugs, one for me and one for Adrian],Liz Piper-Goldberg,and Scott Yarmovsky. I haven't seen Scott since the summer, and then I only saw him for like at most an hour combined time, and it was during a Rick Recht concert, so there wasn't much talking. Not like I talkeed to him that much here, but still, it was nice to see him again.

The madrichim were nice and let me ride on the bus to mevaseret mall with them. getting back was an adventure. Israeli cab drivers are...interesting.
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Monday

We helped out with the "Purim carnival" for the ethiopian jews. it was very disorganized, and all the kids were running around. so basically we talked to them

That afternoon, we went out for a purim se'udah to a random italian restaurant in the center of town. I like kosher italian food. especially when it's dairy.
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Tuesday

we went to the dead sea and ein gedi, and for once i actually was good at hiking, save for going down a few steep places [when i had to grab someone's hand or have someone take my bag for a minute] and for when i fell on my ass.

I kind of felt weird swimming in front of the guys, especially shlomo and reuven, because even if i had a one peice, there's no such thing as a tznius [modest] swimsuit. lately i've been think a lot about all the different laws, and how not following them affects others who do follow them. More on that later.

that night we went to Olive, a restaurant on Emek R'faim. There were some interesting things that went on that I can't get into, but ask and I may tell.
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wednesday

Volunteering with the ethiopian kids this time was an even bigger balegan [distaster/mess/crazyness] than before. we were supposed to have a "yom sport" where the kids would play games. they basically took the balls and ran wild. a bunch of the girls braided Alexis', Aliza's and my hair. I took a shower twice that night.

we had dinner at mvaseret which brought back old memories. later on, the girls went out to a cafe. i had a chocolate cake, which was small and i only had half of, and everyone else ordered salads, which were really good. everyone was sharing food, so i didn't feel as bad, since i managed to give them all lots of chocolate cake. still, it's hard to have desert when everyone else is thin and eating salad.
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Thursday

we had a lot of different programs...we learned about Hebrew U, IDC, Magen David Edom, etc. Then we had the night free, leading into our free weekend. Most people were staying around tel aviv/hertzelia, but Alexis, Shlomo, and I went back to Jerusalem together. We had an interesting conversation, and I was glad to see Shlomo coming out of his shell. Maybe it isn't really a shell, but I do see one there sometimes.

we had dinner, and then alexis' israeli guy picked her up. Shlomo had to do laundry and so i called maurene and talked to ehr for 45 minutes longer than i should have. but i kind of needed to. Then I went over to shlomo's room, to find him napping. so i went back to my room and read for a while until thought he would be awake. we talked for an hour and had a pretty good conversation. Then I went back, davened maariv, and went to bed.
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Friday.

I was hoping Shlomo would get back from his book buying adventure in me'ah she'arim with enough time to get lunch with me, but that didn't happen. however, i had enough time to finish both bonnie's scarf and celine's scarf.

i then went to this store called "hole in the wall" which had been closed on monday because of purim. it was wonderful. I got 6 skirts there because i'm crazy like that, and a few shirts. now i can dress tzniusly, which is something i have been considering doing for a while. no one ever told me that I should, but it's somthing i want for me.

I then dragged my insanely large bags to bonnie's. she fed me a veggie schnitzel and lots of leftover purim candy. purim is basically like halloween in america except that everyone [all ages] particpates and the candy is given out to friends, not random strangers. also, you're supposed to give out food to the poor. and there are humentashen.

we went to services at Yikar, an Orthodox shul nearby that was awesome. They had all the tunes that I like, and the mechitza [divider between men and women] wasn't oppressive [at least from my perspective].

then we had dinner at Bonnie's. she had a bunch of her friends over and they were all really cool. there was this really good wine, and i thought it would have been amusing if i had gotten drunk, because then i could have told people in eie now that I ahd gotten drunk at Bonnie's [cause she still teaches there]. Not that there's anything wrong with it. In Israelm the drinking age is 18.
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Saturday

I could, however, tell the EIE kids that Bonnie gave me candy for breakfast. Well, I could have had something healthy, but the mishloach manot were out there, so I had a humentashen. Bonnie had some cookies or something.

we had slept in a bit too long to go to Shirah Chadasha [this leftist orthodox feminist shul that is still halachic] so we went to late minyan. it wasn't exciting, but it lets you sleep in more. and all of Bonnie's friends go there, so it's more a social thing than anything else.

then we went to her friend dorit's house for lunch. there was also this girl ilana there from Otzma [volunteering in israel program] though it was only 4 of us, we ended up having lots of fun, and i got to lead the birkat. since we had a vegitarian meal, we got to have pudding for desert, and chocolate, and cake.

at 3, bonnie and i walked back. i intended on taking a short nap and reading, but i woke up at 6:45, and shabbat was over. we made havdallah and went to a movie with another of bonnie's friends.

when i got back, jen was already there. aliza came a bit later, and we all talked for a long time. we ordered pizza, and i was in my pajamas when we went and got it from the gate in front. of course, shlomo, reuven, and bentzy just had to walk back then, andsee me in my pajamas. i was a little embarrased, considering i was bra-less.
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sunday

mostly aliyah stuff. we were at pardes. becky called me [i didn't have her number, but i had bonnie give her my # and a pair of knitting needles]

we saw the ethiopians one last time, and this time it actually went well. it was organized and we actually got through the game we had made for them.

we went out that night and i smoked my first chukah. it's only flavored tobacco, and i only had a little. so nothing illegal or anything. but the problem is that i liked it. fortunately, i don't think that the people at Pardes this summer are into that sort of thing, so I don't have to worry about wanting to do it again.

I called becky that night and spoke to her for a bit before we both had to go.
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monday

such a long plane ride [11.25 hours]. and now israel seems so distant, but when i was there, penn seemed so distant.
it's like they're in different universes.

when i got in at 7:30 i brought my bags up, got my yarn package [finally!] and went to north. on the way i got a free bubble tea, and the guy gave me a large instead of a regular :)

I saw lots of people. Andrea gave me food. I also got to talk with livia, simone, yaelle, ilana, Arilevine [that's not a typo], Raphi Levy, Dassi, Atara, Uri Pasternak, and a few others.

Speaking of Uris...on friday right before shabbat, i called Uri Feinberg [from EIE] to say hi to him. it's so weird talking to him now. I want to see him in person, but i think i purposefully waited till then to call him so we couldn't make arrangements to meet. I guess I need to keep some distance. I told him how I had become more religious and was keeping shabbat now. he sounded like he thought that was good. not that his opinion matters....but i do wonder what he would think if i was orthodox.

I digress. anyways, northing was nice, and i went to maariv.

on the way back i talked to Ari Gilder on the phone. we had a good conversation which we then moved to online-ness.

and now i'm here.

Comments

[masteraleph.livejournal.com]

Sounds like you had an awesome time, I'm glad.

BTW, for further reference, it's usually spelled "hookah".