Shabbat and more

Pre-Shabbat pictures!!!

Shabbat was totally and completely GREAT.  Ilana Greenberg and Adina Polack stayed over at my apartment, and we made a very nice Shabbat together.  All of the girls on my program stayed for the weekend, and so did some of the guys.  We all hung out last night, as well as this afternoon, which was definitely fun.  Ilana, Adina, and I were the only ones who ate on campus for dinner, so when we finished we were hanging out for a couple of hours in the apartment across from mine.  After everyone else came back, most of the girls joined us and we just talked and hung out.  We went to sleep around 11:45, though some of my friends stayed up a bit later. 

I woke up this morning at about 10:45, went to the kitchen so I could put our lunch food on the blech, then got back in bed.  I didn't fall back asleep, but I was resting nicely and even doing a little reading until Adina woke up.  When she woke up at 11:30ish, we hung out for a while on my bed until we eventually woke up Ilana.  In fear of waking up my roommate, we headed out of my room to continue our conversation. After a while, we set up shop at the kitchen table for lunch.  Before we started eating everyone else came into the kitchen and we were all hanging out, and continued to do so as the three of us were eating lunch.  Everyone else was making lunch for themselves and we had a good time.  After we ate we had a great dessert of fresh Rugelach from the store down the street, as well as two choices of cake- one honey and one cinnamon.  We spent the afternoon just chillin with each other and with everyone else around the apartment, until it was time for Seudah Shelishit.  We had a good meal then more cake-- all good things.  We even finished the meal off with some singing. Haha.

After Shabbat, Ilana and Adina headed back to Jerusalem.  Since then I've been packing for our trip to Ramat Beit Shemesh for the first days of Succot, and just enjoying the down time. 



Now, I have a couple things to say either just about this country or about myself in this country:

1) Some people say that the most important aspect of this country that relates to food is the fact that this is where the Shiva Minim (7 Species) grow... I say: This is where the world's best Matbucha can be found.  There's no doubt in my mind that that's the best food-related part of this country.  Actually, incredible frozen schnitzel might be a close second.  But I'll stay strong in saying that Matbucha is #1.

2) I love how I'm an awesome traveler.  I load up my backpack, and a small rolling carry-on bag if it's a multi-night endeavor, and I know exactly where everything is, and I never forget things.  I really don't want to jinx my capabilities by saying that, but I feel that my skills just need to be recognized somewhere.  I guess I'm just totally and completely proud of the fact that I have no problem kickin' it somewhere for a night or two and being prepared for everything.  Honestly, I've always been that way.  Really honestly, that's likely because of the always-camping or adventuring family that I was raised in... So props to my parents for that.  But I'm still going to go ahead and take some ownership for my awesome level of preparedness for anything and everything, at all times, in a foreign country. 

3) I love the number of times per day that I find myself laughing at random Israelis' ridiculous wanna-be-American garb.  All of the skin-tight Hollister or American Eagle shirts, Nike shirts that in some way or another say "I'm too cool for you," or shorts on men which look like they belong in a 1970's NBA game... I find it all absolutely hilarious, though I find myself saying, "poveretu" under my breath more often than not. Regardless, I get a good laugh on many occasions per day so it's all good.

4) I often find myself thinking, when I'm driving either in a bus or in someone's car, about what would happen if an experiment was conducted where a couple of Seattle drivers were put onto the roads in Israel.  That might be the most dangerous situation a Seattlite could possibly be in... Just saying.  The zig-zag, step-on-the-gas then slam-on-the-brake, always honking kind of driving that happens in this country is world's apart from the passive-aggressive, I'm-going-to-honk-at-you-because-you're-a-horrible-person-since-you-drive-a-gas-guzzler driving which occurs in Seattle. 

5) The abundance of cats in this country is absolutely ridiculous.  That is my humble, yet very strong, opinion. First of all, they're totally gross.  Second of all, they get attached to living spaces when they are fed in such spaces... Truthfully that's not totally the fault of the cats- more the fault of the feeder- but I'm gonna blame the cats partially.  Additionally, there are actually as many cats outside of my apartment each day as there are squirrels outside of my house in Seattle each day.  I hope you understand that that means that there are just too many cats around.  A couple of my friends and I have decided that we are officially going to be proactive about this cat issue, so if any of you have ideas about how to get rid of the nasty things you can feel free to share your ideas with me.  Here's a picture of me with one of them... Look at how it's looking at me devilishly with those eyes because it thinks that I am invading ITS home.  Unfortunately, it's wrong.  And we will find a solution to this problem. 

Erev Shabbat #3

I woke up at 8:00 this morning to talk to my Dad on the phone about Succot and some other things, and I just stayed up afterwards despite my tiredness.  I spent some time working on the computer, and watched the season opener of Grey's Anatomy!! What a weird episode... That's all I have to say.  Strange.  Afterwards, Ilana woke up and we hung out just in my apartment for a couple of hours.  We were feeling totally and completely lazy so we weren't moving quickly at all.  Eventually I got up because I had to go to the bank, before it closed, to take care of some things, then I met Ilana at the supermarket and we bought food to make for Shabbat.  We headed back afterwards, and we've been hanging out in the kitchen since then just cooking and hanging around with all of my friends.  

I wish I had more exciting things to say before Shabbat, but the laziness of the day turned into total un-excitement.  Next week should be more eventful, with Succot and other things happening.

Until later, Shabbat Shalom to all!

B'nei Brak and More

What a productive day today was. 

I woke up, showered, went to the store, and ate lunch... All before 1:00.  At 1:00, we all met outside the gate to go to B'nei Brak for Lulav & Etrog shopping.  Here's a pic:

This is only half of it, but it was crazy awesome!! It was basically this humungous tent, in the middle of a dirt parking lot, filled with tables and tables of lulavim and etrogim.  Such a cool scene.  I bought a pristine etrog, and a great lulav, only for about sixty shekel- $15.  It was a total steal.  I loved bargaining with the guy who I ended up buying from, and in general just seeing all that each person had to offer.  Great experience!!

After we had all finished we went to a different part of B'nei B'rak, to R' Akiva street, where we just walked around and bought whatever we wanted.  I bought a machzor for Succot for the beautifully low price of twenty-five shekel. A.k.a. $6.25.  Not as cheap as my $5 Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah machzorim, but I was willing to cough up the extra $1.25.  I enjoyed walking around with my friend Zach as he purchased an endless amount of Succah decorations, and slowly but surely covered more and more parts of his body with them... By the end he was a walking Succah!

Then we drove back to our campus and plowed through the massive amount of obnoxious traffic.  Ew.  Truthfully I was a little bit nauseated by the time we got back, but that wasn't anyone's fault.  Plus I didn't really drink enough today, so that was definitely another factor.  When we got back to our campus, I got right back in the car with two of my friends because we wanted to go to Yesh (the Israeli Walmart) for a quick shopping trip.  Little did we know that "quick shopping trip" was literally impossible on a Thursday afternoon before Shabbat and Succot... Don't know why we didn't think of that, but we didn't.  So we just dealt with the ridiculous number of people that flocked the aisles.  At first there weren't any carts available, but I utilized my developing Hebrew skills to snag one after I had already filled my hands and arms with things to buy.  When I found everything I needed I got in line to pay... Not an exaggeration when I say I waited in line for thirty minutes before it was my turn.  And there were only three people ahead of me! Unfortunately those three people decided that it was important to stock up on everything they'd need for the rest of their lives... Ridiculous.  So that was pretty overwhelming and obnoxious. 

Then I walked outside, where my two friends had been waiting for me for a while, and we picked a direction to walk in because we didn't know where we were going.  Eventually we found a main street and decided against the fifteen minute walk to the bus stop, and went with a taxi instead.  Let it be known that that was the first taxi I have taken since I got here, because I am that good at saving money via buses.  The only reason we did it, though, was because it was cheap since we were splitting it for the three of us, and because we had all of our stuff from the store.  Too bad we didn't just walk because it would have taken half the time to get home... The traffic was, again, insane! Super nauseating.  And the taxi driver kept turning on and off his car each time traffic stopped, which I didn't understand because that uses more gas.  Weirdo, but whatever.

We got home, I hung out for a bit, and then we all headed to bowling at a nearby mall.  So fun! I came in third place for my lane.. Not too shabby.  After bowling, my madricha challenged me to one of the basketball arcade game things.  Let's just say: we each beat our own records, so we both won.  When that little duel finished I had dinner with Adina Polack in the mall because food in malls is Kosher in Israel! And it was meat Chinese food, at that!! Sooooo good. Yum.

Since we got back from the mall, I've just been hanging out.  Ilana and Adina are both here for Shabbat, which is going to be so fun! Tomorrow we're going to get everything together to make food and preparations for the holy Sabbath, which will of course be a party.  Can't wait! 

Until later, Lila Tov! 

P.S. It's the blackout game for the Huskies tonight-- GO DAWGS.

Yom Ha'Kippurim

With Yom Kippur starting at 4:50, I had Seudah Ha’Mafseket with Garce and her parents at 4:00.  We had a uniquely chopped and totally delicious salad, as well as chicken with potatoes and vegetables.  And the world’s best Pita- not a joke.  It was a great meal, with a great balance of filling and not too heavy.  Plus I love being in the presence of the Almo family… They welcomed me with totally open arms, and made me feel very at home.  After the meal we took the six-minute walk to the beautiful Sephardic synagogue, where we prayed for just less than three hours.  My first thought, by the way, upon opening the 661-page machzor was that in only twenty-five hours I would be looking at the last page.  I didn’t really know if I would be present for all of the pages, but I knew that I would feel a sense of accomplishment at the end of Arvit tonight.  Let’s put that thought on hold while I share more about my day today…

Shacharit started this morning at 6:45 AM, and amazingly Garce, her Dad, and I were actually present for that.  Garce and I were the only females in sight for quite a while, which was nice because we got to sit wherever we wanted.  As in-to Shacharit as I was, there was definitely a period of time where I was really fighting sleep.  In order to combat that issue I decided to assume my regular standing position, which thankfully turned out to be quite effective.  Sadly Garce wasn’t feeling so great so she had to head home at some point in the morning.  One of the first women to come after us was this woman who I thought really didn’t like me because I was “disrupting her prayers” last night by standing near the doorway.  After Garce had left I found out that this woman actually really liked me… She asked me many times if I wanted to sit next to her because, “my constant standing was making her tired.”  Of course all of these quotations are translated from Hebrew, because that is the only language that I thought she spoke.  However, as soon as I said that I was from America she flipped on a random English switch and that is how we proceeded to converse. 

In order to share with you lovely people the most exciting part of my day I must first explain the layout of the Synagogue.  Similar to SBH or BCMH, the women's section sits above and wrapping around the men's section.  However, unlike those two Synagogues, the women's section is about fifteen feet about the men's section, and some of the men sit facing the women.  In order to combat the whole men-looking-at-women-during-Tefilah thing, the women's section is hidden by white curtains which have the ability to be moved to the side.  Hopefully you understand the layout...  So, in the front row sat two women, at opposite ends, who both completely and totally refused to close the curtains.  Even though the Rabbis were very blatantly telling the two women to close the curtains, they continued to keep them open.  Then a little bit of a riot broke out... This woman who was clearly of the opinion that the shades needed to be closed, went over to one of the women and ripped the curtain out of her hands and yelled at her with very fast Hebrew words.  Of course the woman sitting in the front wasn't feeling that, so she grabbed the curtain, pulled it back, and yelled back in faster Hebrew words.  Haha.  So basically for like three minutes of Torah reading there was a real-live, loud, cat-fight screaming and grabbing match happening just above the Mizbe'ach.  All the other women were just looking down and hoping that the cat fight wasn't as loud and attention-calling as it was, and trying not to laugh hysterically at the ridiculousness of the extent of the argument on the Day of Repentance itself.  

Though they eventually calmed down, the argument re-surfaced when everyone came back to synagogue after an hour break for Mincha.  The woman who wanted the curtains to be closed yelled even louder and used even more Hebrew words to convey her feelings to the woman at the front.  This, for your information, took place during Selichot of all times, and it was even more difficult than the first round for the rest of us to continue to focus on tefilah and avoid laughter.  But we made it work, and eventually the woman who wanted the curtains to be closed just let it be. 

Moral of the story is... Despite the excitement I managed to remain in Tefilah from 6:45 until the break and from Mincha through Arvit.  In other words, I not only survived, but actually enjoyed, about ten hours of Tefilah.  Good work, me.  Haha.  For real though, the Tefilah was great... Super similar to EB/SBH, but there were definitely things I missed about being at EB.  Hands down, the number one thing I missed was the Ladino Booklet.  That thing is awesome, and I wish it could be implemented into the Tefilah in synagogues world-wide.  Another thing I really missed is the complete and total spaciousness that is available.  The last thing I'll mention that I missed about Seattle is seeing all of my people in Synagogue.. It was kinda lame not being able to look around and see the smiling faces of people I've known for my whole life. But I guess that did contribute positively to my ability to stay focused on Tefilah all day long.  

Now let's talk about the things that were totally and completely new to me, and unique to Israel.  First of all, the whole city shut down.  Streetlights were all flashing yellow, there were literally no cars driving, and everyone walking was clearly dressed for Yom Kippur and said "Shana Tova" or "G'mar Chatimah Tovah" as we passed each other.  Secondly, as opposed to the phrases that people scream 'Amen' to at EB like, "... open the gates of Refuah Shelemah," people scream 'Amen' to phrases like, "Let it rain in The Land in its proper time."  Cool, and interesting to hear that.  

Now I'm going to talk about random things that I want to mention, haha.  

1) My Bubbe used to say, "The first one to step off the sidewalk always gets mowed down by the cars."  Well, I usually try live by this.  But, I've learned that in Israel you just gotta walk.  Doesn't matter if the pedestrian guy is red or green, you just look both ways and walk if there aren't cars.  Ye who wait for the green pedestrian will never get anywhere.  That's my advice, haha.

2) The temperature difference between Jerusalem and Ramat Ef'al is totally ridiculous! It's actually cold at night in Yerushalaim, and it's a perfect temperature all night long in Ramat Ef'al.. It's also so much hotter during the day where I live than it is in Yerushalaim. It's crazay!

Tomorrow we have shopping in B'nei Brak for a Lulav and Etrog, then building a Succah, then going bowling.  I'm definitely going to have a chill morning... Maybe get a workout in or something.

I hope everyone had an easy fast and meaningful Yom Kippur! Good luck to those in Seattle who still have a couple of hours to go!

Shana Tovah U'metukah :)

Erev Erev and Erev Yom Kippur

Yesterday- Erev Erev Yom Kippur- Monday.

You know that lovely feeling that happens when you wake up, look at the clock, and realize that you have less than sixty seconds to be dressed and in a classroom?  I had the pleasure of experiencing that yesterday because I ignored my alarm.  Smart move, I know.  Funny that it was only two days ago that I learned and posted about how a person should take at least twelve seconds to get out of bed, because I most definitely did not achieve that threshold for healthy blood flow.  I totally and completely jumped out of bed, ran into the bathroom, brushed my teeth, threw on a t-shirt and shorts, and managed to be ready in four minutes.  The time was now 9:18, so I was only three minutes late.  Or so I thought... Little did I know that class actually didn't start until 9:30.  In other words, I was actually twelve minutes early.  You would think that this would bring happiness and joy to my face, but to be quite honest it made me mad. I could have had sixteen whole minutes to get up, dressed, and eat breakfast... Lame.  I got over myself, though, and walked to class bearing a notebook and a pen.  Our first class was basically about setting goals for ourselves in this important time of self-reflection and introspection.  At the end we did an assignment which I have done for the past four years in Mrs. Margolese's class, and it made me happy that we could do it again.  Our teacher told us to write down goals and steps to achieving those goals, which we hope to have accomplished by next Rosh Hashanah.  With Mrs. Margolese we wrote letters to ourselves, which she would later in the year mail to us, but the assignments are similar enough.  I definitely enjoyed that class. 

After class, we had a thirty minute break until the next class.  Because of my very hectic morning, I took the liberty of using that time to take a shower, which was lovely.  I think I even grabbed an apple on my out the door as I headed to our second class of the day.  During Mincha of Yom Kippur the Haftarah we read is the book of Jonah.  The topic of our second class was the reasoning behind reading Jonah on Yom Kippur.  For this class we were more text-based, which was great.  I enjoyed that class, as well.

When we were done with our classes it was about noon, and we had a free afternoon until we would meet at the bus at 6:00.  I spent my time grocery shopping, eating lunch, and working on my computer.  Since I lamely had to nullify my deferment to Rutgers University, I have had to begin the college application process all over again.  Though most apps aren't due until much later in this year, or even early next year, I decided that I should try to get as much as possible done now because once real school starts I won't have as much time.  So I've been using every minute I can find to fill out apps and write the necessary essays.  It's most definitely obnoxious, but it has to happen so I'm making it work. 

At 6:00 we boarded our bus and headed out to Yerushalaim.  We were told that we'd be eating a beautiful Italian restaurant, so we were all wearing nice clothes.  Our bus driver dropped us off below Sha'ar Yaffo (Yaffo Gate), and we walked up the stairs so we were across the street from it.  We turned left and there we were... A mamash beautiful restaurant called Luciana.  They sat us down at a long table, which already had incredible looking food on it.  The first course was these garlic bread things with tomato, basil, and cheese on top-- could not have looked more delicious.  There was also this great looking tomato and basil and cheese platter.  Thinking I could have a little bit of the bread, I washed and had a piece from the end of the bread which didn't have any cheese on it.  I went into the meal prepared to not really eat, but to more just enjoy looking at the food so it was totally okay.  (For those of you who are wondering what in the world I'm talking about, I haven't been eating dairy since May.  And if I eat dairy it gives me a hooooorrible headache and stomach-ache, so it's not at all worth it to me to eat dairy.  It also has made me feel a lot healthier since I stopped, so I'm totally good now at not eating dairy.)  But anyways, basically the food looking absolutely incredible. There was fresh green salad with all different kinds of cheese in it, pizza, two or three different kinds of pasta, this cheese with a thick tomato sauce on it, etc, etc, etc... The food did not end, and it all looked totally incredible.  I was happy that my friends got to enjoy such an amazing meal, and I was kinda living vicariously through their facial expressions of satisfaction and bliss.

After dinner I met up with Dena in the Rova and we hung just hung around.. This woman asked me to buy her a Diet Coke, so I did, and out of thanks I was given a beracha.  It went a little something like this (translated from Hebrew to English): "You should find a good Shidduch (person to marry) quickly and easily; a boy, or a girl-- whatever you please."  Hello! Best beracha ever!!! Loved it.  Anyways, we bumped into a lot of people she knew and introduced me to, as well as some people that I know.  It was great to have some time to just spend with her because it obviously does not happen anywhere near as often as it used to.  We found Adina Polack and Ilana, who were also great to see. 

At 11:20ish I started to make my way with some people from my program to the main attraction of the night-- the Kotel.  On the night before Yom Kippur, hundreds of thousands of Jews from all over Israel come together to say Selichot (special prayer services for the time around Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur) for the last time.  Ha'Rav Ovadia Yosef himself, the Chief Sephardic Rabbi of Israel, lead most of the Tefilah.  There were so many people that they actually closed off the entrances to the Kotel because there wasn't enough room for all of the people to fit there.  Here's two pictures of what I was looking at during the Tefilah service:

The number of people is totally unbelievable.  And to think about what it will be like when Mashiach comes and all of the Jews of the world are at the Beit Ha'Mikdash?  Unimaginable.  I was discussing that idea with my madricha Shev.  Crazy! After Selichot, when everyone was trying to get out of the main Kotel area as fast as they could, I went down there to say Arvit.  By then it was about 1:00 AM, which was definitely another really cool aspect of the whole scene... Cool that everyone was awake at that time, and all right there.  After Arvit I went back to the Rova to try to find Ilana's dorm, because that's where I was planning to stay the night.  Ilana and fallen asleep and I was having trouble finding the correct entrance, so Dena kinda saved me in my time of need and brought me to her place.  Another problem was that my phone died, so... Issues.  It's all good though, Dena helped me out and I got there safely.  When I got to her room she happened to have woken up a couple seconds before so she was able to help me get set up with a bed and everything, which was so nice.  I enjoyed reflecting on the incredible experience which I had just had, and after that I slept really well.


Erev Yom Kippur.

This morning I woke up in Ilana's dorm, and within two minutes was greeted by a smiling Sarah Varon.  What a great person to wake up to! Then Ilana showed up, so we were hanging out for a while, until we got the call we had all been waiting for.  Garce was in the Rova! Hurray! Sarah and I went down to the street to get Garce, and we brought her back up to Ilana's room.  We hung out for a while, checked out Sarah's room, woke up Dena, dropped off Sarah, then the four of us headed out towards Garce's apartment outside of the Old City.  Only a fifteen minute walk from the Rova, we got there quickly.  I was so excited to say Garce's parents, as well as the place that she has been excitedly talking about forever.  Though I had seen pictures of it at some point last year, I was still totally amazed at how incredibly beautiful the apartment is.  Every part of it was clearly extremely thought out and it truly shows.  It seems like the perfect place for Garce's family, and I am so excited and thankful that I get to stay with her family for Yom Kippur.  We went to Mincha a couple blocks away at 12:30, and since we got back we've just been hanging around.  Garce is napping now, and I'm about to shower.  But it's a beautiful day in Yerushaliam, and I could not be in a happier place for this holiday. 

I wish you all a G'mar Chatimah Tovah, and easy and meaningful fast, and may Hashem accept all of your tefilot as we continue this new year.

Tizku L'shanim Rabot.

Return of the Ants

Later tonight I'll write a detailed post about my day, but I thought I'd send out a little update on the nasty ant situation from Shabbat.

I don't know why I didn't think to look underneath the toaster oven as I was sanitizing the counters on Shabbat, but I didn't.  Unfortunately I made the mistake of picking it up about twenty minutes ago, and this is what I found:

In case you can't tell, that's literally hundreds of dead ants.  I almost threw up the second I saw that, but I managed to hold it in so I could repeat my sanitation skills on this small part of the counter.

YUCK.

Learning, Chessed, and a Sprinkle of Fun

With the time change taking place over night last night, we in Israel were blessed with an extra hour of sleep.  Though I set my alarm to wake up with enough time to work out and shower before getting ready for the day, I most definitely turned off my alarm and went back to sleep.  I got to bed quite a bit later last night than I was expecting, so I soaked up all the sleep I could get.  After I did finally get up, I spent a while on my computer until I literally jumped up because I saw that it was 10:00.  And 10:00 meant that I only had fifteen minutes to be totally ready for an Ulpan and a Shiur after.  Never fear, though, because the Ulpan teacher was running a couple minutes late, and over the years I have acquired the wonderful ability to get dressed and get breakfast together very quickly.  I made it to the classroom by 10:21, with an apple in hand... And I was even wearing real clothes.  Hurray!

Ulpan was a positive learning experience today.  We reviewed how to order food and drinks in coffee houses, pizza shops, and falafel/schwarma places.  Unfortunately because of my hatred for coffee and inability to eat dairy, the falafel/schwarma menu was the only section of real use to me.  But I learned some good words from the other sections, as well.  Mrs. Margolese, my Halacha teacher at NYHS, always said that "Hebrew language is very cool."  Well, today we learned a wonderful example of why this is the case.  Here it is:
When we think of the definition of the word "chametz" we instantaneously think "bread."  And if it's not bread, it's a different food that we cannot eat on Pesach.  Well, let's talk about the definition of the shoresh (root) of the word "chametz."  The shoresh is chet.mem.tzadi, which means "to ruin."
Now, let's discuss how one would go about pickling something.. The answer is: soak it for a long time in vinegar.  What is vinegar? "Ruined" wine.
Finally.  If we are in a falafel place, desiring something pickled, what do we say? "Rotzah Chamutzim." Cool.

After Ulpan we had a class with the girls' Av Bayit R' Moshe Mernick, which was basically about Tefilah.  His pure excitement and enjoyment of learning is truthfully contagious... I really like learning from him.  I thought I'd share one thing which he briefly spoke about because I think it's awesome.  He told the story of how there was at some point a group of doctors discussing the fact that many elderly people would die of heart attacks after getting out of bed in the morning really quickly.  It was explained that the reason for this is because when a person is sleeping the heart doesn't have to work very hard to pump blood to the body.  However in order to pump blood like it does during the rest of the day, it must transition, upon waking up, to pumping blood faster.  And if a person got up and out of bed too quickly, it could cause some people to have a heart attack... Something like that.  So many of these doctors were doing intense research to try to figure out how to combat this issue.  One doctor stood up and said, "After tons and tons of research on this matter, my conclusion is that if a person wakes up and waits twelve seconds before getting up and out of bed his chances of heart attack will be reduced greatly."  The whole audience of doctors gave him a standing ovation, until one Jewish doctor stood up and asked to say something.  He said, "For thousands of years Jews have been waking up each morning and saying, 'Modeh ani lefanecha melech chai ve'kayam she'hechezarta bi nishmati bechemla rabah emunatecha.'  Twelve words in twelve seconds."  The crowd stood up and cheered for him, as well.  I don't know what it is about that, but there's something to it that just says cool to me.

When we finished the class we were given free time until 2:00, when we were told to meet in our on-campus classroom.  The plan was to make little gift baggies, of candies and stickers and such, to give to kids at a nearby hospital.  We set up two production lines, and filled a plastic bag with two chewy taffy candies, one lollipop, two sucking candies, an eraser, two crayons, and a sheet of stickers.  The end of the line tied the bags and placed them into bigger bags.  Once we had finished, we made something around 150 bags and we walked for fifteen minutes around the corner and to the hospital.  We met with a girl, who seemed to be a volunteer, and she brought us up to a floor with sick children.  It was interesting that we could so easily just walk up the stairs and into the kids' rooms, because in an American children's hospital there's nowhere near a chance for that to be possible.  We really just picked a random room, asked a parent or the child if we could enter, gave the kid the goody bag, said "Refuah Shelemah V'Shana Tova," and left the room.  Some parents or patients definitely gave more conversation than others, but we didn't do very much.  Not to say that what we did do wasn't rewarding, appreciated by both parties, and extremely worthwhile, but instead to say that the positive impact that we made was achieved with very little effort.  In other words: it's an easy way to make kids and families very happy, so take advantage if you have the opportunity to do such a thing.

After we had spent about an hour and a half at the hospital we started our walk back to campus.  We had a bag of extra chewy taffy candies, so my madricha Shev gave a bunch of us three or four of them and prompted us to give them to strangers before we got back to our apartments.  The first four were super easy for me because there were four girls walking behind us so I just had to offer the candies to them.  But then we continued the game, so after taking more I started to come up with more creative ways of giving them out.  My friends and I talked about throwing them into moving cars' windows, but that wasn't really such a good idea.  I took the liberty of knocking on the window a parked car with a man sitting inside of it, and when he lowered the window I asked if he wanted the candy and he took it.  Some of my friends gave them to pedestrians, or people in stopped cars because of the traffic, or the guards at the entrance to the Hospital... It was fun.  We didn't realize until we were basically back on campus that what we were doing was actually extremely strange behavior.  We, as strangers, were offering what every child is told not to accept.  Funny.

We made it back to the apartments and little over an hour of down time before we met to go to our program director Meir's house for a BBQ.  His family lives in a beautiful top-floor apartment, with an accessible roof which has SO much space and the most gorgeous view of Ramat Gan.  We set up tables and chairs, and enjoyed the sunset as we snacked on chips and Israeli salad while Meir was bbq'ing the food.  When it was done, the food was super delicious!! Salami, hot dogs, kabobs, chicken steak, hamburgers, these other spicy things... Soooo good.  It was quite refreshing to have a simple bbq like that, because it's definitely been too long.  We all had a great time just hanging out and enjoying the food, so that was really nice.  After dinner we were invited to stay and watch NFL Live via a projector in their living room. It was super nice of them to have us hang in their house, and we watched many hours of football.  I must say that football is most definitely nowhere near my favorite sport, and in fact I dislike it very much, but I still managed to enjoy it.  I guessed I focused on the fact that I was just hanging out with everyone, and let's be real-- I always appreciate good athleticism.

We walked back from his house, which took about twenty-five minutes, and on the way back I became inspired.  I decided that despite the fact that it was around midnight, I would spend some time working out when I got back. So I did.  It felt totally and completely rejuvenating to get some serious sweat dripping for the first time in way too long.  And, after my nice workout I got to Skype with both sets of first cousins!! So amazing to see all of their cute faces in real-time.  I really miss all of them.

Lila Tov to all!

By the way, I wrote this post last night but as I was completing the very last four words my computer freaked out and wouldn't turn back on. So I decided to just post it when it wasn't 2 am anymore.

Erev Shabbat and Shabbat #2

Wow, what a Shabbat it was. 

On Friday morning, Ilana, Dena, and I woke up and definitely took our time getting ready for the day.  We knew that the goal was to shop for food for Shabbat, but we weren't totally sure about what time or where that would take place.  At about 11 we headed out with two of my friends from school, with a two food-carrying devices in hand (a rolling cart, and a small rolling suitcase).  We caught the 164 bus to B'nei Brak, after finding out that there is a Yesh (Israeli version of Walmart) there, and got off at Tzomet Geha.  We had no clue where it was in B'nei Brak, so we called one of my program leaders for some directions.  He said that the way we had been walking for ten minutes was the wrong way, and sent us right back where we came from and beyond.  After much doubt and a fifteen to twenty minute walk we finally found our street.  Hungry because most of hadn't yet eaten, we searched for food.  But unfortunately we were unsuccessful, presumably due to the fact that Shabbat was quickly approaching.  So we gave up on the whole food concept and made our way to the store. 

Not having a plan for the food, we searched the aisles until things just started coming together.  A few challot, frozen schnitzel, frozen vegetables, some cold cuts... We had a plan.  Two guys, who would be eating with us for Shabbat, said they would bring grape juice, pita, hummus, and some salami, so things were looking good.  I also bought some stuff to have just for my apartment.  I bought a warming plate for Shabbat, a pan, candles, matches, foil pans, etc, and thus far I am very happy with my purchases. We realized that it was really getting late in the afternoon and that we did not have so much time until Shabbat, so we hustled out of the store, packing our food cart, and made our way to the nearest bus stop.  Too bad the nearest bus stop doesn't help us get to Ramat Ef'al (where I live).  So we walked for five to ten minutes back to Tzomet Geha, where we got off of the bus, and found our way to the appropriate bus stop.  The wait was not too long before our friend the 164 arrived.  We got to our stop at about 3 PM, and realized that there were a couple of things we had forgotten to purchase.  Thinking that the Mega (grocery store down the street from where I live) closed at 3, but hoping it closed at 4, my friend Faye gave us her groceries and ran there... We were more than happy to find out that 4:00 is their Erev Shabbat closing time, and she purchased all of the necessary goods.  Meanwhile, Ilana and I decided to begin the Shabbat preparations. 

After putting all of the groceries away, we washed, peeled, and cut many potatoes.  Sprinkled them with olive oil, paprika, salt, and pepper and threw them in two foil pans into the surprisingly awesome toaster oven.  Then we threw the frozen peas and carrots, along with a can of corn, into a foil pan, and didn't do too many exciting things with them but put them in the other toaster oven.  My friend Rachel made some great rice, with a hint of lime-- yum! We washed two extremely large heads of lettuce and cut cucumbers for a salad, and stuck the hummus, cold cuts, and matbucha in the fridge.  I gotta say- I was super surprised at how well and quickly everything was coming together.. It was great! The final component was to throw the Schnitz in the oven once the potatoes were done.  Dena and Ilana went to shower, I was talking to a couple people on the phone, and before you know it it was twenty minutes before Shabbat.  The candles were ready to light, the blech was plugged in, our table for three was set, and I also got a chance to shower.  Success! We actually made Shabbat happen in like seven hours. 

Dinner was awesome! It was just me, Dena, and Ilana and we really enjoyed being together again.  I made kiddush, Dena said Ha'motzi-- good stuff.  The wine we bought, though cheap, was not very good at all.  I drank a cup of it for kiddush on an empty stomach and I was for real a little drunk for most of the meal, which was totally unexpected and not so comfortable.  But it was funny.  Mostly because the wine was only 12.5% alcohol, and very similar to the Bartenura Moscato.  We had a great salad, green beans, potatoes, and schnitzel.  It all turned out great.  Our dessert was awesome, too! We bought not-so-good Rugelach, but the cinnamon cake was beautiful.  After dinner, we cleaned up and headed to my room to talk and hang out.  My friends came back from where they went for dinner, and they and the two boys who were also on campus for Shabbat were sitting around outside of our dorms.  But, let's just say that there was a rather large fiasco when the discovery was made that our entire kitchen counter was covered in hundreds of small, very nasty ants.  For some reason it was decided that the guys would Raid (the poisonous bug-killing spray) our kitchen, so that happened then the kitchen door was shut.  This didn't really make me so comfortable for multiple reasons, but mostly because all of our food was in there (being subjected to poison) and there wasn't really any air flow,  So I covered my mouth and nose with my shirt, ran in, and opened the windows and the door.  While I was in there I noticed that the once-living hundreds of small and nasty ants were now dead-on-the-counter small and nasty ants. If you ask me: YUCK.

Post-ant fiasco I was totally ready for bed and even got into bed.  But, it was not yet time for me to sleep.  We had two visitors, mid-twenties Israeli men, who made some of my friends a little bit uncomfortable.  Using my usually spot-on internal people-reading technology, I sensed that these really were just two guys walking home from dinner.  But, not everyone felt that way.  So one of the guys ran to alert the Shomer of our campus.  I suggested that everyone just lock their doors and hit the hay, and believe me I was the first to do so.  I'm not totally sure how much longer everyone stayed outside, but the whole fear of a security breach thing lasted for like twenty-five minutes. So by the time I got to bed it was about 11:45. 

This morning, I woke up at around noon to one of the guys calling my name to ask when we would be having lunch.  I said around 12:45 or 1, and found Ilana and Dena awake in their room.  I told them what time lunch would be, and headed to the kitchen to assess the dead ant/Raid situation.  The smell in the room was a bit strong, and it seemed that somehow the number of dead ants increased over night.  Ew.  Oh, also... my friend told me that earlier in the morning she had found a CAT in our kitchen, which they assumed got in threw the barred window.  No words. 

I knew that the de-ant'ing our counters was going to take a number of layers of cleaning, so I planned it all out.  I must mention that the cleaning skills I used for this job are totally thanks to my mom, so props and a shout-out to her.
Step one: Wipe off the actual ants.
Step two: Wipe off the counters with water to ditch the bug juice. 
Step three: Windex.  Definitely the only cleaning solution we have, and I figured that the label on it which said "Lo Ye'echol- Don't eat/consume" meant that it was strong enough to do what I wanted it to do.
Step four: Scrub the counter with a soapy sponge.
Step five: Wipe down the soapy water and dry off the counter.

Somewhere in there I stuck the food onto the blech, by the way.  Once I sufficiently cleaned the nasty counters meal preparations began.  The two guys took our building' and the next building's picnic tables and put them together in the shade.  We put on a plastic table cloth, set the table, poured wine, and brought out the hummus and matbucha.  We made a salad, and grabbed the challah which had been warming on top of the food, and headed outside.  One of the guys made kiddush, we washed, and the other guy made ha'motzi.  Everyone sat down, and we really enjoyed the first course of our meal.  Then, it was time for the real food.  Cold cut sandwiches, carrots/peas/corn, green beans, and rice... It turned out to be so nice.  Oh! Forgot to say that at some point between the de-ant'ing and lunch preparations, another cat made it into our kitchen and ate one of the challah rolls. Get outta here-- rude.

Back to lunch.  Half of our lunchtime conversation had to do with the various cats around us.  Whether it was arguing about whether or not we should feed the cats, discussing the fact that two cats made it into our kitchen, or more arguing about feeding the cats... We talked a lot about cats.  And argued a lot about cats.  For those of you who don't know, I do not at all consider myself to be a cat person. So I don't totally 'feel it' when people feed cats, especially when it's within fifty feet of where I live.  But, I am not the only one who lives here so that definitely happens. 

Anyways, after lunch we ate the delicious cinnamon cake, some Rugelach, and great seeded grapes as we played Taboo and Apples to Apples.  That was really fun.  When it was about 4:30 Dena, Ilana, and I headed to my room and we just hung out and talked for a couple of hours.  About an hour before Shabbat was over, Dena and Ilana fell asleep and I warmed stuff up for Seudah Shelishit.  No one was really hungry, but you gotta do what you gotta do.  We had a light seudah, and Shabbat was over.  We found the necessary "ingredients" for Havdalah, and made that happen, too.  Dena and Ilana started packing, and I did the dishes.  At about 8:15 they left, and the kitchen was totally clean.  What a beautiful thing to see.  Not much going on tonight; just taking it easy because we have classes tomorrow morning starting at 9. 

Overall, what a wonderful wonderful Shabbat.  I got to spend it with two of my best friends, as well as four of my new friends, and we really made it great.  The food was awesome, and the fact that we made it happen by ourselves and in this country is even more awesome.  Love it.  I'm so happy that I could be with them, and we will absolutely be doing this again. 

Shavua Tov, to all, and to all a good night. 

A Crazy Day In and Around Tel Aviv!!

I woke up this morning at around 7:30, which gave me enough time to really take my time waking up and get my stuff together by 8:40.  We all made it to the bus basically on time, and rolled out towards the Yitzchak Rabin Museum.  We each received these cool earpiece-less headphones, which attached to a headset that hung around our necks.  The way they work is that in front of each of the many many screens throughout the museum a sensor reads that the headset is there and feeds the headphones the English translation or explanation of what is happening on or around the screen.  They were definitely really cool and technological, but more importantly helpful in my learning process.  I really appreciated the way that the museum was set up... There is basically one main hall which winds around in a spiral, and there are U-shaped hallways which shoot off of the main one.  And all of the walls of every hallway are lined with video screens, glass plaques with information in Hebrew, Arabic, and English on them, or other informational tools.  And the whole thing was in chronological order, which was definitely helpful.  They also had in U-shaped hallways, sections of the floor which were made of glass and displayed a timeline of things going on outside of Israel.  I definitely appreciated that, because in general when I learn about a time period I like to see what possible societal, national, or world-wide influences there could be, so the floor timeline was helpful.  My favorite part of the museum was a four minute video about the six-day war.  It showed videos of combat, but the narrator was able to give a good explanation and clarification of what was going on.  It definitely gave me a better understanding for how amazing of an accomplishment the six-day war really was.  The last stretch of hallway in the museum was a series of many many pictures of Yitzchak Rabin doing different things and with different people.  Many of them either had to do with political deals or his army life, but it was cool to see his life through pictures.  After we all finished walking through the museum, we sat outside in the parking lot and ate our sandwich lunches.  I had lox with tomato and lettuce, which was surprisingly delicious. Picture of Nick and I outside of the Museum:

We headed out towards Namal Port, which is a shopping district much like the Pier in Seattle, near Tel Aviv.  We all spent an hour just walking around and hanging out, and we had a pretty good time.  People split off into groups, and bought coffee or ice cream- but, as far as I know, nothing significant.  I had a good time just hanging with a couple of my friends. 

The bridge to the shopping district

 

 Standing on top of the cement barrier to the bridge!

From there we left to the highlight of the day: Paragliding!!  We drove for about fifteen or twenty minutes before we got to a very fielded, dirt-road kind of an area, and that is when the adventure began.  Our little bus was having a difficult time navigating the hilly terrain, but despite the issues we pushed through.  We most definitely retraced our pathway a couple of times, due to the fact that everything surrounded us looked like dirt or grass, but we eventually made our way to the top of a little sand hill where the bus was no longer able to venture further. Though the ocean was not at all visible, my senses were a-tingling and I knew that it was near.  We plowed through the sand roads and made it to the beauty itself... The Mediterranean.  This is what I saw:

Can you argue with that? I don't think so....

It took a couple minutes from that beautiful spot to get to where we would be paragliding, but if you thought that was incredible just wait until you see these ones:

Beautiful, I know.  I wish the color of the water couple properly be displayed in the pictures, because it is actually indescribable. The complete vastness of the area, and the seemingly never-ending ocean... AMAZING.  I really am having a difficult time formulating well what I am trying to say, so I hope you get the point.  

Anyways, since there were thirteen of us to go paragliding we had to take turns.  I happily sat on the edge of the at least one-hundred foot tall cliff as others began the paragliding process first.  It was super cool to watch the first two people go, because they went simultaneously since we had two paragliding helper people for us.  As I was just sitting, taking pictures, and wholly admiring the sheer beauty that was before me, I noticed my friend starting to climb down the side part of the cliff and went to check it out.... Another one of my friends was about 3/4 of the way down between the top of the cliff and the Medit, so I basically said to myself, "I need to be there."  Here's a picture of the climbable part of the cliff:

It's hard to tell, but this is basically a hole in the cliff with lots of rocks and tons of sand.  Wish I could explain better what it is, but that's what I got for you...

I knew that I had no choice to find a way down, so I started the journey.  At first, taking it slowly and easily I held onto the rocks as my feet slid in the sand; my body sliding/falling at the solid 70-75 degree angle of the cliff. Scary, but awesome.  I kind of started to re-think my adventure after a couple of minutes, but I had a great internal motivation speech and continued forth.  I'm going to take this moment to recognize that I was totally thinking about the Owen Family Song as I was making my way down the potentially life-threatening situation of a cliff that I has put myself into, and the song goes like this: 

We are the Owen Family;

The get-up-and-go family;

We hike from hilltop to hilltop!

We hike and camp in Lake Chelan,

and Carnation,

We're all-for-one;

We're one-for-all;

We are the Owen Family.

(See any Owen family member for the tune of this lovely song)

 Anyways, as I proceeded down the cliff-side I came to a screeching halt.  There was a rather large drop, which my friend advised me to jump off of like he did.  I wasn't totally feeling that.  Despite the total adrenaline rush and pure desire to complete my goal, my don't-break-yourself alarm was making a lot of internal noise.  Don't worry, guys: I didn't jump... I found an alternative route.  Yay me!  I paved a new pathway, as I slid down the opposite side of the cliff.  Moral of the story is that after a number of minutes spent climbing down the cliff-side, the goal had been accomplished. WHAT. UP. My friends Adiel, Zach, and I had successfully climbed down a full-on cliff and we were on the breathtaking beach itself.  Guess what happened next... My shoes, then socks, most definitely came off, and there was probably some running happening on my behalf.  We all ran into the ocean and enjoyed the incredible water which was up to our ankles.  Then we decided that this was absolutely a once-in-a-lifetime kind of an opportunity, and we went deeper. Incredible, incredible, incredible.  I have never experienced such a thing before.  When people have told me about how amazing Israel or traveling is, and everyone has had stories of such impromptu and incredible experiences, I was never totally able to get such a good idea of or feeling for what that is like.  Today, I gained an understanding.  Not only for the beauty of spontaneity, but also for the wonder and uniqueness of Israel. Speechless.  Here's a picture, that someone took from on top of the cliff, of my two friends and I who first made it down to the Medit. itself.

Yum.

We climbed back up after a good twenty minutes of sheer beauty in fear of missing our turns for paragliding.  We all managed to scramble up, and of course as we began our ascent a couple of our friends were jealous and began their descent.  Because we're cool.. No joke.  Anyways, we made it up and went to the Israeli woman who was in charge to tell her that we were ready for our turns.  Even though there were two or three boys ahead of us, as soon as the people who were flying came down she told me to go over to her, ahead of the boys, because I'm a girl.  Girl power! It always works... Love it.  I thought I was nervous for this whole flying-hundreds-of-feet-above-ground thing, but the exhilaration of the climbing worked out any and all knots in my stomach and I was totally ready to go.  My flyer guy buckled me in like fifty thousand times, which would have been comforting if I hadn't been literally feeling like I was on top of the world and needed no such thing to calm me down.  The flyer guy told me to run as best as I could across the sandy cliff top, until we would be off the cliff, but it was seriously difficult because the wind was pulling our parachute up as we were trying to maneuver ourselves forward.  But, alas, we made it happen and off we were... Flying very high in the sky! It was totally insane! I was literally sitting in buckles and on one of those pad mats people sit on at baseball games, but I was hundreds of feet above the sea.  To the north we saw Netanya, and to the south we saw Tel Aviv.  No words can describe the rush that flooded my veins as the flyer man was pulling us sharply left and right; back and forth; up and down.  I mean I guess I could attribute my supreme nausea to all of those exciting things, which might help you understand my feeling a little bit more, but whatever... The nausea was totally worth it.  Amazing. Here's a pic of me and the flyer man on our way from the North to the South across the coast:

 After we landed, the nausea really hit me which was super lame because despite my usual state of total preparation for anything and everything I actually ran out of water today for the first time since I got to Israel.  Lame day to be lacking water! So as the two final members of our group went paragliding, I hiked back to our bus with my friend Nick in order to try to calm down the nausea.  Since I didn't have water it wasn't working so well, but I got a great suggestion to eat a granola bar, which kinda helped, and closed my eyes and listened to my i-pod until everyone got back.  I totally thought that puking was imminent, but I was able to avoid it-- yay me for not puking!  When everyone else finally got back to the bus we headed out, and our way back to our living campus stopped for water bottles- thank G-d.  

We got home and I literally jumped in the shower, after taking my sand-filled shoes off outside of my apartment, and enjoyed the clean-fest very much.  I had a line on my ankle that looked like a tan line, but later found out that it was actually just sand caked onto my legs from when I was climbing up the side of the cliff. I was sad because I thought I got super tan today, but I was happy that I could get the sand off of me.  The new, clean, not-as-nauseated me enjoyed a nice salad with some friends in our kitchen.  Afterwards I sat on our new picnic table, which sits outside of our building, where I spent some time working on this blog post and just hung out with the girls.  At 7 we were scheduled to have a couple classes, so we all made our way over there.  I really enjoyed all three classes, and they made me remember how much I enjoy actually learning things.  Haha.  So I do have something to look forward to about school, but for now I'm pretty set with enjoying the beauty of this country all day every day.

After the classes, I hung out with a couple of the girls in the kitchen as I was awaiting the arrival of Dena and Ilana! They finally came, and I met them halfway between the bus stop and my apartment, and it was so great to see and be with them!!! I showed them around a little bit, then we hung out around the apartment for a while, and then headed out.  It was late so we didn't really have anywhere to go, but we just walked around Ramat Ef'al and happened upon a zoo! Guess how we knew it was a zoo? The smell... Yucky.  But here's a picture of one of the animals we saw street-side at a little after 1:00 AM:

After a little exploring, we came back to my apartment and just hung out.  Now it's almost 5:00 AM, which is the latest I've stayed up in who knows how long, and it is time to go to sleep.  Lila tov l'kulam!

End of Tzom Gedaliah

After an extremely relaxed afternoon of watching TV shows while fasting, I responded to a serious craving for Fasulias by going to the store with my friend Faye just before the fast ended.  We successfully purchased Fasulia ingredients, among other things, and made it back to our apartments about five minutes after the fast had ended.  As usual I broke my fast with a large swig of water, and moved on to a delicious bite of a crunchy apple which I had this morning purchased on my first visit to the store.  I then made myself a little bit of a salad, with some lovely deep red tomatoes, and enjoyed that while Faye ate warm, soggy cereal... I felt badly for her, but she made it work. 

At 7:30 we went to the room down the pathway from our apartment building called Kitah 16, where our entire group of thirteen was scheduled to have a class with one of our Rabbis (Rabbi Menaged) and have a short Ulpan class afterward.  The class was great... We discussed Viduy in regards to Yom Kippur, and I enjoyed mostly just listening to the guided discussion. When it was time for Ulpan I was totally prepared to learn some great, new, useful Hebrew.  But alas, tonight was not the night.  We learned Question Words. A.k.a. how to say 'who,' 'what,' 'when,' 'where,' 'why,' etc... Which I most definitely already know.  But, I had a good time just hanging out with my friends, and we played a fun game together using our newly-learned vocabulary. 

Post-classes was when I decided to embark on a Fasulia journey. Using my friend's super deep frying pan and a two-burner hot plate, I created not-as-good-as-usual Fasulias.  The green beans were ridiculously long, and the cooking conditions were, to say the least, not ideal.  But I still made them happen, even if they don't taste super amazing.  And here is a picture to prove it:

Aside from the Fasulias, my night was pretty quiet.  I spoke to a couple people in Seattle on the phone, which was nice, and I'm now calling it a night.  Tomorrow: Yitzchak Rabin Museum, shopping mall, and Paragliding!!!

Lila tov to ye who are in Israel, and Buenas Tardes to those who are in America. 

Rosh Hashanah and Motza'ei Yom Tov

Before I begin to recount my experiences over the past couple of days, I'd like to give a little bit of a preface...

When people go to a foreign country, like Israel, for Chagim- holidays- the general complaint is homesickness due to a new place, new people, and new customs/tefilah.  Though I knew that I would sidetrack at least 1/3 of those issues being at the Jacobson's, I was far more than pleasantly surprised with the end-results. 


Sunday Night- First Night.
Though every second leading up to Chag was chaotic, the moment the candles were lit in the Jacobson household the calm ambiance of the holiday ruled the air.  All five Jacobson women, three other guests my age, and myself (yes- nine girls) made our way to Mrs. J's brother and his family's house a few short blocks away where we would be eating dinner.  Although it is true that I have most definitely met, and even known, this Maimon family, it has been quite a number of years since those days and I didn't totally know what to expect.  Immediately welcomed with happiness and warmth, I knew that dinner would be a great experience.  A couple of minutes after the men came home from synagogue we all gathered around the very long, and beautiful looking, table arrangement for Kiddush.  As soon as I saw that sugar was on the table for Challah (as opposed to honey, though both were present), a new level of comfort had been achieved.  The real moment of comfort was when the Yehi Ratzoni booklets were passed out to each guest after Ha'motzi... Seeing the apples, prasa (leeks), spinach, pumpkin, fish head, dates, and pomegranate on the table, and reading the Ladino words in the booklet, I was totally prepared to be 100% on my game. We had a beautiful seder of Yehi Ratzonis, not only in food but also in company, and I could not have felt more at home.  I sang an abbreviated version of Fish Heads with Elana Maimon herself, which was lovely.  And, I was unusually adventurous in terms of which of the Yehi Ratzonis I ate... Instead of sticking to my usual limited duo of apples and prasa, I ventured to eat each and every dish-- though I cheated a little bit for the fish head and ate a tomato off of the plate of the fish head, while my partner in crime Sammy Maimon ate a piece of garlic.  All I know is that there was a little baby piece of cheek meat on that tomato somewhere, so I'm counting it.  We of course had a most beautiful meal following the Yehi Ratzonis, and the culmination of those two parts with dessert created a full that I had not experienced in a very long time.  Special recognition must go to the apple cake, which was so dense and delicious that I could have just eaten that for my meal.

Monday Morning- First Day.
Mrs. J woke us all up at 8:30 to get ready for synagogue, and we were ready to go by about 9:15.  Machzor (which I bought for 20 shek- $5 last week) in hand, I was prepared for what I thought would be a difficult-to-follow-along Tefilah service.  We walked a grand total of a few hundred feet and arrived at the beautiful synagogue, which I later found out is home to five different minyanim and about 1200 people- crazy!  Mrs. J walked me downstairs to the new Sephardic minyan where I went to pray, as opposed to the upstairs Ashkenazik minyan where everyone else was praying.  I walked in, found an open seat in the back row (coincidentally next to the seat I was actually supposed to sit in), and sat down.  Within seven seconds I recognized the Tefilot and knew exactly what they were saying... Wow. I was not expecting that. So I opened my machzor to the appropriate page, and began to follow along.  It came to my complete surprise that not only was my machzor 97% accurate to that minyan as well as what I remember from past years at Ezra Bessaroth, but the tunes that the chazzan was using were also more familiar than not.  And when I didn't know the tune it was similar enough that it was more than easy to sing along.  Unbelievable.  Truth is, the Maimon family for real runs the show at the minyan which is probably why the tefilah and tunes were so incredibly familiar.  Shout out to Bension, Abe, Sammy, and Joe Maimon who lead different parts of tefilah, musaf, and blew shofar expertly.  The only only thing that could have enhanced my tefilah experience would be the inclusion of Ladino, but aside from that it was perfect. We finished tefilah at 11:15ish, and because the Ashkenazik minyan would not be done for at least another thirty minutes I went back to the Maimon's house for kiddush and a light snack/dessert.  Fresh, awesome grapes and the marvelous apple cake were perfect for me, and afterwards we walked back to the synagogue where I immediately ran into Jacobsons.  We walked down the street and back to their apartment, where after about ten minutes everyone trickled in.  We all hung out there for a little bit before making our way back to the synagogue where we would meet the family whose house we were all invited to for lunch.  Their minyan had finished, we found them, and we walked for about four minutes until we reached their home. 
First thought: this is very simply a beautiful home, no further words can describe it.  We walked into a magnificent entryway, with a huge staircase to the right and an open, spacious sitting room with a piano covered in desserts to the left, as well as a wide walking area straight ahead which lead to the kitchen and table area.  The walls were all painted a deep, plum-like purple and covered with beautiful artwork.  We all went to sit on the couches in the living room/sitting area, and after a couple of minutes heard kiddush from there.  Afterwards we were all directed to the washing area, then found our seats by looking for our place cards which were made out of wax or plastic (don't remember which one) apples.  The table was decorated exquisitely, with all different kinds of objects which represented any one of the Rosh Hashanah simanim- including five little glass bowls which each held two swimming goldfish.  Then the meal started. After hamotzi there were four different kinds of fish, a huge green salad, and many salatim available on the table.  Amazing. After that course, I went to the kitchen to help bring food out. . . Seriously I've never seen so much food made for a singular meal.  She had a very organized buffet system where prior to the meal she put out dishes on the buffet, each with a piece of paper taped to it stating which food would go into that dish.  Smart.  I'm serious there were two kinds of chicken, chulent, brisket, stuffed cabbage, sweet potatoes, couscous, rice, rice with chicken soup over it, a huge vegetable platter, carrot muffins, and more that I am not remembering.... Insane! For real I've never seen anything like it.  And it's not like there was just a whole bunch of food, it was all BEAUTIFUL and DELICIOUS. No words.  After the meal we were invited to make a dessert plate from on top of the piano in the living room, and that was indescribable. Cakes, cookies, brownies, candy, fruit, and any other dessert one could have wanted. SO good.  All of it.  I had apple cake, a chocolate chip cookie, grapes, watermelon, some gummy candies. Yum. After lunch I was again full to the brim, and Carol and I walked back to the Jacobson's while everyone else went either to friends' houses or tashlich.  I had a great time just hanging out with Carol for a while, until more people shuffled in and we were all just kinda hanging out for the afternoon.
Dinner took place at the Jacobson's, and the Maimon's came as well. The food was awesome! Hello- obviously it was; Mrs. J made it.  We started the meal again with the Yehi Ratzonis and continued with a beautiful salad and matbucha among other salatim, then continued to an awesome main course.  Chicken, meat philicas, vegetables. . .I don't even know. But the food was amazing and in abundance, and combined the fun and funny company the meal could not have been more of a party.  Dessert was delicioussss as we had world-famous Mrs. J carrot cake, among other things. YUM.

Tuesday Morning- Second Day.
This time around, Mrs. J and I woke up a little earlier than everyone else and departed towards synagogue at about 8:30 after everyone else was woken up.  We went to hear Bension lead Shacharit, which we both got a little of until Mrs. J left to meet everyone else in the Ashkenazik synagogue upstairs.  My tefilah experience was similarly successful and enjoyable to the first day, and we even finished an extra five minutes earlier.  I again went to the Maimon's for a kiddush and light snack/dessert, which was fun and yummy.  Afterwards I met the Jacobsons at the synagogue, from where we walked back to their house for lunch.  We hung out for a while as lunch was warming up then began the food thing all over again.  This time it was only with the ten people who were actually staying there, which made things calmer.  Another helpful calm meal tool was that Mrs. J made a light but filling and scrumptious meal of amazing chicken/pasta/pesto salad, potatoes, and a meat + dough recipe... It was awesome.  Of course dessert was way too much for me to handle, so I postponed carrot cake until later in the afternoon.  But Shana and I did decide to try the extremely hot fireball-like candies, which created a ridiculous fire in my mouth that couldn't really be cooled.  After lunch and clean up, I joined Docta J, Mrs. J, Shana and Carol for a long game of Trivial Pursuit- won by Docta J himself, with Mrs. J in a close 2nd.  We spent the remainder of the afternoon and evening just hanging out until Chag was over.

Tuesday Night- The Adventure.
After Chag, I just hung around the apartment with everyone for a good while until Docta J offered to give me a ride to the bus stop.  I had a great plan for how I was going to get home, and I was totally prepared to be back within an hour or so at the most.  Let's just say that didn't work out... Of course due to a scheduling error on my part.  The 567 bus to Tzomet Gehah was not actually supposed to come at any time after 9:30, which I didn't figure out until I had been standing there for about half an hour. I asked a taxi driver how much it would cost to get home and he said 120 shekel which was not happening, so I bargained for 80 but decided against it when I thought about how a bus would be less than 20.  I sent him on his way and called Ilana who helped me find a bus route which would technically get me going in a positive direction.  Waiting for the 501 now, I went to a different bus stop and resumed my standing position. haha.  I realized that sitting right across for me was, in fact, the 501 bus itself. However, it wasn't lit and there was no driver so I lost a little bit of hope.  I started looking for other buses that said they were headed towards Tel-Aviv, but no such bus came around.  After about twenty or twenty-five minutes a bus driver got into the 501 and a little party happened inside of me.  Oh, a really exciting part of standing at the bus stop was that there was a man standing next to me who was actually just standing there holding a bunny. I was wondering why on earth he thought a bunny would be a good bus companion, but I refrained from asking.  I boarded the 501, but the perfect seat at the front and had no clue when I wanted to get off so I paid close attention to each stop.  We drove for about forty minutes, through Ra'anana, Hertzliya, and other cities, until a kind Israeli woman boarded, asked where I was going, and told me which bus she thought would be best for me.  Keep in mind that this all took place in Hebrew, so I was quite proud of myself when I understood from her to get off at the next stop, cross the street, round the corner, and take the 55.  I wished her a Shana Tova, and began my journey.  I may or may not have jay-walked a little bit, but I made it in one piece with both my backpack and suitcase to the bus stop.  I knew she was right about the 55 because before Chag, when I walked with my friend to the bus station to go to the Jacobson's she was waiting for the 55 to get wherever it was that she needed to go.  Hurray! I was finally confident that I would make it home soon. Unfortunately I was wrong.  Despite the fact that the bus map thing said that the 55 should come every 12 minutes, it didn't come for twenty-five or thirty.  And when it did come, though I had another internal party, I was a little bit rudely welcomed by an angry Israeli bus driver man who was not in the mood to give me change for 100 shek bill.  I really didn't think that I had anything less than that, but I managed to find the 6.60 that he was looking for and he was much happier with me. Pause: My favorite thing about Israeli buses is that they can give change. Coming up with exact change when I took buses in Seattle, back in the day, was not a positive experience for me. Un-pause.  Let me just say that angry Israeli bus driver man went approximately forty miles an hour around a traffic circle! Let's talk about traffic circles for a moment... The purpose is most definitely to slow vehicles down, and the width of the road around them, especially in Israel, is not exactly made for a bus. So, flying around a traffic circle was somewhat of a roller coaster ride.  But definitely like thirteen-million times scarier because of the lack of seat belt or safety assurance.  Regardless, we made it out alive.  Although many people's personal items ended up very far away from their person.  Needless to say, I made it back to the appropriate bus station and was totally able to walk back to my apartment.  Although it may have taken an extra sixty to ninety minutes, I made it back to my apartment.  And on the upside, I got some quality Hebrew-speaking and bus-taking experience.

Wednesday Morning.
I woke up at 11:30ish, took my time to get out of bed and everything and slowly made my way to getting dressed.  I was super productive today in that I opened an Israeli bank account (finally!), and went shopping at Mega- the all-kosher store down the street.  I purchased all the basics, and feel set for a pretty long time right now.  The only thing that would help would be the ability to eat... Hurray fast days! Actually though, after the non-stop eating fest that was Rosh Hashanah, my body is more than happy to take nice, day-long break from food. I'm looking forward to a good apple to break the fast, though.  Since my trip to the bank and the store, I have just been sitting on my bed watching TV on my computer and writing this blog post. 


Here's some pictures of what's going with me:

 

My apartment building!

 

 Entry-way to my apartment

 My area in the apartment, and our closet

Our kitchen!

To all of you who are in Seattle or somewhere else in the US, have an easy fast today! And if you're in Israel, we're almost there :).