Rainbows, Rain, and Oranges 12/19/07

This morning I woke up and as usual looked outside my window for the usual “Omigod I Live in Jerusalem” routine. It looked pretty yucky and cold outside so I continued on my routine as usual. To my surprise and wonder there was a RAINBOW outside my window! Today is fast day and I felt really uplifted that even though it’s the day we commemorate the beginning of the siege on Jerusalem the universal sign of G-d’s mercy and forgiveness was shining in the sky. I even took a picture ☺
Then on my way out the door I had to run back upstairs to grab an umbrella because it was seriously raining!!! We have been in desperate need for rain this year (what’s new???) and considering its December already and we’ve had only 2 real rains…it’s amazing that we got some this morning. After the big flood in 2001 I have been relatively traumatized by rain so its pretty nice to enjoy it for once.
THEN on the way to school I was sitting on the bus (which was nice and warm while it was cold and rainy outside) I noticed for the first time that in one of the concrete and planter barrier things in the middle of one of the main roads on the way to campus (like on braeswood) there were Orange Trees! Since now is orange season the trees were covered in tiny orange balls and it was really something beautiful. Only in Israel do they plant fruit trees as decoration in the middle of a busy thoroughfare!
While I was thinking about all of this on the bus a thought popped into my head: Wow you are naïve. I live in one of the (if not the ) most contested cities in the world, people are being killed in my country every day, and if no one dies then there is SOMETHING controversial in the news… and im sitting on the bus getting excited about rainbows and orange trees. And then I started to think that those are exactly the types of thoughts I should be having. If I can’t remove my mind from all of the negative things that go on here and focus on the beautiful and wonderfulness of everyday things then I have wasted my time moving here. I didn’t move here to sit around and be depressed and scared. I moved here to be with the Jews in the Jewish homeland and to help build the future of the Jewish people. That is a beautiful thing worth taking a minute to smile about.

A Zionist Dreidel 12/4/06

Happy Chanukkah! So my first night of Chanukkah as an Israeli citizen started out pretty depressingly. On my way home from school I only saw 5 menorahs displayed in windows and since my roommate is sick there wasn’t much cheer in my apartment. Even though I think I’m also starting to come down with beginning of winter crud I knew I couldn’t have an unpleasant first Chanukkah. Fortunately my friend Talia is also under the weather and is home from the army. I went to her house to get some real Chanukkah feeling. Man am I glad I did! Aside from having a great evening with a wonderful friend I left with my first Zionist Dreidel. One that has a peh instead of a shin. I haven’t stopped playing with it since I saw it and Talia’s mom let me keep it as a present ☺. Thank goodness for those who know how to save Chanukkah from lonely despair by emphasizing the little yet important things!

Greece with the Fam 11/18-23/07

mom had a convention, seth turned 17, and daddy and i did a ton of sightseeing! it was a fantastic week to spend with the family...a special bonus time to be together just the 4 of us before the wedding!!!

When School Strikes Go Crazy 12/3/07

The entire Israeli education system from grades 8 and up has been on strike for at least 40 days. The high school teachers and the university professors are striking for different reasons that are completely unrelated but who cares: no one is learning and everyone is unhappy. Fortunately or not, depending on your point of view, my program has gone on unhindered by any strike attempt and we have had class every day of the semester. The university students are really really fed up with the strike. They don’t agree with how the professors are administering their strike and as long as there continues to be a crisis with the high school teachers nothing will be done about the universities. The students are essentially paying for a semester in which they are only partially learning (most students have about 25% of their classes and most in the sciences are being taught by their TAs and are responsible for the information exactly as if they were truly being taught by their professors) or not learning at all. This is quite painful especially after shutting down the system for 6 weeks last year over the cost of universities.

Today the student union, the representative voice of the students, at Hebrew University decided to COUTNERSTRIKE in protest of the professor’s strike. One of their main complaints is that the professors aren’t doing enough to garner public interest in their plight or to force the government into negotiations to bring the strike to a close. They are simply staying home, doing their research, and waiting for the government to come to them. The situation is finally reaching a crisis point where closing the semester officially is increasingly becoming the only option. This is a disaster for everyone especially for students who have made plans and worked out their lives to fit their academic schedules. So today the student union locked down the campus. Literally locked down with chains and everything. I obviously had class today because my program is part of an external school that just happens to be housed on the campus. My school along with the Betzalel art school was in session. There was one gate all the way in the back of campus open. I got a ride with a friend’s father and it was really interesting driving up to campus. There were massive signs everywhere that the campus was closed and please find other alternatives for the day. Huge signs begging for the return of studies and fair education for all covered the outer walls of the campus. It made me fell really guilty to be entering the school instead of standing with the student body (which I will hopefully be a part of next year.)

Once I got into my building it felt as if nothing different was happening, but all the same, I wish things weren’t so volatile here. I don’t understand the concept of striking to get your way. In America the electric company doesn’t just decide to stop working in order to get better wages or working conditions. Things don’t instantaneously shut down because a certain piece of the population is unhappy. It’s hard to make plans for the future when a degree might take 4 years instead of 3 because of factors completely out of my control. If only we had a competent government who could help solve the problems rather than ignoring them. The entire future of this country, which is heavily dependant on its brain trust, is at risk. Nothing is being done and it is infuriating. I wonder if next week there will be a counterstrike to the counterstrike. It would be quite entertaining. Thankfully for now I still live within the insulated overseas student’s bubble. For now.

Oh Me Oh My I am a Lazy Bum: My trip home 11/6/07

I can’t believe I ACTUALLY let the entire month of October pass by without writing a single word. Ok enough being annoyed at myself let start with the update:

My trip home with David was AMAZING!!! When we got home from the airport I couldn’t get over the fact that he was actually standing in my house. He was in my living room and in my kitchen and playing with Ginger!! It took about an hour at least for me to internalize that after almost 2 years of waiting for him to come to Houston it was actually happening! Succot started that night so we didn’t have too much down time before showering and heading off to shul. I’m not sure I even took a nap! It was a whole additional round of disbelieving and being happy seeing David in my shul. Obviously the men had a wonderful time picking him apart…I wonder how much opportunity David had to daven the entire Chag—my dad’s friends could win schmoozing championships, if such a ridiculous thing were to be held. The first days of Chag were really nice. We got to spend a lot of quality time with my family and we had plenty of meals with people in the community! Nathan came home to meet David so I actually got to see him for the first time since I got on the plane to make aliyah. Elana also came in that weekend and with Yael home already it was really nice to hang out with David with my friends from forever ago. Hopefully it was nice for them to get an opportunity to meet him finally!
Then after Chag we officially got engaged!!! We had already picked out the date and it was just a matter of telling people. We went out for coffee with the gang and broke the news. Then we came home and spent over an hour making phone calls. It was pretty awesome. It’s funny because I didn’t then and still don’t feel any different. I am super incredibly happy but I don’t feel any different. I am still just as happy when I am with David and I still relate to everyone in my life the same (I just spend more time watching my finger sparkle). I had for some reason thought that being engaged would feel different. Fortunately it doesn’t because I don’t think I could handle 10 months of something other than my life!

Once word got out we got super super busy. We went to pick out stuff for our registry. I think I went into Crate and Barrel a total of 5 times while I was home. On the plus side, David had an opinion about almost everything. It was really nice walking around stores hearing his opinion and coming to compromise on the things we wanted to buy. I think I would have gone crazy if I had to pick out dishes by myself! It’s also really cute to know that he cares and really reassuring to know that we can survive the registry process completely unscathed.

The night before David left we had a L’Chaim, engagement party thingy at the house. It was really really nice. NuNu had flown in the week before to meet David and Grandma and Zaidy flew in and surprised us with a visit for the party! It was so wonderful to have all of my grandparents in the same place and with David and for such a happy occasion. I am very fortunate to have them!! I am also very fortunate to have Uncle Paul and Aunt Lauren! They always think of the coolest ways to give presents. Basically they went out and bought David a complete selection of hiking boots for him to try on in the house and choose one to take home! There wasn’t enough not-Chag time for David to get to a store so they brought the store to him. Seeing the look on David’s face was priceless. I don’t think he is over the shock yet! As he put it, in Israel, once you narrow down the selection to your price range, style/ type needed, and then size you are left with 1 maybe 2 options!!! David left early the next morning to get back to the army. ☹.

I spent the next 10 days hanging out with NuNu and shopping. I did so much shopping. It was great. I probably went to Target 8 or 9 times. I needed to get my fill for the next year or so!! I also went up to Tulsa to visit Grandma and Zaidy. I had already planned to visit them before they came to surprise me so this was an extra bonus. We had a lovely dinner with some of their closest friends and I got some alone time to spend with them and with mommy who was there anyway for a business trip. We spent the entire plane ride on wedding planning stuff. There is so much to think about!!

I think that’s about it on the highlights of my trip. It was wonderful. I got to spend time with the family and community and I’m engaged!

Back to America So Soon 26/9/07

I am sitting in the Newark airport waiting for my flight to Houston. David is davening shacharit in the corner, and im playing on my computer and working on a kippa for Zaidy. We’re on our way to Houston for Succot- David was able to get permission to leave the country during his break for the holidays. This is his first trip to see my family in Houston at our home. It’s his first time going to my shul and meeting my friends and close families. It is going to be a really hectic and exciting chag—I have been waiting for this trip since we started dating. I have spent enough time at his house and with his family that I really feel at home there—I know where all the dishes are, I do my own laundry (mostly), I even know where the clean sheets are to make the bed for myself when I come over…. But David has never even SEEN my house. It is something that has always nagged at me our entire relationship and now at long last that missing link will be filled in.

Besides for my excitement about coming home with David, this trip is bringing out lots of feelings I had never really thought about. First and probably the most stark, was how happy I have been this entire journey so far. I can’t remember the last time I left Israel that I wasn’t depressed and literally sobbing as the plane took off. This time I couldn’t stop smiling because I know that not only am I coming back very soon but that I am going to do something really happy that I’ve been looking forward to for years. Another thing that was a huge difference was when the lady sitting next to us asked where we were from I could also answer that I’m from Israel. Yes my roots are in Houston, but Israel is my home now and it felt great to be able to say it like that. Something else cute, I haven’t been a citizen long enough to get an Israeli passport, and not even the special travel certificate that I need until I have been a citizen long enough…I had a one time use only exit letter that allowed me to use my American passport even though its illegal to leave on a foreign passport- because of some details with the dates it expires before I get home and I was worried that I would have a problem reentering the country. The customs official’s response made me feel so great “ Of course you will be able to get it, this is your home now and you will always be able to come home.” I could have kissed her.
Some of the other interesting feelings come from being back so soon. I have been away for less than 3 months. I have been away for much more significant lengths of time before so I am not really homesick. On the other hand, it was so hard to leave the first time that I am a bit worried that it will be hard to leave again. I love my family and it is hard for me to be away from them regardless of how strongly I feel about living in Israel. I don’t think it will be a problem, but it made me think a lot about how hard it will be to leave them again.
It’s time to board. Hopefully I will be unlazy enough to update more often about my trip home. Chag Sameach and Shana Tova to everyone.

Enough is Enough: Procrastination OVER

I am lazy and terrible and I’m sorry. I have been able to come up with 800,001 excuses not to write anything, but now that I am sitting alone in my apartment for the 4th evening in a row I have run out. It’s not as pathetic as it sounds…Becca is in America to be with her family for the Chagim and Shira works the night shift and is never home at night. I do have friends I could call to hang out with but I am just tired. I have laundry going and I will probably clean the floors tonight. Exciting life huh? Actually things are very exciting…

In one week from today I will be home with family. David and I are going to be in Houston over Succot. He was able to get time off from the army ☺! It is his first trip to Houston and I can’t wait. On Monday my Grandma and Zaidy got in. I have seen them every day so far and it is really wonderful to get to spend time with them. They came into Jerusalem today to see my apartment and we went out to dinner with David’s parents.

I am also almost finished with Ulpan. I took my last real test today. I’m not really sure why I have class tomorrow but whatever. I have my two final tests on Sunday and Monday and then I’m finished!! I have really loved Ulpan but I am SO ready for it to be over!!

A few weeks ago I went down to Beer Sheva for my cousin’s Bar Mitzvah. I think they are my second cousins… but whatever the connection I had a wonderful time. It was really nice to get to reconnect with a whole separate branch of my family that also lives in Israel. I have two families of cousins down there. There is one girl just a year under me, one a year older than Seth, two Bar Mitzvah age (boy and girl…they’re first cousins) and then two younger ones. I just had a really nice time schmoozing and catching up. Hopefully I will get to see them all a lot more often!!

About a month ago Becca fell and twisted her ankle. She walked around on it for a few weeks but it didn’t get better. Eventually it got worse so she was on crutches. I helped take care of her for the few weeks before she went home and I have to say that I think it was a really great taste of what being a mommy is going to be like. (She’s ok now don’t worry) It was very interesting to have to put myself and my needs aside for a little while to make sure that she had everything she needed. I also had to be sensitive yet stern to make sure that she was taking care of herself. I had to get her ice packs and help her pack to come home. It really wasn’t such a big deal, I was very very happy to help and even happier to know that we have each other to take be there. I know that she would do just as good of a job taking care of me and it makes me feel better to know that even though I don’t have my mommy so close I have a good friend who can try to help make things better like my mommy would.

An update on my friend Yoni who is the soldier here on his own: He had his swearing in ceremony a couple of weeks ago. As one of his “mommies” I made a point to be there. It was really lovely and I’m so happy we could be there for him. It was also on the anniversary of Becca’s Aliyah. Crazy. We had a little party/ watch a movie at our place…its so nice to have a place ☺

My Aunt and Uncle just finished renovating their kitchen. It's amazing and beautiful and I wanted to put a picture up here just so that I can brag on their behalf :)

PS I keep forgetting to shout out to dror and sandy who schlepped all the way over to my side of town to see me! Thanks guys!

Food for my thoughts

A few days ago I received an email from a good friend who asked a very interesting question (thank you Debbie). She wanted to know what things about moving here were harder than I had imagined they would be and which things were easier. I think it’s a really interesting question and I’ll try to answer it. Hopefully I do a thorough job.

On the positive Side- Many things have been a lot easier or a lot more natural than I had anticipated. Take my relationship with David for example. Most of our relationship has been (very very unfortunately) long distance. I was really worried that when I got here and we would start to spend significant amounts of time together and really start to build a routine together that there might be problems. Maybe we wouldn’t fit together as well as we had though? Maybe we’d find each other just plain annoying? Questions like that plagued me for the weeks leading up to my aliyah. Thank G-d we have been very fortunate. Being so close to him has been even better than I could have possibly imagined. He gets a long great with my friends and I with his, we enjoy spending as much time together as possible (obviously or we would have broken up by now), and we are simply just very happy to be together. It makes me very happy that things are working out so well ☺

Another thing that is better than I could ever have imagined is my apartment situation. Rebecca and I get along so well that I am having withdrawals from her and we are only going to be apart for a total of 3 days. She went to Beer Sheva for Shabbat ☹. We do pretty much everything together. After I come home from ulpan we play before I start my homework. She has been on break between finishing her Sheirut Leumi (National Service in place of the army) and starting a job and school. We make dinner together every night and have even started making art projects to decorate our depressingly white walls. Unfortunately we hardly see our third roommate Shira because she works a night shift for an American company, but when she is around we all get along great. Physically the apartment is coming together really well. We hung up our first piece of homemade artwork and Rebecca’s geometric wall is AMAZING (see picture). My room is being painted next once I get over my laziness over clearing out most of my furniture… We have a cool chandelier thing, two couches, and we even have curtains that we have to figure out how to hang. Basically it’s so cool and really exciting to have a place of my own with people that I like and an eclectic fun decorating style.

Ulpan fits into both categories. It is a ton more fun than I could have ever ever guessed. My class is so diverse that it is always interesting to talk to my classmates. We also get along great and always have a good time with each other. Our teachers are also some of the best teachers I’ve ever had for anything. They really help promote a good classroom atmosphere and really bend over backward to make sure we are doing well. They make class so fun that sometimes we forget that we are really learning (until the test comes around obviously!) Hopefully I will leave the ulpan with some good new friends.

On the negative side ulpan is much harder for me than I had anticipated. My Hebrew is very good from the point of view that I can get along in life and converse about many topics fairly fluently, but from the proper speech and grammar point of view I am very weak. I am managing though. I had to give a presentation the other day which was pretty fun. I had to translate a song from English to Hebrew, present it to the class, and explain why I chose it all in Hebrew. The teacher commented that I am very comfortable in front of an audience (as if that should come as a shock to anyone) and that my speaking Hebrew is very good. YAY!

Social things are also a bit harder than I had hoped. I knew things wouldn’t be easy with the majority of my friends in the army. Unfortunately the problems go a bit deeper than that. I am at a point where about half of my friends live here on their own and the others still live with their parents. As much as I love all of them there is now a certain disconnect between those of us who are on our own and those who still live at home. It has nothing to do with how I feel about the others as people or how I see them as my friends, but there are just certain things that I am dealing with and going through that they cannot understand now matter how much they would like to. It is the kind of thing that you can’t really explain to someone who still lives at home. You have to truly be on your own and completely responsible for your self to know what its like. Forget things as simple as having to remember to wash your clothes and buy food and make food, but things like learning how to pay bills, opening bank accounts, buying internet and insurance are all things that weigh on my mind at all times that my other friends don’t ever have to think about. Hopefully some day relatively soon we can close the divide. But for now, while they are in the army, they should be home with their parents and have someone to wash their clothes and make them yummy food when they come home. On the plus side it has created quite a nice community and family feeling for those of us who are living here basically without family. I have cousins who I am very close to but they don’t live around the corner and aren’t popping in and out of my every day life. Those of us loners have really started to help take care of each other. It has made us really close and I don’t know what I would do without them. They are truly the best support system. Even David can’t understand some of the things I am going through so it’s nice to have friends who can. (this is my friend Yoni who moved here by himself a few months before me and is now in the army. I can't imagine how much harder life is for him than it is for me. Becca and I have kind of adopted him-- we do his laundry!! These are pictures from his first official army photoshoot)

I hope that helps answer the question. I am with David again for Shabbat ☺. We don’t have big plans, but I am hoping to get a lot of rest because I have an eye infection and it has unfortunately kept me up a few nights wanting to scratch my eyes out. I have seen a doctor and have medicine but it takes a while to really get rid of the infection. My medical experiences here so far are a whole separate topic, maybe for next time. I hope all is well with everyone. All my love. Shabbat Shalom.

Sorry I Dissapeared!!

Sorry for not writing in so long things have just been so crazy busy in my life that I really haven’t had the time to sit still for long enough to put everything I want to say down into words. So what have I been doing these past few weeks that has kept me so busy? I moved into my apartment and started ulpan. Moving in has been a much more stressful and time-consuming process than I had previously imagined. Pretty much every day I have had to go to some store or another to buy something, or spend hours trying to organize all of my stuff in a new and unfamiliar room. My roommate’s parents own the apartment and they were here for the first 10 days helping us get things purchased and organized. We didn’t have a fridge, oven, or washing machine until about a week after moving in. Our first grocery store run was a huge excitement! We actually had something to eat!!

At the same time I started ulpan. My first night in the apartment directly preceded my first day of class. I am in level 4 out of 6 and I love it. I was very overwhelmed at the beginning. There is a huge emphasis on Hebrew grammar, and as I have no real prior grammar training everything that is supposed to be “review” at my level is brand new material for me. They give us a ton of homework and because I’ve been so busy trying to get the rest of my life together I haven’t been able to focus on my work properly. Other than that I LOVE my class. My class is taught by 2 teachers who switch off at least once every day. One focuses on grammar and the other on vocab but they are pretty interchangeable. They are both super super nice. One of the teachers is really amazingly dynamic and we don’t sit in her class for more than 5 minutes without cracking up laughing. Yesterday we played a game to demonstrate a new rule she was teaching us and is was so much fun I almost forgot I was in school. Another really fun, amazing thing about my class is how incredible diverse we are and how well we all get along. My class consists of 3 Americans (including myself), 1 Brit, 1 Russian, 1 Columbian, 3 French, 3 Arabs, 3 Germans, 1 Swiss, and even 1 Japanese woman. It is so much fun to talk to them and listen to all of their stories. For example, one of the German students is 27 and doing post- Theological school studies in Israel. When he was 19 he decided to do National Service instead of serving in the German army. He knew he wanted to go out of Germany and I still don’t quite understand what made him pick Israel. Whatever it was, he caught the Israel bug. He went back to Germany to finish his studies and then decided to do some postmasters additional studies and couldn’t stay away from Israel. I am so fascinated that a non-Jew, especially a German, can feel similarly strong feelings of love for Israel that I do and can share the feeling of having to be here despite everything. There are a lot of recent immigrants in my class- it makes for a nice environment and a support system in addition to the friends I already have. I will post more anecdotes when I have more time.

Back to the apartment: Yesterday I built my first pieces of furniture all by myself! I now have a desk and a real chair at which to do my homework! I also bought a rug and now my room is finally starting to come together. I also bought paint to add some color to my room. Israeli apartments tend to be so absolutely white that it’s painful. Right now I am sitting in my roommate’s room while she and a friend are taping geometric shapes onto her wall. I can’t wait to start painting then in!

This Shabbat I am spending at home with my two roommates and we’re doing a roomie Shabbat. My third roommate Shira works the night shift at an American company so I hardly see her and we’d all really like to spend some time together.
That is about it for the major stuff for now. Other than that I’m still trying to have fun. I went to a concert last night with Becca at the Internal Arts and Crafts Fair in the middle of Jerusalem. It was really really really fun and it was amazing that we were sitting there in an archaeological park with the walls of the Old City on the right and our neighborhood behind. I love this city and I still can’t believe I am lucky enough to live here!

Thursday 7/26

After visiting the apartment, Becca and I realized that we needed to clean it out a bit before we started getting furniture. Since there was a general labor strike and she works for the Israel Museum she had the say off again! She bought a bunch of cleaning supplies and we got to work. She was on floor duty while did a bunch of other stuff. I cleaned all of the dust out of my closet, cleaned the bathrooms which were pretty ok to begin with, and washed all of the windows as much as I could. I’m really excited to live there! It was really really hot but we’ll have fans so it will make it ok. I also really like Becca. I won’t elaborate in case she ever reads this…I think that would be really awkward, but I am really excited to live with her. We plan to paint and decorate in a few weeks after her job is over and before she starts school. It’s going to be fun.
I had to ditch her a bit early so I could get to Hebrew University to take part 2 of the ulpan entrance exam. I hate having to go the university. It takes almost an hour to get there, It is such a complicated campus I always gets lost, and I have to visit 3 or 4 offices before I can get in touch with anyone who can actually remotely help me. The ulpan test itself was fine; I had to write a simple essay, but when I tried to hand it in they drove me crazy. The lady in the Hebrew department I found said that I wasn’t in the computer and didn’t even need to take it at all. Fortunately I finally got someone who knew what they were talking about and I WAS in the computer (after 20 minutes of freaking out) and I DID need to take the test and things were ok. But still it was annoying and very typical of Israeli institutions. No one has an idea what’s going on but they all pretend they do and it usually means a few unnecessary heart attacks before the truth can be dug up. Oiy is all I have to say really.
After that lovely afternoon I went back to Aaron’s to wash up and rest. My cousin Ben Feltoon was on his way in from Haifa to hang out with me for the evening. We met up on Emek Refaim and went out to dinner. It was so great to catch up with him! I hadn’t seen him since our last family reunion and that was around 3ish years ago (I think. It was a long time.) He seems to be doing really well. He wants to be in the FBI and was telling me all about the training and stuff he wants to do. Pretty cool stuff. It was his first time in Jerusalem and I really wanted to show him around properly. I don’t think there are many things in the world as beautiful as the old city at night. We walked from my area (its about a 25 minute walk and the fastest way to get there) up to the old city. At about the halfway point the old city comes into view with the walls lit up and it is absolutely breathtaking. There’s this really cool footpath up to the Zion Gate and while you walk up it gives a sense of what I must have been like when all of the Jews would go up to the temple and climb up the mountain. I showed him around the Jewish Quarter and then we walked down to the Kotel itself. It was much more crowded than I had expected but was nonetheless beautiful. We simply sat in the plaza and chatted and looked at the wall. David had gotten out unexpectedly from the army and we were waiting for him to meet us there. There was some kind of Bar Mitzvah or something going on and there was a parade behind a huge Sefaradi Torah. David met us and davened Maariv.
Ben’s tour the next day wasn’t going to be taking him to Ben Yehudah so we decided to walk there too. We went out of the old city through the Yaffo Gate after snakeing through the Armenian Quarter and the beginning of the Muslim Quarter. In town David bought dinner and we just walked up and down checking out the street performers and tourist shops. It is really nice to see the downtown area so packed and lively. 3 years ago, as the Intefada was just ending, people were out and about but not in these numbers. I had never seen that area so packed as I have so far this summer. I’m so glad to see that people are finally comfortable enough again to be anywhere and everywhere all the time without fear.
It was starting to get late so we headed back to Emek Refaim where we were staying at David’s parents apartment. The walk took us down Keren HaYesod and through a whole separate area of Jerusalem than we’d taken Ben to before. We spent just over 3 hours walking and we saw a ton. I love Jerusalem. Back at the apartment we were all exhausted. We watched a few episodes of the Office and then crashed.

Wednesday 7/25

I got up pretty early to have breakfast with Dr. Liebowitz and his wife!!! It was so exciting. They are adorable and interesting and I really enjoy talking about various things with them. They are here because Dr. Liebowitz is doing research on some things he is writing and he also went back to the archaeological dig he’s been working on for years to check up on it. Sadly I can’t remember the name of the sight ☹. After breakfast I met up with Becca and we got ourselves ready to go to the beach! I had promised myself that at some point before ulpan/school started I was going to get at least one day where I had nothing to do but sit on the beach and enjoy the day. We bussed into Tel Aviv and plopped ourselves down. After about an hour, Ana came to join us when she got off from work. We just sat around and swam a little. There was a maddening amount of trash in the water and then I saw a jellyfish and decided to stay out and not get stung! Becca had to head back to Jerusalem while Ana and I spent another good hour lying around. She was reading Harry Potter and I was just being and tanning. After we’d had enough, Ana and I went back to her house in Yaffo to cool down and shower off. We rested for a few hours. I decided to experiment with nail polish and made a huge mess of myself and had to keep re-doing everything. It was fun which is all that matters I guess. She was going out to dinner with friends relatively late and I decided that I wanted to get back home so that I could be productive on Thursday. We had a snack of crackers with some great spreads and then headed into town. I went home through the Tel Aviv Central Bus Station. I hate that place. It’s so massive and doesn’t make any sense. The station in Jerusalem is at least one long corridor; this place is 7 floors with terrible signage and mean information people. On my way back to Aaron’s house I stopped at Ariel’s to pick up some papers I had left there and to meet some of her extended family who is all in town for the Bar Mitzvah. She was really upset because her boyfriend, who happens to also be very close to her little brother, wasn’t going to be able to get out of the army to be with them. It was really sad. Her family was really nice. I give the Arnovitz’s a lot of credit though because it can’t be easy to plan and get ready for Bar Mitzvah stuff while trying to entertain and spend time with large amounts of close family who they haven’t seen in a while!

Tuesday 7/24

I spent the whole rest of Tisha B'Av reading or sleeping. It helped the fast pass easier. Aaron, his brother, and I went to Burger's Bar to break the fast. It was delicious. I just wish they would put on as much sauce as they used to 3 years ago...Aaron was antsy so we went downtown. We grabbed a table outside at a bar and hung out with Becca (my new roommate) and just schmoozed. On our way home we went to go see some of Aaron's other friends and I happened to see one of my friends from my aliyah flight, Rachel on the other side of the street (Ben Yehudah). I ran over to say hi and I told her that my friend Shira Gross was going to be working in the same place as her next year! It's a small world that two friends of mine from completely random places are going to be madrichot in the same brand new seminary!
On the way home I decided that I wanted to see my new apartment!! It is SO COOL!! It is actually a standard Israeli apartment but the location is even better than I had originally thought and its ours! There is a ton of room and a ton of potential. It was almost 2am and it was really hard to keep from shrieking with excitement. I took plenty of pictures :). I can't wait to move in!!

Monday 7/23

Even though we could do stuff on Erev Tisha B'Av, no one really wanted to because we all wanted to stay cool and start hydrating to prepare for the fast that was starting at night. I had a really interesting conversation with Aaron about Israeli and world politics. He has spent years debating on international teams and had some really interesting things to say. We met up with our friend Yoni for lunch. I was craving pineapple pizza and coincidentally so was Yoni so that worked out well. Then I called the people at Hebrew U to make sure there wasn't anything I had to do before registration. Glad I called because I needed to come in to take part II of the ulpan test and because I had the wrong date for registration! I also found out that I was placed in level 4 based on the first part of the test which is exactly where I wanted to be. We went back to Aaron's and watched "Shooter" while seriously hydrating and resting. We then had dinner with his parents and brother. By the end I had eaten and drunk so much I literally felt like I was going to explode. It was not so pleasant. I was waiting to go to shul when I realized that the only shoes I had with me were leather and it is prohibited to wear leather shoes on Tisha B'Av so I ran to my friend Ariel's house to steal a pair of flip flops from her. It's so great that we're the same size and I can just run into her house and grab stuff whenever I need. I also got to see her little siblings who were back from camp who I'm slightly obsessed with :). I went to shul to hear Eicha and then went home with Aaron's family.
Tisha B'Av is also give or take the anniversary of the disengagement from Gaza. On TV there was a really interesting documentary which followed the leader of the Yehudah, Shomron, and Gaza municipal council, a secular Jew who lived in Gaza and who's daughter had been killed by terrorists 3 years before on her way home, and the commander in charge of organizing all of the troops who would actually carry out the disengagement orders. I had just come back from my year in Israel when the disengagement happened and I had partially disengaged myself from Israel and didn't really get what was going on. It was very emotional from many sides and I'm happy I finally got to see something like this. One of the things I didn't realize was that about 50% of the residents of Gaza were secular Jews who had been asked by the government to move there 20 ish years ago and just didn't want to be kicked out of their homes. I don't know if the documentary is available in English, but if it is I recommend it. It was called "the War for Home" or something along those lines. The other interesting things is that the guy put in command was someone who really understood most of the people being moved and was very sensitive to them. His family members were all very involved in anti-disengagement efforts to the point that he bumped into his niece at a protest. I think that one of the main reasons things went so smoothly and non-violently was because he was sensitive and really tried to be as noncombative as possible. A really stirring scene was when the soldiers came to the non-religious guys house to hand him the evacuation order he got very angry and started yelling at them to go away and that they were no longer his army. The commanding officer happened to be a friend of his. Later that night he was walking around his town and he saw a soldier in uniform crying. The boy could have been not much older than 18, and at the sight of the soldier so overcome with emotion about what he was commanded to do the man immediately had a change of heart. He started hugging all of the soldiers and telling THEM that everything was going to be ok. In the end he organized a meeting with the other citizens of the town. They agreed to leave peacefully but asked the army to let them stay as long as possible. They made a deal with the army and that's what happened. I was crying the whole time. I am still angry that a lot of those people still do not have permanent places to live (as the government had promised they would have) or land to replace their farmland. A group of farmers started a hunger strike just before Tisha B'Av at the Knesset to try to pressure the government to live up to its promises. I hope they don't starve to death waiting.

Sunday 7/22

I woke up at 9 am and the first thing I did was grab my Harry Potter. I planted myself on the couch and didn't move except to eat once, bathroom, and pack a bag. I finished around 7:45. It was amazing. That's all I will say. Exhausted from my reading marathon I went into Jerusalem and met up with my friend Aaron and his parents for dinner. I was going to be staying with him for the week so I had a huge bag. I felt really cool walking into the restaurant, but oh well, it's Israel. Our friend Yoni came over after dinner and we watched Harry Potter 4 (we were all in the mood) because the movie we had rented didn't work. I fell asleep in the middle.

Shabbat 7/21

The main eventful thing this Shabbat was a surprise I got in shul. I was sitting with David's mom and it was abnormally packed with a ton of girls. We were trying to figure out who they were when I heard someone whisper-shout my name. I turned and saw that my friend Shira Gross, a good friend from high school who I hadn't seen in probably 2 years, was standing there!! Turns out she was a madricha on the program that all of the girls were with. It was the camp moshava summer in Israel program and they were all Seth's age...weird. It was SOOOOO exciting to see her and so incredibly random. They were staying at a town across the street and had come over specifically to daven at this shul. Of all the places in the country she happened to be sitting 5 seats away from me!! After shul I introduced her to Craig, David, and Ari. We were going to go home and then I found out that Rav Brown was supposed to speak to the girls and I just HAD to say hi to him so we waited and schmoozed and caught up until he came. I only saw him for a second but it made me really happy. It was incredibly hot that day and after lunch I was just too hot to nap. I read for a while instead and then David's friends came back. We all hung out for a few hours, ate seudah shlishit, and then Shabbat was over. I watched some TV with David's family while his mom took Craig and Ana back to Jerusalem and picked up HARRY POTTER!! I was so excited when she came home that I started reading out lout to David so that I could be reading without completely ignoring him. We read out loud to each other until the end of Chapter 3 but it got really tiring and David had to get up at 5 something to get back to base so we decided to call it a night.

Friday 7/20

David and I got up early. We had a tight schedule so that we could go on a tiyul (hike) and still make it back in time to get ready for Shabbat without having to rush. David picked a route in an area we'd been to before that was relatively easy. Due to the heat he knew that it would feel exerting enough that I wouldn't feel like we wasted the day just walking. At first we started in the wrong place. David wasn't paying as close attention to the map as he should have been (I hope he's reading this hehehe) and we ended up in the place we'd been to a few years ago. Eventually we found the right spot and started walking. Most of the trail was on a rudimentary road which at first annoyed me but once I started getting hot I was fine with it! The trail was 8 kilometers and was supposed to take us in a circle around a mountain called Har Eitan. Along the way we were going to take a detour to a well in the side of the mountain to have a picnic lunch. David has a really cool book (along with almost every other true Israeli) that details where all of the water sources (wells, springs, etc) are and how to get there. Unfortunately the book's instructions were a little off and we ended up going off the trail into the forest. After climbing around for 20 minutes with no sign of the trail we REALLY wanted we decided to break for lunch. After lunch we climbed back up to the trail and found what we were looking for just 5 minutes up the road. I was really pissed needless to say. I was even angrier when we went down to the well to find that there was no place to sit as if in a cave (which the book made it seem like there was). So we just left and continued on the hike. Toward the end it was just really really hot and David had to keep rooting me on to keep me from trying to hitch a ride with all of the picnickers we had started to see who had driven into the national park. It was also really nice to get to go hiking with him. It gives us a chance to do stuff on our own and be in foreign situations to see how we will react to them and to each other. He also looked really cute :). At the end we treated ourselves to much deserved ice creams to cool us down before heading back home.
David and I decided to open our own taxi service! My friend Craig and his cousins Ana were both coming to stay for Shabbat so we set up a rendezvous point and waited to give them a lift to Efrat from Jerusalem. David had another friend who was also staying in Efrat for Shabbat so we drove him too. It was a very quintessential Israel experience to be hanging out giving everyone rides. We all hung out at David’s and got ready for Shabbat. Shul and dinner were uneventful. It was really nice to have Craig and Ana over though. Afterward our friend Shevy came over as well as the other friend we had given a ride to and the guy he was staying with. We all sat around schmoozing until everyone, especially David, started falling asleep midsentence and then we decided it was time for bed.

Thursday 7/19

Bright and early we loaded into the car to drive Lia to town to Ammunition Hill to meet the buses taking all of the new draftees to the Bakum (the processing base) to turn them into soldiers. The whole thing was not as big of a deal as I had anticipated but that’s probably because Lia is going into the Education Corps and was probably going to come home on Friday after moving her stuff into her new base. When the girls got there they were supposed to sign in with their ID numbers and their Draft Notices to get assigned to buses. Lia was waiting for some friends so they would be able to go together so we hung out inside the lobby of the Ammunition Hill museum watching everyone say goodbye to their friends and families. Everyone in the room seemed to be reacting differently. A lot of the girls (including Lia) were walking around nonchalantly chatting with friends as if they were waiting for the bus to take them to camp or something. She didn't even really want us to come because she didn't think it was a big deal. There were others that looked like they were going to throw up, and some were even crying. It's funny; barely 2 weeks after making aliyah I felt like I was watching the group of people go through security at the airport. Bottom line is that whether it’s going into the army or moving halfway across the world change is scary. I am really proud of Lia for taking it so well, she seems to adapt really well to new things. Because we are in Israel things couldn't be completely as you'd expect. There was a whole group of kids going in together and the people from their youth group came and brought drums and randomly every few minutes they'd break out the drums and start cheering. When their friends were called to load the buses they started singing some song and carried their friends on their shoulders to the doors. It made the whole thing really festive! The other interesting thing is that once the drums started everyone in the room started to involuntarily dance along...it was hilarious!!! Once Lia was gone I went with Noa to the bus station so she could get back to the Moshav to work and I could get to David's house. We had breakfast in the station and then went our separate ways. I took the wrong bus. It theoretically is the right bus, but it takes an extra 45 minutes than the other buses. I always confuse which bus lines I should take and often end up on the extra long one. I got to David's house eventually and crashed for a few hours. I hung out with Ari for a while and worked on my blog until David came home :). We went into town to have dinner. I'd been craving sushi and earlier in the week I'd passed a new restaurant that said it was also a sushi bar. We went to try it out and it was surprisingly good. It was a little pricey so it’s not something I would do on a regular basis. Bottom line though the food was good and it was a really nice date. It's good to be able to go out on official dates whenever possible. It adds a real sparkle to the week and gives us something to DO rather than just hanging out in his house. We went home early and started watching Disk 2 of movie 1 of the Lord of the Rings. It was awesome.

Wednesday 7/18

The main reason I had to sleep in Jerusalem Tuesday night was so that I could get to my Misrad HaKlita (Absorption Ministry) meeting without having to wake up ridiculously early. The Misrad HaKlita is one of the useless government agencies that is supposed to help make absorption into Israeli society easier. Their main purpose is financial: they give us money just for moving, rent subsidies, and tax breaks for years. Otherwise they fail miserably in their other attempts to make adjusting to life easier. Because I'm still the epitome of the wandering Jew I had a big bag with me that I was schlepping around the country. I was hoping to meet up with Marilyn and Lia after my meeting but my bag was just too heavy. My meeting went fine. I gave the lady the information from my bank account so they could begin automatic transfers of my absorption money and rent subsidy. She started to tell me about how to get my drivers license transferred to an Israeli one and then just gave up and told me that it was a complicated process and that I would figure it out- classic. My other problem with her is that she was also very clearly an immigrant and her Hebrew was so thickly accented with something else that it made her almost impossible to understand. It was an awesome experience. Then I schlepped about 10 minutes up the road to wait for the bus to take me back to the Moshav to wait for Marilyn and Lia to get back. My cousin Asher had gotten sick so my Marilyn and Jack took him to the doctor. While they were gone I hung out with Lia and Noa while Lia packed her things for the army. Her draft was in the morning and she had a bunch of organizing and stuff to take care of. We ordered pizza for dinner and we are truly piglets as we ate almost the entire whole pizza. It was delicious. We went to sleep early because we were all waking up at 6 something-ish to take Lia to the buses that will take her to the army

Tuesday 7/17

Most of the beginning of Tuesday was typical Metzger time: hanging out on the couch reading, lounging, and schmoozing with whichever of my cousins happen to be around. I hung out with Aunt Marilyn and Asher until Lia woke up. When she finally did (not that I blame her for sleeping late, she hadn't slept for real in days) we made food. And it was so yummy. Lia always makes the best omelets. I made a super good salad and she made me eggs. It was fun to stand around chopping vegetables while she cooked. I really enjoy spending time with people in the kitchen because not only do you get to spend time with them but you get a tasty reward at the end! I am a spaz to the end and while we were cleaning up I managed to break a glass. Not only did I break it, I caused it to explode all over half of the downstairs. There was literally glass everywhere. I felt really bad but it was an old glass and Marilyn promised she was already planning on cleaning the floors...
Asher has been getting into playing memory lately so we played a few rounds with Lia, who although she's much better than me wimped out saying that she was terrible. Noa came home just in time and was a great replacement. She loves playing games it's really fun.
After a few more hours of cousin time I headed into Jerusalem to have dinner with my new roommates. I was going to be meeting the third roommate for the first time. I got a ride with Saralyn's daughter to a spot where I could pick up a bus directly to Jerusalem instead of having to spend half an hour winding through a religious community and an Arab village. It was really convenient!! On the bus David called with some news. He was getting out of the army for the night and was going to have to sleep in Tel Aviv but I could come see him if I wanted to. Obviously I was willing to JUMP at any opportunity to spend time with him. I tried to call off the dinner but when I realized that Shira was traveling from far away just to come meet me I realized that it was too mean. Instead I changed the location to be closer to the central bus station so I could hop on one to Tel Aviv as soon as dinner was over. I lasted for about an hour before I couldn't stand not being with David anymore so I left. Shira seems really nice and I think the three of us are going to get along really well. I feel REALLY bad that I was so flaky and distracted, but opportunities like this were one of the biggest perks of moving here right now and I wasn't going to miss my chance. I sped to the bus station and was able to shove on a bus that was running late. I met David at the train/bus depot in Tel Aviv. It was really great to see him on a Tuesday. We had no idea where we were so we went to our friend Talia’s apartment to see her and use that as a base. For some reason I really really had an urge to go to the beach. Fortunately Talia lives 2 seconds from it. We walked down and David and I just sat watching the water and the people playing volleyball (the courts were full even at 9 something at night!!!). It was really romantic and fun to get to be with him so unexpectedly in a different and spontaneous place.
Now comes one of those "only in Israel does this ever happen" stores (that happen here ALL the time). I get a call while on the beach from a number I don't recognize. Turns out it's my friend Jessica who had been on birthright and extended her stay. She was also in Tel Aviv at the moment at a hotel on the beach. Turns out I was sitting directly in front of her hotel. What were the chances? There are about 20 hotels spread out along the length of Tel Aviv's beaches!! She came down to see me and meet David and she brought with her as a surprise Debbie, another friend from high school who was with her on the trip and who I hadn't seen in years. It was so fun to see them! It was even better to hear about what a wonderful time they had had on birthright and how much it really made them feel connected to Israel and love being here. It warms my heart to hear stories about how people come to love a place that I love so much. It was also really nice that they got to meet David after hearing me talk about him for so long!
David then found out that his ride back to base in the morning from Tel Aviv was cancelled but that they guy who usually drives in from his neighborhood in Efrat (South of Jerusalem) who didn't think he would be driving now was. We left the beach to go back to Jerusalem where I needed to sleep anyway. We got to sit together on the bus which is always fun. I think that traveling with a person helps bring out not only their negative traits (stress etc) but also their real personalities and bus rides are the closest thing David and I have to traveling together for now. We made it back just in time for David to catch the last bus to Efrat. We said goodbye and I caught the last bus toward the other side of town to Ariel's house where I was staying for the night. I hated saying goodbye to him again but it was very reassuring to know that I got an extra present to see him in the middle of the week and to know that he would be home Thursday evening anyway.

Monday 7/16

(This was such a productive day!!) I woke up really early to meet Yael to walk to the shul for the bris of Myles and Rocky Brody's baby. We got a little lost but still made it in time :). Tova Rhein (from Lindenbaum) was also there because Rocky is a former student and staff member so it was nice to see her again as well. The bris was pretty standard as far as those go, and there was a nice breakfast afterward. I sat with Yael and her sister and brother-in-law which was nice. I had seen them a few weeks ago because they were visiting Houston with their baby who is ADORABLE! Super fortunately for me, Ahron, her brother-in-law worked in the building next door to the Nefesh B Nefesh office which is exactly where I needed to be next. It was the day of Teudat Zehut (Identity Card) pick up!! I got there almost 45 minutes early but I didn't have to take the buses which would have taken me well over an hour through morning rush hour. The actual picking up my Teudat Zehut was kind of anti-climactic. I was the first one on line and I got my card along with my temporary travel documents. I realized about 3 seconds after I got it that I had given them the wrong address and that I had no idea what my real address was. Fortunately it's not something that is so crucial or anything! I'll get it changed eventually...but considering I'm still not 100% sure what the address is there's no point waiting around the interior ministry yet. They probably aren't open anyway because of all of the general labor strikes that have been going on lately. Not that I was aware of them personally, but I was warned. The nice thing about going back to the NBN office was getting to see some of my friends from the flight. It was really fun to see everyone a week later...we still couldn't believe that we'd actually just made aliyah. I also signed up for the Association of Americans and Canadians in Israel which is supposed to be helpful. It was pay for 1 year get the next free so I figured why not. From the NBN office I went with my friend Rachel to the cellcom store to help her buy a phone. It was such an amazing experience. Rachel's Hebrew is good for most things but the woman we were dealing with didn't really know English and Rachel's vocab didn't really cover cell phone issues yet so I acted as interpreter! It was so exciting and made me feel really triumphant!! Granted it helped that I had been in the same store the week before with David to help me translate so I already had some of the lingo down but still it boosted my confidence.
On the way back to Ariel's house I decided to stop in at the bank to see if I could open an account now that I had my Teudat Zehut. Banks in Israel have strange hours with very long lunch breaks that break up their days. Somehow I was able to slip in just before they closed the doors for lunch so the lady was willing to see me. She was super busy and hadn't eaten yet (it was around 1:30 pm) so she opened my account at lightning speed. I was in and out of her cubicle in under 20 minutes including taking time to call the owner of a wallet, ID card, and Immigrant booklet that was left at her desk!!! It was another triumphant experience for me. I was able to get all set up for a bank account in record time and while doing everything in Hebrew. I'm pretty sure that I didn't screw up completely...she said that they open these new immigrant accounts all the time...sooo yea.
Then it was back to Ariel's to hang out with her before she had to leave to go back to the army. After she left I ate and then put together part of the hospitality baskets for her brother's bar mitzvah. I put dried fruit and nuts and stuff into little baggies and then tied them with ribbon. It took me just over an hour and wasn't really a big deal but I could tell that it was a huge help to her mom and it was an opportunity to finally do something to pay them back for their hospitality!!
Later that day I went to meet Aunt Marilyn and Noa for dinner. We ate at the restaurant in the Chan Theater because we were going to go watch a show that Marilyn's best friend Saralyn was in. Dinner was yummy!! The performance was also good. It was various monologues and dialogues, but the best part was that it was all in Hebrew and I was able to follow pretty much the entire time. It was a very good Hebrew day for me.
We got home and about 10 minutes later I left with Lia and one of her friends to go to Nataf, another town about 10 minutes away. It is really pretty out there. I sat with Lia and her friends and listened to all of their stories about their respective trips to Sinai. They were all going in to the army at the end of the week so they had taken pre-army trips. I came to the Metzger’s to spend time with Lia before her enlistment. On the way home Lia let me drive since my license is valid here with my immigrant’s visa. It was really exciting. I love driving:)

Sunday 7/15

David went back to the army as usual. He always comes in and wakes me up to say goodbye. It is really great to be here on a permanent basis; it makes Sunday mornings infinitely more bearable. David and I can be around each other like normal human beings without having to be sick with dread and worry that the number of precious minutes we have together is steadily dwindling. It is really quite liberating!
I woke up whenever and called my friend Ariel. I have been borrowing her clothes pretty much every time I've been in Israel over the past 2 + years and now was finally my chance to lend some of my clothes back to her!! My suitcases were also a complete mess with clothing strewn all over David's basement.... I couldn't find anything. Ariel came all the way out to Efrat to help me sift through my clothes, find where everything is, borrow some, and help me put everything back together so the basement will be semi-clean-ish for the coming week while I won't be there. It's always fun to have someone to sit and catch up with while having to sit and organize the majority of your material possessions. We finished up surprisingly fast and then just started schmoozing. Ariel had to head back into town to do some shopping with her mom for bar mitzvah stuff. I hung out at David's house and worked on my blog and waited for a ride into town with his parents. ]
I went straight to Ariel's and took a nap. Daddy called a little before she came home. It was ok because she needed to work on more bar mitzvah stuff with her mom and sister. Then mommy came on the line. We hadn't really spoken for real since my aliyah and now was our chance. Ariel has these great amazing hammock chairs in her back yard and the weather was fabulous so I went out back and spoke to her for about an hour. It's really hard for me to be away from my parents but at least with technology I can speak to them almost whenever I want.
I had to get off the phone so I could head to town where I was meeting Craig for dinner. We went to cafe Rimon and sat outside. The weather was really just so spectacular! It was warm yet there was a refreshing breeze and as the sun started setting it became almost chilly. I hadn't seen Craig since the airport so it was nice to spend some serious time with him. Obviously we were in Israel because my friend Monica walked in for dinner just when we were getting ready to leave!
Craig had already met some of my friends at the airport so we went to go meet them. We went to Emek Refaim (the main drag in my new area) where Craig had never been before to meet up with Dana and Yael who are on the same summer program together. As an extra little surprise Elisa Abramowitz was also there! I hadn't seen her in a few years and she was visiting her parents who made aliyah a few years ago.
After sitting with them for a while I headed back to Ariel's. I found Ariel and Rebecca (my future roommate) on the couch watching one of the most awful chick flicks I'd ever seen. At least they were making fun of it also because I was starting to get a little scared! We didn't stay up too late because I had to get up at 7ish to go to a bris.

Shabbat 7/14

Shabbat day was fantastically uneventful. We went to shul, came home, and had lunch. After lunch the entire house went to sleep (I think) I know I got a good almost 4 hour nap in which felt amazing. Another one of David’s childhood friends, Yechiel, (who is also a tank driver by training) came over to visit. We sat on the mirpeset (balcony) and schmoozed. It was nice to catch up. We ate seudah shlishit and then Shabbat was over. Afterward we decided to be lazy. David packed his bag to go back to the army. Ari and I went through my itunes library (yay for me he was impressed…or at least not disappointed). Shevy came over for a bit to pick something up. Nothing exciting. David and I bought the Lord of the Rings special extended edition box set for each other so we decided to watch it. Yes we’re nerds but who cares? I love those movies and am really excited to own them. Besides, it’s mine and David’s first shared purchase ☺. We made it through the first disk of the first movie and then we HAD to sleep. David was waking up to go back to the army at 5 and while I could stay in bed all day he really needed his energy.

Friday 7/13

I refused to have another sleepless night so I took two Tylenol PMs Thursday night. It was fabulous. I didn’t get out of bed until around 1ish. I know that drug induced sleep isn’t the best thing in the world but I’d been sleep deprived long enough to need it badly. In the “morning” David and I went into Jerusalem to meet up with Ariel, Naom (her boyfriend) and Aaron who were all home from the army for brunch. We ended up at the same bagel place that David and I went to on Wednesday and I ordered exactly the same thing. I just can’t help myself. Brunch was great. There was a little too much army talk for my liking, but when 4 out of 5 of the people at the table are in the army it’s a bit difficult to talk about anything else. This is another situation where I love watching David interact with the people I love. This group of my friends has since become David’s friends too, but I still love seeing him get along with and enjoy being in the company of my good friends. Everything just seemed so natural having him around. After being away from him for so long I often worried that it would be too weird to actually spend time with him. Fortunately I’m finding the exact opposite.
After brunch we had to head home if we wanted to accomplish anything before Shabbat came in. We decided to take a second shot at visiting Eliran. Our friend Shevy (the one who introduced us) came with. The drive was a lot less scary in the daylight and we had slightly better directions than the night before. Poor Eliran. This outpost is literally in the middle of nowhere (It wasn’t even on a regular map). Eliran is in a tank unit so when we drove up to the outpost we got to see the tank (SO COOL!). It was a little humorous that for a group of over 60 tank soldiers there was only 1 tank. Eliran explained that it’s more of a deterrent than anything else or if they need it for a specific mission but that the mountainous terrain is not really conducive to tank battles. David said that the outpost was one of the nicest he’d ever seen (I was appalled but I guess they don’t need to be glamorous or anything). Eliran was so excited to see us! He showed us around a bit and then we sat in a shady area. Usually the guests bring cold drinks and food (we were bad and didn’t really have anything to bring or time to stop at the store to buy) but Eliran was so happy that we came that he bought stuff for us to snack on! It was really cute. We sat and schmoozed and then he took us to see the tank! He is a driver of the Merkava 4, which is Israel’s most elite tank. Most of the details were lost on me but I still thought it was pretty darn cool. I love big machinery even if I don’t understand it one bit. He showed us the inside, but we weren’t allowed to go in because I was a civilian and the stuff inside is top-secret (the others couldn’t go in because they weren’t trained in tanks even though they were both soldiers). Eliran was going to help me climb onto the tank to take pictures but the guy on guard duty likes to enforce rules and since I was a civilian I wasn’t supposed to be within 10 meters of the tank. We just went around the other side for pictures but I didn’t get to climb up ☹.
We had to head home because we’d pretty much used up all of our pre-Shabbat free time. The usual rush to get ready in time ensued. It wasn’t so bad except all of my things were a mess spread out between three suitcases and it took me about 20 minutes to find clothes to wear!!
Shabbat came in without anything exciting. I went to shul which is depressing here. The shul David’s family goes to is dying. Its mostly old men and most of them don’t seem too interested to be there. They did Lecha Dodi to one of the nicest most energetic tunes and they killed it because out of about 75 men maybe 10 were even pretending to sing. It was pathetic. Fortunately his parents are moving to Jerusalem and I’m living in Jerusalem so I’ll be able to find a shul that is younger and more vibrant!
We had a nice dinner at home just us. After dinner, David, Ari, and I walked to another part of Efrat to visit my friend Monica who was staying with friends. She was one of the ones who woke up super super early to come see me at the airport and I had been too flustered to really talk to her so I figured the absolute least I could do was visit her. We sat with her for about 2 hours which was really nice and then we came home and went to sleep because it was really late and I was really tired.

Thursday 7/12

Wednesday night was not a good sleeping night. My jetlag kicked in big time. I slept great until about 6:30 when I woke up completely wired. I was really really awake until about 9:30 when I completely crashed again. I slept until almost noon when David forced me to get out of bed. That’s one of the ways I know he really loves me because he knew that if I didn’t get out of bed I would be worthless for yet another day and would never get over my jetlag. We were going to try to visit Ariel, the same friend that we had failed to see the day before. When we found out that she might not be able to meet us we were really lazy and just lounged around the house. Then her plans got cancelled so we went into town to hang out at her house. We sat with her for a couple of hours and caught up. She is one of my closest friends here and she and David are also close and we are close with her boyfriend too so it’s a really nice connection. I also crash at her house whenever I don’t have a place to sleep. Her family is amazingly hospitable and it has really rubbed off on Ariel. I am really excited to finally be able to be in a position to pay them back for all of the things they have done for me over the years.
She had dinner plans with her mom which is just as well because David’s parents called and invited us to dinner. We went to a really good meat restaurant (Joy) on Emek Refaim (the main street through my neighborhood). Dinner was nice and then I went with David’s parents to the wine store to learn a little something about wines while David davened mincha.
Noa my youngest cousin was the only one I hadn’t seen yet and she was in town that evening. After dinner we went to the center of town to meet up with her. We didn’t work out the timing very well and ended up basically walking her to her bus stop. Fortunately it was an unbelievably lovely evening and the bus stop was about 10 minutes away. We chatted with her and waited for her bus. It was nothing special but it was nice to get to see her!
David and I meandered back to the car. It was such a nice evening that we didn’t mind being out walking. One of the things I love about Jerusalem is how cool and pleasant it gets at night. It really is a pleasure to wander with a slight chill in the air and a soft breeze. We waited for Ari to come back from karate so we could drive him home. Nothing exciting there.
On the way home one of David’s closest friends from yeshiva called. He had been stationed at an outpost not too far from David’s house and said he would love to have us come visit. This friend, Eliran, happened to be one of my favorites of David’s friends so I really wanted to go see him. We dropped Ari off, got directions, and headed out. It was not the most successful endeavor. The directions weren’t great and the road was pitch black. It was an area that David had never been to and as it is considered the west bank it’s not the safest place to be alone at night and unarmed. He usually has a gun from the army but because he had just finished officer’s training and had switched bases he didn’t have a new gun yet. Once we realized that we had no cell phone service and that this place was much farther along than we’d anticipated I started getting nervous. It’s really not the safest thing and we didn’t see any other vehicle traffic, Arab or Israeli, and that made us even more nervous. We decided to turn around much to the dismay of Eliran. We couldn’t call him for directions or encouragement because our phones didn’t work so we couldn’t let him know that we were ok until he had already started to worry about us. Maybe if David had been armed we would have continued but neither of us were comfortable (mostly me) and figured it was better to turn back.
At home we did some more reading and almost finished the first chapter!!