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!!

Wednesday 7/11 (Sorry no Pictures for the next few days)

David and I got a late start since I didn’t get out of bed until around noon. I feel like I deserved it considering how many consecutive hours I had been awake! We were planning to be really productive and take care of as much of my immediate post-aliyah bureaucracy stuff as possible. We rushed into Jerusalem to make it to the bank so I could open an account which I needed before my meeting with the Absorption Ministry on the following Wednesday. The banks hold really strange hours here with a 3 + hour lunch break and sometimes they don’t even reopen after lunch. The post office (which I needed to get a random form to sign up for health insurance) has similarly strange hours so we really wanted to get going before they closed up for lunch. Of course things couldn’t continue being as easy as they had been for the first 24 hours, and within less than 5 minutes I was informed that I had rushed for nothing and couldn’t open a bank account due to the fact that I had made aliyah barely 24 hours ago and wasn’t yet in the “system”. The silver lining to that experience was that the guy was surprisingly nice and I was able to get by all by myself while David was parking the car. I have a hard time speaking Hebrew in front of people with whom I usually speak English so it was very empowering to be alone and have to deal with a situation with foreign vocabulary and succeed.
We didn’t give up and went straight to the post office which was thankfully directly across the street. My new neighborhood is a fantastic little microcosm with many bank branches, restaurants, a gym, grocery stores, and its own post office so I never need to leave the main area to take care of a majority of my needs. We had to stand in line to have the postal bank stamp a piece of paper saying which provider of the socialized health care I was choosing for my free first year coverage. It was surprisingly painless. I realized that the woman started addressing David (who’s Hebrew is infinitely better than mine) rather than me and for the first time I noticed that things like that are going to be some of the largest obstacles I will have picking up the language. When someone doesn’t look right at me and focus the conversation on me I tend to space out just enough to get confused. When they direct their conversation to me and fully engage me I am able to understand completely and really work on my ability to fully communicate in Hebrew. I asked David not to speak for me anymore unless I really need help. He is wonderfully understanding and I think he’s going to be a big help when it comes to my absorption here. We had some time to kill before the health care center opened from THEIR lunch break so we went to lunch. I had one of my all-time favorite sandwiches: tuna, lettuce, and tomato on a whole-wheat bagel. I start salivating just thinking about it. Yes I am sick and food obsessed, but deep down who isn’t?
After lunch we headed to the health center to sign me up. The lady was really nice, but I got a bit concerned when I had to fill out a prior medical history sheet and could not understand one thing. David was there to help me translate and he also had no idea what most of the things meant. The most disconcerting thing was the lady’s attitude: if I don’t know what it is, I don’t have it. I guess it makes plenty of sense considering most of the things on the list seemed serious, but at the time I was a little concerned that my future health care clinic receptionist didn’t even know what the diseases were. I am very glad David was there because I would have freaked out if I was alone and didn’t understand!!
We were supposed to meet up with a friend who was in town with her army unit but she wasn’t going to be available for an hour or two so we went to the mall to run some errands and waste time. The most productive thing we did was to buy my favorite childhood book, The Golden Compass, in Hebrew. I have the English copy with me so I could read it again before the movie comes out and I figured that it was a perfect way to work on my Hebrew especially since I already know the story.
It started getting late and the friend still wasn’t available so we decided to just head home. I was about to crash big time and wouldn’t have been much fun to hang out with anyway. On the way we got a call from one of David’s best friends from childhood. We decided to have dinner with her and her husband (also one of David’s childhood friends). A few hours later we met up at the grocery store to get supplies. We ended up making a gigantic stir-fry that took over and hour to make and even longer to eat. It was a really really lovely evening. I think there’s a lot to be said about spending time in the kitchen with friends. It’s also so much more satisfying to eat food that you prepared and know that you did a good job. It was really nice to sit with friends our age and do “grown-up” things. It is something I really enjoyed about living on my own in Austin. No matter how old you are and how much freedom your parents give you, its still not the same as truly being on your own and blazing your own path through things…even if it is as simple as what vegetables to put in a stir fry. We ended up staying until almost midnight. We’d been there for four hours and it felt like barely 2. I think that’s how you know you’ve had a good evening: When it’s over because it’s late but you feel like it has only begun and don’t want it to end. Fortunately for David and me it wasn’t quite over yet. When we got home we started to read. I sat and read out loud to him and we worked through the translation together. It was really tedious and we only got through about 5 or 6 pages in over an hour but it was still a really great feeling and by the end my speed and accuracy of pronunciation had greatly improved.

Omigosh I’m an Israeli: Part 2

On the way into the terminal I was skipping and dancing because I was too jazzed and happy to simply walk. The air-conditioning felt amazing. I was still so hot I could barely breathe when David reminded me that he’s the best boyfriend ever and had brought me an extra t-shirt to change into. So I ran to change and cool down. He gave me my newest army shirt commemorating his graduation from Officer’s Training from the week before. We moved back toward my little crowd and were standing around waiting for the ceremony to begin. There was food but I was way too excited to eat anything. Supposedly it was good so at least the guests had something to eat while they waited!! I thought that all of the surprises were over and that I could finally start to relax and let it sink in that I had just moved to Israel when David pulled out another surprise. It was a huge Israeli flag that he’d had signed by all of my friends who were in the army etc. and weren’t able to make it to the airport to see me that day. It had taken him almost a month to get the flag to everyone between all of their army schedules. It is so beautiful and meaningful and I almost started crying yet AGAIN when he gave it to me and I started reading the beautiful things my friends had written to me. I became interesting again becase a few people came over to take pictures of us with my new flag of my new country! Then we had the ceremony. We sat, not like I hadn’t been sitting for hours on end or anything, which was difficult because I was so excited I couldn’t sit still and I definitely didn’t listen to any of the speeches. Tzipi Livni the foreign minister spoke but since I don’t have the highest level of respect for her I didn’t feel bad for ignoring her along with all of the other speeches. I was happy just to be breathing normally and holding David’s hand. Once that was over it was time to go upstairs to the Absorption/Interior ministry offices. Everyone else went home/wherever they needed to be that day and David waited with me so we could get my bags and he could take me home. I was so lucky that he was on his week off. It was so nice to know that I could spend almost a whole week with him while I reacclimatize.
The mood upstairs was really nice and calm. After all of the craziness of the last hour there was complete calm in the air. NBN is again amazing and they had us in lines by last name with no more than 8 families per line. It was nice to be waiting around with all of the people from the flight just calmly waiting around and starting to process what we’d just done. It felt like I was in a private clubhouse sharing my afternoon with people who belonged to an exclusive group☺. It took me about 45 minutes of waiting and schmoozing to have my turn with the government official. NBN rocks and all of the paperwork was ready the minute I sat down. I received my Immigrant identification booklet, my cash (the government gives you money to help ease the absorption process) and the other documents I would need to open a bank account and set up health insurance etc. It took a grand total of 5 minutes. I grabbed a rugulach on my way back downstairs… it was amazingly delicious. I met David in baggage claim after setting up my appointment with the ministry of absorption to finish my processing next week. My bags all came off within about 5 minutes. Good thing David is in good shape because each of my bags was almost 70 pounds and there was no way I would have been able to lift them myself!!
We got all of the bags loaded into the car and starting heading to Jerusalem. I was tired but wired. In the car I felt so calm and at home. It’s a feeling I usually get when in the car with David. It was also nice to be driving through the countryside thinking that this was my country now and not just some place I came to visit. It felt so good that I almost started crying again.
We went into town to buy me a new cell phone. It was amazing. We were in and out of the cellcom store (including parking) in exactly an hour. And David also had to replace the battery on his phone! It was pretty much a world record. By then I was already really tired so we came back to his house where I caught up with his dad, vegged, ate something, and started to show David all of the things I’d been waiting 6 months to show him. Stupid things but its hard to be away for so long not being able to share even the stupid things!
We spent the next few hours doing a whole lot of nothing which felt great! I had wanted to watch a movie and ended falling asleep on the couch instead. Considering I hadn’t really slept in almost 2 days I didn’t mind. For dinner we decided to go into Jerusalem. We met up with his brother Ari and went to a place called Masryk on Emek Refaim (my soon to be new neighborhood) which is a personal favorite of mine. Our friend Yoni who had made aliyah a few weeks before came to join us and say hi. He was one of the friends whose job it was to stay in touch with me to make sure I made aliyah in the end. Thank you Yoni!
After our late dinner I wanted to drive to see my cousins. They were all leaving to various places and I wanted to make sure I had an opportunity to see them. They live about 20 minutes in the opposite direction from Jerusalem than David does, but he had a car and he loves me so he didn’t mind driving. My cousin Lia had just gotten home from a trip to Paris with some friends and she’s going into the army this week, Maya just got out of the army and was leaving in the morning to go be a staff member at camp, and Asher is leaving in a few weeks for a yearish in India after his army service. We sat around chatting with them for an hour or so and it was so nice. It was great to have to leave them and know that I would see them in a few weeks no matter what instead of having to wait years to hang out again. It was also nice to see them and my boyfriend getting along so well together and having so much in common. That’s one good thing about the army is that it’s a huge equalizer in the country. Turns out that one of Asher’s former soldiers is a good friend of Davids… Things like that make me happy. Its also great to see my boyfriend and my family liking each other and enjoying being together. It’s important to me that it not be a chore to be with my family.
That’s about it for my first day in Israel…it was crazy and emotional and long and I loved it. Absolutely loved it. I was so ready to continue my life as an Israeli after such a wonderful day.

Omigosh I’m an Israeli: (warning this part is really long)

After the taxiing that seemed to take forever we finally parked. We were in the middle of nowhere in the airport but we could see the bus full of press waiting to capture our first moments as Olim Chadashim (New Immigrants). I had two way too large backpacks so Sam, my older brother of the day, switched bags with me because he is just that nice. He’s moving into an ulpan place (along with half of the plane) that is around the corner from my new apartment! Once I stepped out of the plane it was like I was in a dream. I tried to smile as much as possible walking down the stairs because I knew photographs were being taken at every second. (It paid off too. Click here to see the picture: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/123026) The only reason I might have not been smiling is that I was afraid I would slip on the stairs and fall into Israel. That would just be so me to do something like that.
Once I reached the ground I started jumping up and down screaming and hugging all of the girls I’d been sitting with. We had our picture taken a bajillion times and some of them were interviewed. Obviously I wasn’t interesting enough yet again, but it’s ok because the questions they asked were so annoying and I didn’t want to ruin my amazing mood. They asked things like “Why in the world would you want to live here?” etc. I mean I guess it’s an important question for Israelis who don’t understand how lucky they are to live here and who take for granted that it’s not as easy to be Jewish anywhere else in the world. They also take for granted that they have no idea what it feels like to live as a “stranger” in another country and to always be in the minority. The longing to be part of the majority is one of the main reasons I felt I had to live here.
After about 7 minutes of dancing around I got really hot. We landed in the middle of a heat wave and were standing on the tarmac next to a massive plane with no shade. We moved onto the bus, which thankfully was air-conditioned!! As we were driving around the airport to get to the old terminal I don’t remember thinking much of anything. I was so excited and nervous and tired that I just couldn’t feel anything. I was vaguely aware that I was going to be seeing David in less than a few minutes for the first time in 6 months, but it wasn’t until I could see the building and the huge crowd waiting that my heart really started racing. I feel so lucky that I ended up on the first bus because the crowd was still semi-orderly and once we got off things broke into a mad rush of hugging, crying, cheering, and a massive blur of activity that is overwhelming. I also got really lucky because I saw David just as the doors were opening. He came in uniform and our friend who was also in uniform was friends with the officer in charge of organizing all of the soldiers at the welcoming ceremony so they got to be at the very front before all of the other civilians.
I stepped off the bus and made a beeline to him. I dropped one of my huge bags at his feet and gave him a huge hug. After that I felt like I went into a warped world. I was only conscious of what was directly in front of my face. I was vaguely aware that there was music playing and people cheering—it was so overwhelming that my senses shut down. Next I saw Aunt Marilyn. I went to give her a hug and she was crying (and obviously I immediately broke down too). She was so proud of me and happy for me and so happy that finally after 34 years of being alone away from her family on the other side of the world she had someone else who had followed her that she was close to. She has made amazing friends here that act like family, but it isn’t the same as having members of your real family close together. She is one of the main reasons I knew that I could make this move. Not only did she move here 34 years ago when she could speak to her parents for maybe once a month-ish and it was crazy expensive, she also knew she wanted to be here after only 6 weeks! She’s also the one who helped me make a plan and get the courage to break the news to my parents that I wouldn’t be finishing college in the states and I was moving to Israel. I owe so much to her (and her family) for their constant hospitality over the years and constantly making me feel at home with them. I don’t think I would have had the courage without their support. Seeing them at the airport was so special for me and hopefully I will be able to see them often.
Once I calmed down from that I noticed that I hadn’t said hi to my friends yet! They were all on the same program this summer and had to get up around 6am to catch a bus to take them to the airport so they could come see me. That is such a big deal!! It was so early and I am so happy they could all come and share my aliyah with me. One friend I hadn’t seen since I had left Midreshet Lindenbaum 2 years ago. It was a wonderful reunion!! Then I noticed my friend Craig! (one of my best friends from UT) He is also in Israel for the summer and he had told me that he probably wasn’t going to be able to come. I was in complete shock at seeing him and so excited that he also made the huge effort to see me land!
I had finally started to calm down when yet ANOTHER huge shock came. Tova and Rav Brown, heads of the Midreshet Lindenbaum American program I was on, were ALSO there to see me. I was so surprised and grateful that I broke down sobbing again. They had always promised us that if we made aliyah they would be at the airport to pick us up. I didn’t realize that they were seriously serious, and I couldn’t remember if I had officially notified them of my date of arrival so it was one of the most pleasant surprises I could have ever asked for. They also played a huge role in my decision to make aliyah and it meant a lot that they could be there to see me through. Not only did they give me one of the most amazing years of my life, but they also have taken me in numerous times on extended visits over the past few years. They gave me a place to stay, food, classes, and love and encouragement all for free just because I was an alum of their program. Their support gave me the opportunity to spend more extended time in Israel and really helped foster my love for this country and my determination to move here.
This was definitely a day of surprises! I hadn’t even finished getting over the fact that Tova and Rav Brown were there when I noticed family friends from home, the Levys were also there!! I sent them an email with my flight information knowing that they’d be in Israel on the off chance that they could fit me into their schedule. I fully did not expect them to take time out of their vacation to schlep out to the airport at a ridiculously early time…and was just so unbelievably touched that they did!
Once I calmed down from all of the excitement outside I was able to give David another hug and realized once again that I was burning up so we decided to move inside. In the interest of time I’m going to write a separate post about what happened once we entered the terminal. Dun dun dun…

The Flight

Once I got onto the plane my fear turned into excitement. I started chatting with some of the people seated near me and really started to calm down. It turns out that the nbn staff are geniuses!! They set up the seating on the plane by categories to ensure that people would meet others in their same situation who would relate to each other and start a network of friends even before landing in Israel. A super perk was that the families with little babies were in the back and the young singles were in the front of the plane!!! I did not sleep one wink on the flight. I had a middle seat open next to me and I shared it with Polina my row buddy so I was comfortable… but there were just so many people to talk to and so many things to say that there simply wasn’t time to sleep. Every time I tried I would get too excited and start talking to someone or start smiling because I was so excited!! The hours of the trip ticked by SO slowly! We kept turning on the flight path screen hoping to see that more time had passed… we were lucky if even half an hour had gone by between checks. A much anticipated break from the monotony of the flight came with the start of in-flight processing. I had thought it was going to take at least half an hour to fill out all of the computerized forms so I figured it would help pass time on the flight. Sadly (yet amazingly, proving again just how awesome nbn is) all I had to do was sign 4 things, correct the spelling of my last name, and check that all of the information that they had previously entered was correct. It took a grand total of 45 seconds. I was still really really excited that I was filling out my aliyah paperwork and had Polina take pictures. The next bit of excitement came when they announced that for the first time ever they were going to process passport control while we were still on the air. We had to dig up our passports and hand them to a dude with a big plastic bag—I thought it was a bit sketchy but I knew that they knew what they were doing.
About two hours before the end of the flight I started getting antsy. I was hungry (they fed us less than a hour into the flight and it had been almost 8 hours since I’d had anything to eat), I was bored, and all I wanted to do was land in Israel and actually finish making aliyah! At the hour and a half mark they finally served breakfast which was pleasantly not disgusting. Once the meal was over I couldn’t sit still. We had less than an hour left until landing and I was so excited. Everyone began brushing their teeth, changing out of their plane pajamas, and excitedly walking up and down the aisles. Forty minutes until landing the nbn staff passed out the “oleh” stickers and nbn hats that we were supposed to wear to the airport to differentiate us from the guests. I had been waiting over a year for the day when I would be the one to wear the oleh sticker. I was so excited. We were literally bouncing around the plane with excitement. A bunch of us even took pictures in the hats we will most likely never wear again to commemorate the moment. On a last bathroom stop just as the flight crew were begging everyone to settle down for landing, I started talking to a man who was making aliyah with his wife. They both had on matching Bubbie and Zaidie shirts and were going to move near their 11 grandchildren. I think it’s such an amazing thing that even at such a late stage in life people are picking up their lives and moving to Israel. It is so inspiring.
We all finally sat down and buckled up with less than 20 minutes to go. I was glued to the window (by now I was excited about my window seat) searching for my first glimpse of Israel. I almost started crying when I saw the first stretches of Israel beaches and started recognizing the buildings all throughout Tel Aviv. We kept turning to each other saying things like “this is it” and “ I can’t believe we’re REALLY doing this” or “It’s really happening” and smiling and laughing uncontrollably. The entire flight we spoke about how we couldn’t believe that any of this was actually happening and how the whole thing felt surreal. That’s still the best way I can describe this whole experience. It’s something I’ve wanted for so long and talked about and thought about and dreamt about and now that it’s finally here it’s very hard to grasp.
As we neared the airport cheesy music came on like “od yavoh shalom aleinu” and “yachad” I felt like I was at summer camp. It was so cheesy that it was a little embarrassing but I loved it anyway. When we landed I clapped with everyone else and couldn’t stand to remain seated. We taxied for a long time and we were all trying to figure out where in the world we were going. I was expecting an outdoor welcoming ceremony so I was looking for the pavilion… Turns out that they changed the format and instead of having the ceremony on the tarmac as we came off the plane, they had it at the old terminal where we go through processing anyway and just bussed us from the plane to the party.
I’m going to leave the story hanging now and I’ll write about what it was like to actually be on the ground as soon as I can!

The Day Of

When I officially got up on Monday morning the way to describe how I felt: nauseas. That’s one of those feelings that sort of takes over and pushes out everything else. All other thought and feeling goes out the window. I showered and put on a cute outfit (so not me but hey there were going to be cameras everywhere!!) that even made Nathan proud. Grabbed some orange juice because I was too nervous and nauseas to eat…thanks mom for telling me that on an empty nervous stomach OJ was probably a bad idea!
I got to talk to seth in the car on the way to the airport. He’s been great about clandestinely using his cell phone to call from camp over the past few weeks and wanted to make sure he could say goodbye. After that serious nausea set it. I asked my parents to stop talking to me and couldn’t even talk to david!! We got to the airport super early which is fine because I can’t even imagine how nervous I would have been if we’d gotten stuck in traffic or anything. The nefesh b nefesh (nbn) people hadn’t set up their desk yet so I had time to get over my nerves a bit. Check in was surprisingly easy. They had assigned us seats in advance (I got a window…bummer) so they would know where we were to make the documentation process in flight easier. All I had to do was take my ticket, scan my bags, and get a boarding pass. I was ridiculously high strung and snapped at my parents like there’s no tomorrow but in reality it was a pretty painless process.
The flight went out of the same terminal (and even the same gate) as my flight to spend my senior year in Israel. I felt overwhelmed with déjà vu at every turn and then we sat in the same spot to wait for the flight where we waited 3 years ago. After about 10 minutes sitting there I had to move. For whatever reason I felt negative about being in the exact same spot maybe as if I wasn’t really doing anything beyond going away for a little or maybe because it was just making me sad and forcing me to think about the last time I drastically left my parents to be so far away. Mom and I went into the duty free and we sent dad to the bookstore because he hates the overwhelming smell of the perfumes. I thought maybe I would buy something small for David, but I quickly understood what my dad felt and the fumes mixed with my nerves were a bad combination. It was really rough sitting there with my parents for our last hours together for a few months. I felt like we had said everything there was to be said about loving each other and missing each other and since I would get my phone shortly after arrival it wasn’t like we wouldn’t be speaking and communicating multiple times a day soon anyway. But at the same time I had a hard time looking at them. I love them and miss them terribly but we all knew that this is something I’ve been needing to do for a long time. I know they don’t think I abandoned them or ran away from them but standing there in the airport waiting felt like waiting for an execution. It seemed ridiculous to be there with them and tell them that I’m not abandoning them mere hours before I was going to get on a plane and do (it felt then) just that. Fortunately nbn is a pro at the whole aliyah thing. They had a ceremony which was a bit disappointing but at least it was a distraction for a good 45 minutes! Nathan also came to say goodbye. He took off work to come be with me and my parents for a bit.. I don’t know if I told him properly, if I was even capable of saying it then how much it meant to me that he took off work and schlepped both ways to jfk to be with me for barely 2 hours. I think it also helped me be able to be normal slightly because I was also thinking about leaving friends instead of worrying about my parents. Funny that I thought to worry. They are going to be fine, they were fine long before I came around to take care of them. Hopefully seth and dad will make a concerted effort to reduce sports time to be with mom so she doesn’t feel lonely but other than that I know life will go on in the Medvin house as usual and when I come to visit things will be wonderfully and peacefully exactly as I left them.
The entire process at the airport was being filmed and photographed for nbn purposes as well as general press. Mom joked that we weren’t interviewed or anything because we weren’t interesting enough. Some people had large dogs or infants or were 87…I was just a young woman moving away from my parents- nothing abnormal about that. The second I started crying I became more interesting than I probably would have liked. I was saying goodbye to Nathan we were both crying and the next thing I know he laughs into my ear “ we’re being filmed by the way”. Knowing that I was being filmed was probably the worst way to ruin a completely honest and heartfelt goodbye. Fortunately I didn’t realize the camera men were there until we were almost finished! They must have really liked the sight of me crying because as soon as I moved to leave my parents I had a whole flock of them watching. I tried to hide my face from the camera as much as possible because all I wanted to do was concentrate on them and not the fact that this might end up being memorialized in a promotional video for the next 5 years! Saying goodbye to them was awful. I don’t know if there’s any other word to describe it. I knew that once I got settled on the plane or in Israel with david I would be ok but the actual leaving saying goodbye and I love you one last time and turning around to walk through security was agonizing. I hope that this is the last time I will have to do that with them. Hopefully for the rest of my life we will be together often enough that I won’t have this huge feeling of dread and anguish when I have to leave them. I stopped crying in the security line but I almost started again when I saw that they were waiting and watching me so they could see me until I disappeared for real. As I was walking to the plane lugging two backpacks with a combined weight of way too much I was going down the terminal with a random nbn employee. He didn’t say anything to me didn’t really have any reason to but I felt bitter and angry toward him that here I was lugging heavy bags (he was carrying things also) and sniffling and he didn’t have any comforting words. In the end I’m glad he didn’t say anything because I probably would have resented his words and wished he had left me alone with my sadness and slowly growing excitement. What could he have said anyway? Nothing that everyone else hadn’t said to me before. I felt like I was walking down a deserted hallway to uncertainty and was really scared. Really scared. I knew this is what I wanted but it didn’t change the fact that I was petrified of the change and of what finally choosing a life would mean.

Before

I’ve been planning to make aliyah for over two years. It took almost an entire year of intense planning, organizing, and applying. I had to apply for 7 different things in the proper order, which took FOREVER. I never actually thought the time would come when I would move to Israel for real.
At the end of fall semester I left UT to move back home to get a job and spend time with my family. I worked at Shefa Bakery as a mashgiach and did a whole lot of nothing. I told myself that I was going to use the time to go through my room and close up my life in America properly so I could move on knowing that I had taken care of everything I could possibly need. Obviously I didn’t use my time very wisely and I spent most of the time taking advantage of my netflix subscription.
Up until a couple of months ago everything seemed completely normal (except for the fact that I was living at home again): I worked and vegged and begged Seth to hang out with me. I kept up with all of my applications, but I didn’t really get ready to move. I did shop a lot. Mom and I did a ton of shopping. For whatever reason I shopped as if I couldn’t buy anything in Israel. Really I did it because it’s a recreational activity that Mom and I do together and if I end up with some cute stuff at the end it’s a perk ☺
Seth left for camp a little under 3 weeks ago and that’s when things really started to sink in that I was ACTUALLY leaving. I spent an entire day sitting with Seth in my room going through all of my old junk. I worked for literally 8 hours and hardly scratched the surface of what I needed to get done. It was emotionally hard to sift through my entire childhood, but at least I had some real quality time with Seth.
The few days leading up to his departure I was a wreck. I had been talking about moving for so long but had pretty much ignored the part that meant I had to leave my family so far behind. Also I spend two evenings watching Seth play playstation because I was so devastated that I wouldn’t be living across the hall from him anymore. I was good and didn’t cry when he left but it was an emotional blow that I was not prepared for.
Once he was gone and all of his things packed I went into hyper packing mode. I had under a month to pack up almost all of my material possessions into 4 suitcases and a little box. I was torn between wanting to pack everything and get it ready because I was so nervous I wouldn’t have enough time to get everything done and needing to keep things in my room since I wasn’t leaving for 3 weeks.
My last few weeks at home turned into a blur. I slowly moved everything out of my room and into the dinning room where we usually stage large packing operations. I could only do a little bit each day before I started to get emotional and figured I had enough time to wait. Fortunately my mother is amazing and helped motivate me to get everything finished. While I was physically going through the motions of moving it didn’t feel like I was actually leaving. Mom, Dad, and I kind of ignored it and just went on with our routine until occasionally one of us brought it up. I have to give my parents a lot of credit: There is no way in the world that it is easy or exciting for them to have me live so far away yet they have been nothing but supportive the entire process. They never stop telling me how proud of me they are and how much they love me. They always had tears behind their eyes when others would congratulate them and get excited but they smiled and moved on and focused only on how happy this move will make me.
Even when we left the house and went to New York I didn’t feel like I was really moving. (Saying goodbye to ginger was rough mostly because I can’t communicate with her from here and let her know that I love her and didn’t abandon her or anything.) I had sat through my goodbye bbq talking to everyone nonstop about leaving but it still felt like I would see them every week for the foreseeable future. My goodbye dinner in New York felt much the same. I was with my friends and relatives from the greater NY area who I hadn’t seen in a long time so it didn’t feel like anything special to visit people I love while on a trip to their area. I even fell asleep right away the night before the flight because I was so tired. I hadn’t been able to fall asleep right away for almost 3 weeks!
It was a short lived triumph because I woke up at around 4am and started agonizing about all of the many trivial things that suddenly seemed more important than life itself that I would have to do before, during, and after the flight. It was one of those times that I’m grateful that David lives in a drastically different time zone because he was able to calm me down significantly. Of course I wasn’t able to fall back to sleep but at least I was relaxed!!