And so…

I have been quite busy the land week and a half. I had my last BFL conference in Jerusalem, in which I learned quite a lot, saw Veterans’ Day and Independence Day celebrations, and put off doing a lot of work. I’m getting to a point, however, where I’m kind of forcing myself to write about all of the adventures I’ve been having. In a way, I feel like writing about how first I did this and then that and then something else is becoming a bit of overkill. Honestly, I just miss you all so much, and am very ready to come home. Life here is interesting, and adventurous, but I’m kind of done with adventures, and ready for a bit of normalcy, routine, and familiarity.

A couple of things brought this on. First of all, going to Tsfat, and being in such a foreign religious setting, really made me miss Reform Judaism, and the religious culture I have back home where I have a place of authority and knowledge in my community, a place where I am valued as a Jew. Second, seeing pictures of the Philo dinner, and New Member Night, and everyone having such a good time, makes me miss my surrogate Philo family. Third, all of the stuff going on at home with the fams. Fourth, at least two engagements of good friends from school. I feel like the world is growing up, and moving on, and I’m on the other side of the world, doing growing of my own, but apart from the growing that all of the people that I love are doing…

I think that, all in all, I have accomplished what I set out to do in coming here. I’ve taken a break, done something new and different, and had a bunch of adventures. And, in all of that, I’ve realized that I am, in my heart, a homebody who loves, more than anything, being in a community where she has a set place, a  role, and where she understands what is expected of her. There are ties that bind me back at home, and I’m missing those ties tremendously. In a month I’ll be home, and hopefully I’ll do a bit more writing and reflecting on all of the things I’ve seen and learned. I think I’m going to try to keep the blog going when I get back. However, I’m probably going to be writing a lot more psychological things and much less about all of the adventures of my summer and my last year as a college student… (holy lord. my last year as a college student…)

In which I encounter the city of the mystics…

This weekend I was in Tsfat, a city famous for the creation of Kabbalah, otherwise known as Jewish Mysticism (way cooler than Madonna makes it out to be, I swear). I went with my friend Miriam, and we stayed in a local hostel/Kabbalah teaching center, and had lots of fun adventures.

Friday, before Shabbat, we basically did a tour of the whole town. Tsfat is very small, and built into the side of a mountain, which makes it simultaneously very easy to walk, and very difficult. Basically, the cross streets are not streets at all; they are stairs. Lots and lots of stairs. We started out doing a synagogue tour; some of the great names in Judaism have founded synagogues there, including Joseph Karo (responsible for the Shulchan Arouch, the definitive guide to the Talmud for Orthodox Jews) and Isaac Luria (one of the most influential Kabbalistic thinkers of all time). All of the synagogues are beautifully painted and decorated, with exquisitely carved bimahs (central pulpits). Some have murals on the walls and ceilings, and Caro’s had a whole collection of religous books from the 17th century. Intense!

After the synagogue tour, we went to look at the artists’ colony. Tsfat is not only known for mysticism, it’s also known for artists, especially contemporary artists who use the town as a basis for more traditional art or for kabbalah art, which incorporates concepts and ideas from Kabbalah into brightly colored abstract paintings. Unfortunately, everything closes down REALLY early on Fridays, so we didn’t get to see/meet with a lot of the famous artists and their work. Oh well, next time I’m here, I’ll get a chance (hopefully)

Friday night and Saturday I did my traditional Shabbat thing- services on Friday, a big dinner, and then sleeping through services on Saturday… The services at Ascent (the name of the center) were pretty high energy, with lots of dancing and singing, but it was my first experience being in a sex-segregated prayer group with the women in the back. Essentially, this meant that I couldn’t see the prayer leader at all. I was PISSED, and this definitely contributed to my not going to services the rest of the weekend. It made me feel very much as though I was not a welcomed member of the community, and that they would be perfectly happy if I wasn’t there. Of course, all of the people working at Ascent, men and women, were very friendly, but there’s nothing like praying facing a curtain to make you feel disconnected.

For dinner, they hosted us at a local couple’s house. They were very cute, with a new little baby (ADORABLE) it was me, Miriam, and two girls from the local seminary. I got into a bit of a debate with the husband about Israeli politics (I favor economic aid to get the Palestinians SOME SORT OF ECONOMY AT ALL, he thought it was a waste of time). It was good times. The food was very tasty, and the family was very welcoming with lots of interesting stories about living abroad. Plus, I LIKE arguing politics over the dinner table.

Saturday was a restful, relaxing day. I went to some mysticism classes, talking about Midrash and the week’s Torah portion. The classes were really interesting, and had a lot to do with relating in the world in a more outward manner, thinking more about your effect on people and the world than on its effect on you. Very thought provoking…

Anyway, that was my weekend. Tune in in a few days to find out all about Yom Haatzmaut (Independence Day) here in Israel!

Egypt

 

Okay, Egypt was a huge deal, and I mean huge, so I’m going to do this in more of a general thoughts way. The people on the trip were: myself, my friends Gabe, Sarah, and Sarah, from the leadership conference I’m doing, and two other guys (Josh and Ethan) from the Sarahs’ internship program. Here was the itinerary:

Day 1: Outside Cairo, seeing ancient Egypt-y things. Step pyramid, the great Pyramid of Cheops, the sphinx, some other cool monuments and statues, visited numerous shops where people tried to sell us “authentic Egyptian wares” hung out with a friend from college of one of the guys on the trip.

Day 2: Cairo proper. The Egypt Museum, local mosques, synagogues, and churches, visited a market (and actually bought some stuff), spent the night cruising on the river Nile.

Day 3: Alexandria. Saw where the library and the lighthouse used to be, saw the Roman theater. Really good fish lunch. Had Lebanese food for the first time for dinner!

This plus one full day traveling there and one full day traveling back

Some thoughts:

The heat in Egypt is oppressive. I wonder how they managed to build such an impressive empire in the old days. If it were up to me, and I lived in that climate, I’d never leave the air conditioning. Plus 500 kudos to the guys who built the pyramids

Egypt is poor, and I mean POOR (re: the City of the Dead, a “neighborhood” in Cairo that is literally built in the old cemetary, next to the crypts), so everyone is scrambling to make a living. This leads to an unpleasant sort of pushiness, where you can really tell that people are desperate to take your money off of you. When you go anywhere, your white skin brands you as foreign and welathy, and people shove their way in your face, trying to get you to buy something. It was as a result of this sensibility that I bribed my first cop ($5 to let me sneak under the rope and get a shot up close with the pyramid)

You never really notice how sort of scandalous old Egyptian wall paintings and sculptures are until you look really closely. In the Egypt Museum, you see lots of sculptures of naked people (men and women). Also, a lot of kissy-faces going on between pharaohs and their wives in carvings and paintings. Oh, and there’s one famous seated sculpture of the pharaoh and his wife, where the queen is totally grabbing her husband’s behind…

Seeing King Tut’s burial retinue is incredibly depressing. You can tell from the mask how young he was (he was 19 when he died) and that just sort of blows the mind. He’s nineteen, and he’s been dead for thousands of years, and yet here’s his bed and his jewelry and his hunting gear…

Riding a camel is like riding a large, very ill tempered horse with a weird sense of balance. Yes, I got to ride a camel. It was a very cool way to see the pyramids from a bunch of different angles. Also, I wasn’t too terribly awkward doing it! Large large sense of accomplishment

The library in Alexandria is beautiful, but it’s only 8 years old, so most of the shelves are half empty. Also, most of the books are donated, so they’re mostly in English. And Gabe, who looked (I didn’t) said there wasn’t a single book on Judaism… I did, however, find an economic treatise written by H G Wells. Weird…

Haggling is fun! Really really really really fun. And I got some shiny stuff as a result.

The complete and utter unexpectedness of seeing girls dressed in hijab, walking down the street holding hands with their boyfriends. I know this is totally my ignorance showing, but I didn’t know what to expect about head covering in Egypt. I thought either not much of the population would be covered, or that things would be really religious (and therefore sex-segregated). It appears, however, that the head covering is a social convention, and that the girls who cover their hair don’t necessarily espouse all of the other “women in the private” sphere rules of Islam. Also, we were in Cairo, more metropolitan, and our guide told us it’s much different in the countryside.

There are 200 Jews left (approx.) in the entire country. We went to go into a synagogue, and there weren’t even benches set up for prayer, and it was being administered by local Muslims (I’m pretty sure). It made me want to cry, or say kaddish, or something. The emptiness that must exist in so many countries after the Jews moved to Israel, well, I don’t know quite what to say about it.

We visited a perfumer (a shop that manufactured essential oils for perfumes) and trying out different oils is loads of fun. Plus, when you walk around for the rest of the day, you smell really good, and that is hot!

Everyone is creeped out by shrimp with their heads on, except (apparently) me.

The cruise we went on was a strange duck. I would have preferred if we’d had the leisure just to watch the river, and see Cairo at night. Instead, most of the evening was taken up by entertainment. We had Egyptian male dancers, who wear rainbow colored skirts that they take off and twirl and catch (also, one of them was a dwarf. I guess because dwarves are amusing…? I don’t know). We also had a bellydancer, who I will post a picture of, and you’ll understand why I was a bit disgusted with the cruise line.

The pyramids absolutely boggle the imagination. It’s like looking at a mountain. Except oh, 10000 people BUILT this mountain over the course of 20 years. Seriously. People can build mountains. Without the wheel. Dragging 2 ton blocks over hundreds of miles. Dang.

The traffic in Egypt is insane. There aren’t really traffic lights or anything, and people just kind of run accross the street at will. People feel no problem with cutting each other off, swerving around each other, and stopping short. Now, imagine 7 people in one car, driving through that. The answer is, fun!

Alexandria is georgeous. It’s artsy, and clean, and the traffic is not nearly as crazy as in Cairo. Also, it’s near the ocean, so it’s cool and with a sea breeze. Apparently the entire Middle East takes beach vacations in Alexandria, and I can’t blame them.

Our guide was the little little little old Coptic guy named Mike (actually Mikhail, or some similar spelling). He used to be a professor of archaeology in one of the Egyptian universities, but then quit to become a licensed tourguide. He was nice, although a little overly touchy-feely in that special way that apparently characterizes all Egyptians (being in a large group, with a guide, we weren’t harassed that much, but some of my friends have STORIES). He was surprisingly blunt and honest, and had a lot of very strong opinions about the fate and future of his country. I really appreciated that he felt willing to speak candidly, otherwise I feel like too much of the trip would be us tourists staring out the window at a country that we didn’t connect to, that Egypt would become a pleasant memory in a scrap book instead of somewhere we really saw and felt, somewhere that left an impact. I don’t know if I want to go back, but if I do, I think that I’d like to explore more, and do less of the tourist thing. I really discovered on this trip that I hate being a tourist more than anything, and prefer to try to engage with what’s going on around me, no matter how unsuccessfully. Even though I enjoyed myself, and loved seeing so many wonderful things, I was so happy to go back through customs, and hear Hebrew spoken again, because I knew that I was once again in a place that I felt connected to.

Next Year in the Next City Over

Passover was Wednesday night. The feast of unleaved bread, as it were. I don’t have any close family or family friends here, so I took up an invitation from one of my professors to join her in Qiriat Tivon (one of the suburbs of Haifa) for her seder. It was a good choice, the seder was lively, fun, and full of very interesting discussion. It was a lovely night for seder, warm, and the air smelled like citrus blossoms. Qiriat Tivon is one of the wealthier suburbs, so the houses were all lovely and tucked in amongst the trees. It felt like a night from out of some sort of romantic novel, but in a good way.

It was a very interesting group of people gathered together for seder. Like back at home, instead of family gathering, it was a group of friends (although the hosts’ mother was there, and all of the families had teenaged kids). Most of them worked, in some capacity, for the university, and at least one half of all of the couples was born outside of Israel. I, personally, was seated next to a lovely Danish woman who had moved to Israel 21 years before, and who now is in charge of programming for the international school. Because of the more intellectual bent of the group, we had sharing time over the main meal. Let me tell you, there is nothing funnier in the world than watching your middle-aged literature professor trying to rap to “Where is the Love?” by the Black-Eyed-Peas. We had literary readings, songs, and lively political discussions in Hebrew and English until about one in the morning. Also, there was a dog running around, and the family pet cat, who had been put out before seder to keep her from eating the fish, came charging in when we opened the door for Elijah, and proceeded to attack the dirty dishes in hopes of getting the last of the fish. Needless to say, a very lively, very welcoming, very enjoyable time. The seder embodied what I think a seder should be (a chance for everyone to sit down and ask questions and talk candidly about the meaning of the ritual and freedom in general) and the company was interesting and very relaxed. This year was not in Jerusalem, but I’m getting closer all the time.

I’ve been cooking lots of yummy Passover food. I’m trying to keep the holiday at least until I go to Egypt (at which point it will be more difficult, if not impossible). So I’ve had lots of matzah brei and matzah pizza. Really, I think matzah is improved immensely if you buy egg matzah. It’s a little less dry and very sweet.

Anyway, I’m leaving for Tel Aviv in about a half hour, and I’m going to go stay with the friends that I’m going to Egypt with, until we all actually leave on Sunday. Needless to say, I will have lots and lots and lots to report when I get back. Chag sameach everyone!

Finishing my catch up blogging

 

 

 

 

 

 

(New photos courtesy of Eric Abbott. Thanks Eric!)

The rest of the week until Thursday was mostly consumed with Yam le Yam related things, buying gear, training hikes, etc. It is fun planning for a trip, getting more and more excited as it gets off the ground. I have to say though, I didn’t sleep terribly well, because I was so nervous about being able to complete it. This is the hardest thing (physically) I have ever tried to do, so I was a bit terrified (as those of you who have talked to me recently can attest). In retrospect, nothing to be scared of, even though I didn’t finish, it was an absolute blast.

On Thursday, Keren moved out. Sadness. We have a new roommate, Russian, who seems nice but who hardly speaks any English and is kind of loud. I miss Keren A LOT. She was full of sage advice (she’s 28, and kind of acted like mom). Also, she was the one who always provided bad, awful, terrible movies for us. Fortunately, she’s still elsewhere in the dorms for another month or so, so we’ll still get to see her around.

Also Thursday, I left for Yam le Yam. First we took the bus to Nehariyah, at a HUGE schwarma last dinner, and then hiked to the beach to sleep out under the stars. The thing about sleeping out is that your body acclimates really quickly to the rhythm of nature, which means falling asleep at 9 or 10 and waking up at 6 every morning, the complete opposite of what I usually do. Walking that early is difficult, and it took a little while to get in stride, but it feels so accomplishing to walk so far in such a short amount of time.

The first day, we covered 27 kilometers, or about 18 miles, through the mountains. Mostly the terrain wasn’t too bad, although there was one uphill part that was particularly nasty on my legs and lungs. Mostly it was packed earth, which is fine to walk on. However, everything is super intense with a pack on your back.  Hiking really is about 90 percent mental, the ability to will yourself to keep going past the muscle ache and blisters and tiredness. It’s amazing what the human body can will itself to do when it wants to.

Of course, there has to be a compensation for all of the hard walking, and the trail more than made up for it. It was so lovely, I wish I’d had my camera with me, but the batteries died, so you are all going to have to wait until I can pirate other people’s photos off of Facebook. The grass along the path was covered with hundreds of different sorts of flowers, of all sizes and colors, and the views out over the mountains from the path were absolutely breathtaking. We took breaks, of course, to relax, chat, and soak in the wilderness. We even got a chance to stop and go swimming in some rapids, which were cold as anything but such a relief from all the walking that we’d been doing. Another benefit to all of this hiking is that it really produces a sense of camraderie, and even some of the people on the trip that I didn’t know so well starting out, I now feel like a deep friendship is beginning, and that I have a new group of ten other people that I can share stories and jokes with about this thing that only we were a part of. That’s a really nice feeling.

By the time we hit camp, I was absolutely exhausted. We slept out, in the middle of a field (there was donkey and cow dung everywhere) and cooked dinner over an open fire. The people on the trip who do this a lot were right, everything really does taste delicious when you’ve been hiking all day (we ate pasta with carrots, and it was delicious, but I’d never try to make it again…). A dog followed some of us back from the town we’d passed through on the way to camp, and she hung out around the fire, waiting for scraps of food. I thought she was adorable, some of the guy less so…

The night was cold and very very damp, and we could hear wild animals prowling around nearby. I spent most of the night with my head in my sleeping bag to keep my hair from getting drenched. It’s amazing, though, to discover how much exhaustion can help you sleep anywhere, even on the cold, hard ground.

The second day, all the walking I’d done the first kind of hit me all at once. I had huge blisters on both heels, my knee was stiff, as were both of my calves. I managed about an hour of walking, and then had to give up, because I couldn’t physically move my legs fast enough. Our guide, Gal, called me a cab, and I went back to the university. Let me tell you something, that shower, after coming back, was the most heavenly thing you could ever possibly imagine. I’m a little bit disappointed that I was unable to do the whole hike, but I know that it was an incredibly challenging thing, and that I kept going until I had absolutely hit my limit. And hey, walking 18 miles through mountainous terrain is a pretty darn impressive feat in and of itself!

Now I’m home, relaxing, recovering, and getting ready for Passover. Cleaned the whole apartment yesterday, and my room, and today I went shopping for Passover-y food. I went to Wadi Nisnas for the first time today to do shopping, which is the Arab Christian quarter of Haifa, so I still don’t have matzah to eat for the week, and I’m going to have to go out again, which kind of sucks. Still, it was really cool to see the Wadi, which is very artsy, with really beautiful architecture and murals all over the place. I also had really tasty falafel for lunch, and some of the best baklava I’ve ever tasted for dessert, which made everything worth it in the end.

 I’m going to one of my professor’s houses for seder, which will be nice, because she used to be American, so hopefully everything will be a bit more in English. I’m trying to pick up some more Israeli culture, but I figure that I should be more comfortable for something as important as Pesach. That’s all the news for now, tune in Thursday for more exciting stories!

Jerusalem, yet again

So, what have I been up to since last I posted? Let me think…

Two weekends ago, I was in Jerusalem, for BFL. This session focused on service, so on Friday we went to the shuk to collect foodstuffs for a local pantry. The way that they run this makes a lot of sense, because you go up to vendors and people as they’re shopping in the shuk, so you get lots of tasty fresh produce and groceries, instead of the nasty canned stuff that one gets at American food drives. I was absolutely overwhelmed by how generous people are. By the end, the bottom of the bus was completely filled with groceries, and my faith in humanity was restored. One often forgets how giving people can be, until something like that happens and you see that really, people are good at heart.

Also during the weekend, we took a disabilities accessability tour around Jerusalem, to see just how difficult it is for a disabled person to navigate the city. The sidewalks are cobbled, and often don’t have a ramp down at the crosswalks, making it very difficult for people in wheelchairs to get where they’re going. After an experience like that, it makes me truly grateful for the simple ability to get up and walk where I need to go, to carry my own packages, to not rely on anyone else for assistance.

Also, on Thursday night, we took a night tour of Jerusalem, and some of the older neighborhoods. These were some of the first neighborhoods built outside of the walls, and while they were primarily working class before 1967, after the war they became very posh, very upscale neighborhoods. Most of the houses in these areas are now summer homes for the wealthy, so the place was beautiful and deserted when we walked through. But it was so lovely and romantic, the white stone in the moonlight, with the slightly gone to seed gardens, and the air smelling like honeysuckle and spices. One of my friends remarked that this was how he’d imagined all of Jerusalem was, and while that’s a bit naïve (especially considering how poor the city is) is seems only appropriate that the city should look this way, ethereal, beautiful, and not quite in the realm of the rest of the world.

During this seminar, we focused a lot on thinking about the practical applications of our projects and planning them out. We were encouraged to look at our projects from many different angles, from how computers and networking could be used to keep track of volunteers, to budget, to how, to market what we were planning to do. It was very inspiring to hear everyone’s project, and to start to think practically about how to plan my own. I think I’ll post my project description up here, since I already wrote a quick snappy summary of it to be published at the end of the conference, so here that is:

 

I come from a rather large Jewish community, and I have noticed that, in many cases, it is difficult for people from different Jewish backgrounds (more religious, more secular, etc.) to communicate and work together without “talking past” one another. To that end, I want to help foster interdenominational dialogue between school-aged children, at an age when they may not have Jewish conversations with students outside of their Hebrew school or youth group. I want to train a group of students from my school’s Hillel from a variety of backgrounds to serve as facilitators. I then want to bring groups of middle-aged students from different Hebrew schools and day schools together, and use the facilitators to discuss issues such as Jewish identity and experiences, and allow the students to ask question of one another. In this way, I hope that young Jewish teenagers can educate one another about different ways of being Jewish, and begin an open and non-judgemental dialoguing process that will continue throughout their lives.

 

Of couse, the whole seminar was not just doing good deeds and learning. The hotel we stayed at this time was really quite beautiful, and the food was very tasty. Because they had us going so much of the time, I took every spare second I had to just relax, hang out and talk, and didn’t really have much time to spend in Jerusalem proper (lazy me…) but I’m making friends at the seminar. Three of us, myself, and two friends from Tel Aviv, Sarah and Gabe, are going to Egypt together, as well as a couple of other people from Sarah’s internship program. It’s nice to have friends all over the country (friends mean crash pads…)

A bit of poetry

Tomorrow I will sit and post a lengthy post about everything that’s happened in the past two weeks. For now, enjoy this:

Mount Herzl, one Friday Afternoon…

 

Head on small white pillow

White stone, and flowers all around

Peaceful and open the world seems to me, here, among the sleeping children

And the sky is such a lovely shade of blue

 

Nineteen seventy nine, it says

Nineteen eighty one

Nineteen eighty three

Nineteen eighty five…

The other number is always too close for comfort

Like a knife drawn roughly, harshly, across the neck of something that should still be blooming.

No wonder they don’t like cut flowers here.

 

He was my child, she tells us in Hebrew, dustpan in one hand, reluctant to speak

A mother tucking in her son, as all good mothers do

He was my best fiend

My comrade

Her lover

His sister

We cried all night when we heard

But shh… they’re all sleeping so soundly

Those handsome dark heads on soft white pillows

 

He loved life so much

His laugh was so…

He begged to go back…

He walked into the end with eyes open and arms wide

They all knew

Every last one of them

The pine trees here are fed on them

Raising surrogate arms for the boys and girls who sleep so quietly…

 

We get back on the bus

Laughter and silence mingle in us

We eat our lunch, we doze, we flirt

We are all so young, born nineteen eighty seven, eighty six, eighty five…

There is so much death here

There is so much life.

The week in review

Last Tuesday night, I went dancing with Hadas (my roommate) and her friend Shiran. There’s this little club about five minutes’ drive from campus, it kind of looks like nothing, but inside they play the most ridiculous combination of music, and everyone dances like they’re at home, in their pajamas, having an dance party with their friends. When I walked in, they were playing “Me and Julio” by Paul Simon, and as I was leaving, they started playing “Donna” from Hair. In between, there was a lot of salsa, some Elvis, Irish jigging music, reggae, and the list goes on. It was so eclectic, and so much fun, because everyone was so uninhibited. And then there were some really fantastic dancers, as well as capoeira (Brazillian martial arts) which is beautiful enough to be dance. Mostly, however, it was just people acting silly and boogeying down with their bad selves. I plan to go back.

This weekend I went to visit BFL people in Tel Aviv. Friday afternoon, my friend took me to the shuk right near his apartment, which includes a crafts fair, where I intend to go back and buy LOTS (I’m still working on presents for everyone!). The stuff was very funky and cool, but all with a decidedly Jewish twist, which is how you distinguish from a Philly area street fair. Friday night we did Shabbat at a tiny little Conservative shul right down the block from where I was staying. It was so comforting to participate in a service that was the same order and rhythm that I’m used to from the Hillel back home; it made me think of all of you crazy Koach kids! The notable exception was that the rabbi chanted the Song of Songs in its entirety before the service. Having written a paper on the language and poetry of it, I’ve always thought that the Song is terribly sexy, but it’s an entirely different experience to hear it chanted; it’s hypnotizing and ethereal and beautiful in a way that not a lot of other liturgical Jewish text is.

Saturday was the beach. Being only an hour and a half south of where I am now, it’s not quite warm enough to go swimming yet, but it’s getting there. I got horribly sunburned for my trouble, but it was worth it to be out in the sun and to walk along the beach. Saturday night was bar night; a whole bunch of us from the leadership conference I’m in got together in a local bar. One of the girls is getting married, so we all oohed and aahed over pictures of her wedding dress, and then proceeded to get drunk and dance crazily and scandalously. SO MUCH FUN!

I had to leave early though, because Sunday was field trip day. My Women in Israel class toured some early Moshavot (settlements), saw the first President of Israel’s home (which was lovely, and looked vaguely like a tugoboat), and saw an old, underground bullet factory from the time before Israel declared independence. Very interesting stuff, but I don’t have much to say about it, no real thought provoking moments of insight. All I can say is that it’s very strange that one can have, in a video, the founding fathers and mothers of the state talk straight into the camera about what it was like for them to found a state. In America, the early days of the country are so remote, they have become, for some, inaccessible myths. Here, there are still some left that remember them. It really reminds you that even though Israel the idea is ancient, Israel the state is quite young, and still working itself out.

I AM QUEEN OF THE WORLD! (A story of my adventures in the desert)

So, the bus for Eilat left at 3AM. It was midnight, so I figured I’d have enough time to get a few hours of sleep before hauling my exhausted ass out of bed and getting ready to go. I set my alarm and drift off… only to wake up at 5:30 the next morning. I begin swearing. Loudly. I call a friend in an absolute panic, then, in the middle of the call, realize there’s nothing he can do to help me, hang up, and call our trip coordinator for some real advice…

This is how I ended up spending my entire Friday on trains and busses to get to Eilat and our campsite instead of doing the first day’s hike. Fortunately, another one of the girls, Sam, had also missed the bus, so I had a travel buddy. I think that maybe this is the universe smacking me in the face, and letting me know that I need to relax more in life, and let experiences take me where they will, because Friday actually ended up being a lot of fun. Sam and I got to have a really long, intense gossip session (her love life is even more confusing than mine right now…) and we had so many adventures. On the bus up, we had an intense converstaion with a random woman from Tel Aviv who was going to visit her boyfriend. We talked about all sorts of things, and then she gives us her email address and says to let us know if we’re ever in Tel Aviv and looking for things to do. I knew that I loved Israel…

One of the joys of traveling to a campsite in the middle of nowhere is that it’s, well, in the middle of nowhere. So, the bus lets us out on the highway in the middle of the desert and drives off, and we’re frantically on the phone with the bus drivers who took our wonderful classmates to see if they’ll come pick us up. Don’t worry, they did, but the guy who was there didn’t speak a word of English, so I was forced to rely on my terrible, terrible Hebrew. Fortunately, I managed to get my point accross, and he came and got us. But, while we were waiting at the station in the middle of the desert for him, a bus stops, and lets of a little girl no more than eight or nine years old, who is traveling all by herself. She gets off, waves to the bus driver, and sits patiently at the bus stop. I turn to her and ask her if she’s okay, if she’s traveling by herself (in Hebrew). She’s fine, says she’s visiting friends in the area, and then asks us if we have a phone we can use. We sit there talking about our lives with this little Israeli kid, building sculptures out of highway litter, and passing the time until her friend’s mom comes to pick her up. Classic example of just weird stuff happening to you when you travel. I have to say that, between the kid and the bus driver not speaking any English, I was feeling like a Hebrew wizard, no matter how much they laughed at my terrible grammar.

So, after all of that, we finally arrive at our campsite and get dropped off by the bus, about five minutes before everyone else arrives back from the hike. The desert out there is absolutely beautiful, I cannot even describe. It’s not like Arizona, where there’s cacti and shrubs and birds, making the desert seem full of life. No, you get scrubbly little accacia bushes and that’s about it, leaving you wide open to the desolate beauty of the rocks, dust, and sky. We set up camp in a middle of nowhere clearing, sleeping on the ground under the stars in our sleeping bags. Because it was Friday night, three of us led a very short Shabbat service (I’m doing that a lot lately…) with guitar and drums, and then we had music all night long, as well as a roaring camp fire, complete with s’mores. Yummy!

Night in the desert is freezing, I cannot even explain. Nothing holds heat, so the ground, the air, everything is sucking the body heat right out of you. I had two blankets, and my sleeping bag pulled up over my head, and still I was shivering so badly that my Sam commented that I looked like I was having a seizure in the middle of the night. Also, it’s windy in the desrt, and the wind would excape down my sleeping bag, leaving me even colder. Next time, thermal sleeping bag all the way.

The next day was beautiful, and we woke up very early (not hard considering what a pain it is to sleep on the ground) had a HUGE breakfast, and set off on the most challenging hike of my life. One usually thinks, when one hears the word hiking, of climbing up cute little trails to the top of mountains and then back down. NOT SO. There were points at which I was using my arms and both feet to climb up sections of the trail, and if it had been even the slightest bit steeper, I would have needed saftety harnesses and ropes. Katie, you would have enjoyed this after all your rock climbing practice! We hiked about ten miles all together, and it took us from 8AM until about 4PM. But, I have to say, the sense of accomplishment after doing something like that is absolutely overwhelming. There was one section in which we climbed straight up into a very narrow crevice in the rock, where you had to move almost ladderlike, using your arms and legs to get up. And, once I was done, and had emerged back into the sunlight at the top of the mountain, I threw my arms over my head and yelled “I’m queen of the world!” Yeah, I am cheesy, I know.

By the time we got back to the bus, I was exhausted, everything from my hips down was in pain, and my hands were swollen from lack of salt and too much water. So Eilat was exactly what I needed. It’s a very resort-y town, and our hostel was right on the beach. Basically, as soon as I got there, I took a shower, had dinner, and went right to sleep. A whole bunch of us ended up at an Irish pub/resturant that served very tasty sandwiches, even if their “Mexican wrap” did have tahina and “gwakamole” in it. Mexican food really does not exist here. At all.

Sunday was lovely. I woke up and had a big, tasty breakfast at the hostel, which featured pudding (I still can’t get over how Israeli breakfast buffets invariably have pudding) and then headed out to the beach. The water in the Red Sea is as calm as bathwater (if a touch more chilly) and I swam a bit, then curled up in the sun with a beer and some bad chick lit (thanks Nana!)  to work on my tan. The day was pure relaxation, nothing to worry about or to do except lie there, which was exactly what I needed after the grueling day before. I have to say, the combination of adventure and beach-bummy relaxation made this one of the best weekends of my life!

camp

except for these two guys, who decided to go exploring on the other side of the canyon

We were all exhausted after lunch

Eilat at night

me and my friends Allyson and Miriam at the beach

My friend Julie climbed up way way high

a very narrow crevice that we had to hike up

Man, I need to be better at updating

After Megillah reading

At the dorm party before going out

Lisa and I in costume

Shot of the entrance, note the large stuffed chicken…

A group of us at the Terminal

Because my posts are always so long…

Okay, last Monday was Purim, and my first experience being in Israel for a Jewish holiday. All I have to say is, damn! There’s something amazing about walking around the city and ALL the bakeries are selling hamentaschen (called Ozen Haman, or Haman’s ears, here) and a bunch of the stores are selling costumes. The festivite signs begin at least a week before, and the celebrations started on Sunday (with very skimpily costumed schoolgirls waiting for the bus) and went pretty much all week. On Monday night, I spent a good half hour futzing with my costume (I went as a Greek goddess and made the costume myself, pictures up top). Then a group of us went to hear megillah being read on campus. It was weird, because the room had a mechitzah up, and then men’s side was very rowdy and boisterous, with the men screaming upon hearing Haman’s name and dancing up a storm afterwards. The women’s side, with the exception of us international school girls, was mostly silent, and there was hardly anyone dancing. Grim. Exceptionally grim.

After megillah, a large group of us went out clubbing at a place called the Terminal. It was very weird and sort of psychadelic, with stuffed animals and chandiliers hanging from the ceiling. They played mostly American music, but there was a mix up of “havah nerisha” (most popular Purim song). I was struck by how much Purim is almost exactly like Halloween in the states, with everyone using the holiday as an excuse to parade around in ridiculous costumes in public, get really drunk, and party. It’s wierd, that a holiday that, in the states, is so very Jewish in nature, is so normal and sort of secular here. It was, however, a blast to go out clubbing in costume, and I highly reccommend it to anyone who ever gets the chance.

Tuesday was sick and icky, and so I spent most of it and Wednesday in bed, except when I crawled out to go to class or to watch Indiana Jones with my roommate. We now seem to have a tradition of watching deliciously campy and/or bad movies together as an apartment, a tradition that I can thoroughly get behind. And it helps you forget that you’re dying of awful and ick.

Friday through Sunday was the trip to Eilat, which I thinks requires its own posting, so I’m going to sign off here, and start in on a whole new post… back in five!