Shabbat at Nishmat!

Friday morning 8:00- It's pouring outside...
I woke up, ate breakfast, and got ready to go.  I was going to Nishmat for Shabbat where I was meeting up with a bunch of old camp friends and friends from Flatbush.  Noga and Yvette organized where everybody was sleeping and what we each had to bring to eat.  My friend Yifa't and I were making the soup.  Our first stop was down the block to get soup mix and matzo meal to make matzo balls.  Our next stop was the shuk.  Now don't forget, this all includes walking and waiting for buses in the pouring rain.  At the shuk, we bought carrots and onions for the soup and Yifa't bought dates for another one of our friends.  The last stop was Nishmat.  We got on the 18 bus but we weren't exactly sure when to get off.  Luckily, we met someone on the bus that was also going to Nishmat so she showed us where to go.
We got off the bus, settled in, and then we had to start cooking.  Everything was a little bit disorganized, but we eventually figured it out.  We made our soup and matzo balls and then we added in noodles and we finished just minutes before shabbat started.  We lit candles and then were able to relax.  We hung out for a while and then sat down to eat dinner.  We had the challah, and then the soup, which turned out to be pretty good even though the matzo balls weren't very soft.  Then we had salad and homemade deli rolls which were so good. After dinner we just hung out for the rest of the night. It was just really nice to see everybody again and to have a really chilled out shabbat.
I woke up at around ten the next morning to find everybody around me sleeping.  I got up anyway to see if anybody in any of the other rooms was awake.  I found some people and we played some card games while eating cookies.  A couple of hours later we decided that it was time to start making lunch and then we would wake everybody else up.  Yifa't and my other friend Evie cut up salad, and then we started warming up the chicken.  We then went to wake everybody up which was lots of fun.  After another hour everyone was finally up and we sat down to eat lunch.  We had a really good lunch and then a few other people came over.  I learned how to play Monopoly Deal and then we started playing Jungle Speed.  Jungle Speed is an amazing game.  If you don't know what it is, go get it and play it because it's awesome! Before we knew it, shabbat was over.  We said Havdalah with a few other Israelis who were also staying in Nishmat and then people started leaving.  Of course it took them forever to decide what they wanted to do tonight and by the time they decided that they wanted to go out to Waffle Bar, I decided that I was too tired so I went home.  So here I am back at home, sitting next to Temima, typing this up, and thinking about my bed.  I like my bed and so should you.  Shalom V'lehitraot!

Eilat!

5:30 AM wake-up to get on the buses for a four and a half hour bus ride to Eilat! We stopped about halfway there for a bathroom break and breakfast.  We got to our first hike at around 11:30.  It wasn't really such a hard hike and it only took us about three hours to get through the whole thing.  Towards the end of the hike we saw something that looked exactly like Pride Rock from the Lion King so we all started singing The Circle of Life.
After that, we went to our hotel to get settled in.  I was in a room with Melissa, Rinat, and Floortje.  We showered and just chilled out until dinner.  Dinner was amazing.  Compared to the food we get at seminary, this was like a little piece of heaven on earth. Now I'm not saying that food in seminary is bad, I'm just saying that they took us to a really, really nice hotel.  Afterwards we went out to go chill on the boardwalk There are all these shops along the boardwalk that we wandered in and around and once we got all the way to the end, we realized that it was getting kinda late and we were really tired so we decided to head back and go to sleep.
The next morning, we woke up, ate an amazing breakfast and got ready for one of the hardest hikes in Israel, Har Shlomo.  We each took our lunch and three liters of water and set out for the hike.  When they first pointed out the mountain to us, our jaws dropped as we all wondered how we were going to climb it.  The mountain was almost a mile high! We began by climbing up a nearby mountain.  Some of my friends said that they did this hike once before during the summer and the heat was horrible.  After about a half hour, we were no longer walking on a path, we were literally climbing up the side of the mountain.  There was one really steep part that we had to hold on to a railing to keep from falling down.  It was pretty hard but we all encouraged each other and helped each other up if someone fell, and eventually we made it to the top.  At the top we were able to see Eilat to the east and Jordan just beyond it, Saudi Arabia to the south, and the Sinai desert of Egypt to the west.
The climb down was much harder than the climb up.  There were so many pebbles and so much sand that I felt like I was skiing down parts of the mountain.  I think everybody fell or almost fell at least once but we all just laughed it off. Almost the entire way down, we were stuck behind this slow moving group of high school girls who were so annoying and we kept having to stop and wait for them.  Then, about halfway down a big group of guys got stuck behind us and they were even more annoyed because they're guys and they wanted to run down the mountain.  Eventually all three groups made it down the mountain.  We got cookies from the bus and we were all really proud of ourselves for doing the hike.
We went back to the hotel, showered, had dinner, and then we went for a night boat ride.  I wasn't too happy about it, just because I don't like boats, but everybody else seemed to have a really good time dancing and playing games.  My friend Gila and I just stood on the side chilling and looking out at the scenery.  I was exhausted when I got back to the hotel so I went right to sleep.
The next morning we woke up for a third and final hike, which turned out not to be much of a hike at all.  We did get to climb up to the Pillars of Amram and we got to climb into an old copper mine.  After that, we had an afternoon off at the beach.  The first thing I did was banana boating.  It was so much fun and I was laughing so hard.  I laughed even harder when my friend Samara fell off.  Afterwards, I decided to go swimming with Dalia and Meira.  We swam from the dock all the way out to the rocks.  They were really tired so they walked back but I decided to swim back.  Then Melissa and I decided to try out the kayaks.  Melissa never did any kind of boating before so I had to teach her how to use the paddle, but after a few minutes we were moving right along.
After a great time at the beach, it was time to go back home.  Now I am exhausted, my shoulders hurt, my thighs hurt, and a bunch of other muscles hurt, but I can say that I had an amazing time in Eilat during my year in Israel.  Shalom V'lehitraot!

Shabbat in Tzfat

The four holiest cities in Israel are Jerusalem, Chevron, Teveria, and Tzfat.  We left at 6:45 in the morning  to take the three hour drive up to Tzfat.  We made a random pit stop at a gas station where we ate breakfast and had a cake for my friend Alona (pronounced Alana) whose birthday was the next day. We got back on the bus and arrived in Tzfat a little while later.  Our first stop was at a mikveh.  The two woman who gave tours there showed us around and explained to us what happened.  They were very kabbalistic and spiritual and very much into meditation.  One of the coolest parts was that it was handicap accessible.  Next we went to the famous Tzfat cemetary where we saw the grave of Rav Yosef Cairo, the author of the Shulchan Aruch. It was pouring outside and we had to walk down a set of stairs.  It was raining so hard that there was a waterfall coming down the stairs.
We got to our hotel rooms at around 2:00 in the afternoon where we got ready for Shabbat.  We had our own minyan and then went to dinner.  It was a pretty good dinner and then afterwards we all sat together singing and listening to stories.
The next morning we woke up very early to pray with the sunrise.  As we were walking to the shul, an orange cat began to follow us.  We finally found the shul after quite a few minutes of walking around.  We all sat down and in walks the cat.  Some girls are really afraid of cats so they kind of ran away as I just sat there.  The cat eventually jumped onto the chair next to me and climbed on my lap.  I calmly picked it up, brought it outside and then went back inside and I made sure the door was closed this time.
Afterwards, we walked back to the hotel and just hung out.  For a while, I was helping my roommate, Hadassa, with her Hebrew.  Then we had a speaker come talk to us about... something.  It's not my fault, I was sitting in a really comfy chair snuggled up in my jacket...so I kinda fell asleep for the whole thing. After that we had lunch and then went out for a tour of the old city of Tzfat.  It was really cool to learn about all the famous people who lived there and how the city became the spiritual city it is today.
Tzfat is also famous for its art galleries.  We went to meet one of the artists who is a cousin of one of our teachers.  He paints using kabbalist ideas that have to do with colors and letters and the things he comes up with are really cool and a bit creepy at the same time.  After that we had a bit of chill time at the hotel and then we went back home.  The bus ride home was pretty chill, except for when we made a pit stop and one of the girls started going crazy about how she wanted to go back already to meet up with her friend.  I sat next to my friend Sarah (one of the six at Harova) and we listened to these really cool songs that the choir she was in had sung.

A lot of my friends from America have been coming to visit Israel because they have a month long break, so tonight I spent the whole night with Yvette and Sabina.  I was so happy to see them and it made me miss everybody else in New York.  Come visit me! Shalom V'lehitraot!

Hanukkah Vacation

Ahuva and I have been trying to plan a Shabbat together for quite a few weeks now and we finally did it.  I met her at the central bus station and we made our way to the bus to Alon Shvut.  We got on the bus and about an hour later, we got off and walked to her brother's apartment.  Her brother, Dani and sister in-law, Sarah, have the cutest son named Aryeh.  We basically played with him for the whole time.  Aryeh is a little over a year old and he just learned how to walk so he was running all over the place.
Since their apartment was pretty small, we stayed in another apartment in the building of a family who wasn't there.  After we got ready for shabbat, we lit our chanukkah candles, which we had to melt a lot to make them fit in the candle holders, and then went to shul.  After shul we went back to Dani and Sarah's apartment for dinner.  Their house was the most familiar place that I'd been to on Shabbat because we were talking about New York and Brooklyn and Flatbush, because they both went to Flatbush.  Also, even though I don't think I've ever spoken to Dani before this Shabbat, I've known Ahuva and her family for a very long time.
The next day wasn't very different.  We ate and talked and played with Aryeh the whole time.  When we left their house on Saturday night, it was raining, and it didn't stop raining until Monday morning.  Yeah, that's a lot of rain!  While I was walking from the bus stop back home, I got soaked!
The next day, Sunday, the Moshava Reunion Committee ( of 2: Michal and Yifa't [who are awesome!]) originally planned for us to go to some sort of festival, but unfortunately it was raining.  So, we all met up at the central bus station (I'm gonna start saying CBS, okay?) to try to decide what to do.  Well, after an hour of standing around, half talking about what to do, half talking about something else waiting for someone else to make the decision, we finally decided to go to Talpiyot to go bowling.  Then we had to figure out which bus took us to Talpiyot, which took a little while longer, but soon enough, we were on the bus.  After we got off at the wrong stop, and walked around for a while, we finally found the bowling place.  We went up to the bowling alley, made reservations, and went to get lunch for an hour until our lanes were ready.  I'm not even going to talk about how long it took us to decide where to eat.  Once we got back to the bowling alley, we found out that our reservations didn't hold and we had to wait on line all over again.  So we waited for a long time and people began to get bored so they started coming up with a new idea.  They discovered that there was a showing of the Muppets Movie across the street.  As we began finalizing plans to go to the movie, our names were called because there was an available lane.  Somehow, we decided to stay and go bowling.  Once we started, it was a lot of fun.  After bowling, some people had to go home, so we all went back to the CBS.  A bunch of us who didn't really have anything to do, made our way to the food court.  We all put chairs around the table and we didn't really move from there for the next three hours.  We played all kinds of games and ate food and just chilled out.  Once it started getting late we all decided to go home.
I was staying over at Nishmat with Noga.  When we got to Nishmat, we lit Hanukkah candles, and I made them dinner.  They don't really have proper dinners at Nishmat because they have to make dinner for themselves which they don't really do.  Whenever I come over I like to make them dinner so they can eat real food and also so I can use their kitchen, so I made macaroni and tuna for them.  Then we watched a movie and went to sleep.
Today, I woke up and had to leave kinda early because I was meeting up with my cousins in Netanya for a Hanukkah party.  When I got to the CBS in Netanya, I met Miriam and Dov.  Miriam's mother is my grandmother's cousin.  On the way home, we made a stop to see Miriam's father, Hershy who is in an old age home.  It was really nice to get to speak with him and it was really cool that he knew who I was and was happy to see me.  Afterwards, we went to their apartment.  Their I met Miriam's daughters Sigal, and her kids Gal and Tal, and Racheli and her kids Or and Nadav.  We lit candles, had a great dinner (filled with oily food) and then they pulled out a deck of cards.  Turns out, they love playing poker.  We used matches as chips and played a bunch of rounds of 5 card stud.  At the end of the night, I came in second place.  I had a really great night and a great vacation.  Wishing you all a Happy Hanukkah! Shalom V'lehitraot!

Happy Birthday to Me!

12/21

3:00 PM
My friend Aliza texted me to tell me that I had a package waiting for me in the school building.  I of course, was taking a nap so I didn’t find out about this until a couple of hours later.

6:00 PM
I meet Aliza by the school building and she tells me that my present is in the fridge and she assumed it was some kind of cake.  The package was in a box that had a card on top of it that said Happy Birthday, from Mom, Dad, Seth, Aviva, and Bubbie, and attached to the box by a string was two balloons.  I brought my cake back to my dorm room where my roommates and I each ate a big piece. 

8:00 PM

We went to our Rabbi’s house for a Hanukah party where we ate doughnuts, sang, and played games.

11:50 PM
Back at the dorms, I had no idea what to do in the ten minutes leading up to my birthday, so I took out my gemara and started reviewing what we had learned.

 11:55 PM
My roommate, Hadassa, comes barging in and tells me that she is kicking me out of my room so she could set up for the party so I went outside with my gemara and sat on the window sill.

12/22

12:00 AM
Hadassa and a few other girls burst out of the room and started singing Happy Birthday to me.  Then they said I had to stay outside because they still weren’t ready for me. 

12:10 AM
While I was waiting for them, my awesome chavruta Joelle got me an amazing doughnut from the bakery down the road.

12:15 AM
The preparations were finished and the party was finally ready to begin and when I walked into my room I saw candy in bowls all over the place and a huge chocolate cake that my roommates bought for me.  All of my friends came into the room and by the time everybody left half the candy and almost the whole cake was gone.

1:30 AM
Bedtime! Long day tomorrow!

8:30 AM
This was the saddest part of the day because all of MTA was leaving which meant my two roommates, Gabi and Ricky were leaving. We waited with them until their bus came and then said goodbye.

10:30 AM
Now that half of our room was empty, Hadassa and I decided that we need to clean up and reorganize our room. First we swept out most of the large chunks of garbage.  Then we took out all of the smaller pieces of furniture such as the night tables and swept behind that and under the beds.  Then we started moving furniture around so there would be more space in the room.  We moved one of the beds away from the window so we could get more sunlight in the room.  We moved the other bed across from that one so there would be more space.  These aren’t light pieces of furniture that I’m talking about here.  They’re heavy wooden bunk beds and closets half full with our stuff.  As we were moving stuff around we found a big bucket and a couple of rags in a supply closet and we got down on our hands and knees and began mopping the floor.  When we finished moving everything, we did a final sweep and a final wipe down of the floor and our room was so beautiful and clean. Both Hadassa and I moved from the top bunk to the bottom bunk beds. One of our new roommates, Reva who’s from New Jersey, also began to move in today.  Tash, our other new roommate from England is with her family so she will probably be moving in next week.

1:00 PM
My two awesome roommates took me out for lunch! We went to café café where I got this amazing pasta dish with this yummy cheese sauce.  Then they bought me a doughnut from Roladin.

2:00
We went to go see the play Les Miserables. For some of us, like me, it was our first time, but a few others had already seen it before.  

4:00
Hadassa, who is an awesome roommate, picked up a package for me that my mom sent to me.  Inside was two cards and lots and lots of candy.

8:00
We came back to the Rova where Melissa, Alona, Rinat, and I went to Burger’s Bar for dinner.  We took the food to go and ate it in my room. 

9:30
For the rest of the night we just hung out in the room, finishing the cleaning and sitting on our new beds.

Birthdays in Israel are always so memorable because you have all of your friends so close to you.  People also love going out with you and buying you food.  This is probably one of the best birthdays I’ve ever had.  Shalom V’lehitraot!