Airport Problems: Getting to New York

In preparation for my departure from Seattle to New York today, I decided to discuss my flight and how early I should arrive to the airport with a couple of family members.  I am the kind of person who likes to get to the airport two hours early, take my sweet time checking bags and walking through security, and I usually even have time to buy a water bottle and sit down by my gate for a few minutes.  That time and leisure is something I actually really enjoy about the airport, and it’s probably why I generally have positive flight experiences.  The family members I chose to speak with, however, feel strongly that time spent past security is wasted time.  I don’t usually change things like airport timeliness just because suggests that I do, but for some reason I was in a welcoming mood when I had this discussion so I decided that I would try it their way for my flight this morning because they were so incredibly sure that an hour was plenty of time to even be bored for a little while on the other side of security.

Flight time: 6:00 AM.

Time I would get to the airport: 4:15 AM.

Their suggested arrival time to the airport: 5:00 AM.

I knew that my task would be harder than they so reassuringly suggested when it was 5:05 and I still wasn’t inside the airport because of the backed up traffic into the Departures section.  I calmed down, though, because my Mom decided to drop me off at Arrivals and I would just take the elevator to the Departures section… And so I did.  When I turned the corner from the elevator and saw the Southwest Airlines baggage check-in line, I pretty much lost hope instantaneously.  There were hundreds of people standing in double or triple the roped lines they usually have, and the line actually extended around the corner of the entire check-in place to the security area (for those of you who have been to Sea-Tac, that will be easier to understand).  Basically, though, I figured that hundreds of people in line + 45 minutes until take off ≠ me on the plane.  So instead of waiting in line, I went to the Business Priority section, which had about three people in it, and said to the guy at the counter, “My flight is in 40 minutes, any way you could check me in here?” to which he responded, “I’m not going to check you in just because you came late to the airport.  Go wait in line like everyone else!” Obviously I didn’t follow his advice, so instead I tried to go to the outside baggage check area.  Sadly, there were about one hundred people in line there too and time was only ticking away. 

I’m pretty sure this is when I started crying, but it might have been a minute or two before or after.  I approached the baggage checker and repeated the same question to him except words were separated by breaths and tears.  He responded by saying, “I can’t let you cut the whole line, but if these people in the front section let you go ahead of them that’s fine by me.”  I barely even said two words to the group of people (mostly because the crying made it hard to speak) when they told me to go ahead of them (I love Seattleites!!!).  The guy started checking me in, and in the middle of speech about how I made the baggage check cutoff time by two minutes and I need to be more careful, he told me that as long as my bags were only 50 lbs each I would be fine.  I really didn’t have time to go through that whole weighing process, so I started crying again and said, “I’ve weighed them each many times and this one is 47 and this one is 46” (that wasn’t totally true, by the way).  I don’t know if it was the tears or his seemingly trusting personality that got him, but he just put the bags on the belt and sent me on my way telling me to run. 

I definitely sprinted towards security, because I realized that the time was now approximately 5:33.  Good thing there were hundreds and hundreds of people in all of the different security lines! I decided to ask a TSA woman if she could help me get through faster, and she said that only the airline people have the ability to do that so I needed to ask them.  And so I ran… back to the Southwest counter.  When I asked a woman there what to do she said, “If I help you, I’ll have to help everyone. You’re going to have to wait in line, miss your flight, and catch the next one. Good luck!”

She’s clearly not from Seattle.

I sprinted back to security, and after asking a different TSA woman for help and receiving the same response from her I decided that I had to give up and hope for the best with the next flight.  Luckily, I happened to be behind the woman who let me cut her and her family to check my baggage… She saw that I was still crying and distraught and asked if I had asked anyone for help, then suggested that I try the Priority Lane person instead.  I gave her a wave of thanks, and sprinted as fast as I could toward the new TSA woman.  I’m pretty sure the only words I managed to get out of my mouth were “flight” and “twenty minutes,” and she let me through.

From Seattle.

There were only about thirty people in this security line, but I still was by no means confident that I’d make it through.  Luckily, they opened a new lane just when I got there so I became fourth in line after this woman let me cut her because of my distress.  When I walked through the metal detector thing it of course beeped.  I didn’t really understand why, though, because I had taken off things that don’t even cause the beeping.  Then the TSA man screamed, “random screening!” Of course I had to be the lucky soul to give TSA data which I didn’t have time to share.  I told him that my flight was in fifteen minutes, and instead of caring he just told me that he would take all of my belongings for me to the separated table area.  Thanks, sir. 

After he wiped my hands with something weird, I just grabbed my things without putting them back into my bag, and RAN.  Good thing the B gate is on the totally opposite side of the airport!  Sprinting and crying is what I did for approximately seven minutes.  Sprint. Cry. Sprint. Cry. Sprint. Cry.  Over and over.  When I got towards the end of the journey, feel hot and start to sweat became a part of that cycle as well- how lovely. 

Thank Gd I ended up making it to the gate just as they were finishing up boarding- even if I was a teary-eyed and slightly sweaty mess.  The one positive thing I’ll say is how awesome it was to be in such good shape from boxing that the 45 minutes of off and on sprinting barely even made me sweat.

In terms of timeliness to the airport, I’m 100% positive that I’ll never try the one hour before thing again, but maybe I can find a little bit of a middle ground between that and my usual two hours… No promises, though.

Nearing the End

In my mind, one of the most expected things about spending a year in Israel is the use of words like crazy, unbelievable, and ridiculous to describe what it feels like to be nearing the end of the year.  Whether that expectation came from having discussions with friends who spent previous years here, from the "hype" from the Rabbis and staff of our program, or just from my imagination, those are definitely some of the words that come to mind on this motza'ei Shabbat of my program's last Shabbaton together.  

I had a little bit of a craaaazy week last week as I spent a lot of time avoiding the term "jet lag" and focusing on the fact that I had four days of classes before finals would begin.  I had the privilege of spending the majority of last Thursday in Yerushaliam with Adina Polack, and it was definitely confusing and sad to me that that would be one of the last couple of times I'd be taking our good 'ole 400 bus.  The year is by no means over, seeing as I still have a solid couple of weeks left before returning home, but the whole end of May/beginning of June, no more classes thing kinda settled in the fact that we really are almost there... Weird.  

I guess I'll pause for a second in the sob story to note how absolutely incredible and amazing my experience at the Foundation for Jewish Camp's Cornerstone Seminar was.  I spent five days in beautiful Waynesboro, Pennsylvania at Capital Camps with a couple hundred other people who love and care about Jewish Camp as much as I do.  I believe I mentioned it briefly in my previous blog post, but I don't think I could possibly give enough attention to the most wonderful work which the Foundation for Jewish Camp is clearly doing.  I was blessed enough to attend the conference as a representative of Sephardic Adventure Camp, and I can happily report back that I learned more in those five days than I could imagine learning in months of normal discussion or research.  I had this awesome experience where I felt, at every moment I was there, that there was no other place in the world for me to be.  It was this fulfilling and engaging place of clarity regarding my physical place of being.  I don't really know how else to describe this feeling than by saying that I absolutely need to return back next year, which will hopefully work out.

As I also mentioned in my previous post, I had the honor of spending a Shabbat with Rabbi Yossi and Judy Azose in West Hempstead, NY, as well as a Shabbat at Yonaton and Chana Shefa's house in Washington Heights, NY.  Both Shabbatot were absolutely wonderful- for completely different reasons.  Being with the Azose's, who are long time family friends, simply made me feel at home... the elaborate meals, wonderful minyan, and amazing children.  Shabbat with the Shefa's, as well as some other friends, was more focused on this coming summer at Sephardic Adventure Camp but also had an element of relaxing and fun which I really appreciated and enjoyed.  Fantastic.  

The only not fantastic part about my trip time in New York was the torrential downpour which I experienced upon exiting the bus from Cornerstone outside of Penn Station.  Wow.  You'd think I could handle something like a little rain being that I was raised in the very wet city of Seattle, WA.  But, my friends, this was not anything like "a little rain" or something which has every happened in Seattle.  I'm pretty sure that if I had counted to five from the second I stepped off the bus I would have found that in those very short five seconds I could already have been considered sopping wet.  Don't worry, though!  I spent upwards of ten to fifteen minutes in the rain with my purse and suitcase.  If only there weren't literally more than one hundred people in line at the taxi stand... maybe I would have been a little bit less soaked.  

I guess I'm going to try to describe the rain/wetness to you, but I don't think I'm even going to do it 50% justice.  So, over-exaggerate everything that I say and maybe you'll understand.  The thickness of the rain that was falling was like syrup almost.  It had this weird way of caking my skin and clothing upon hitting me.  In retrospect, I guess that could be due to New York's smog problems, though.  Within minutes the sidewalks were covered in quite a bit of water because the sides of the streets were overflowing.  At one intersection, I'm totally serious when I say that there was over a foot deep of water which I stepped into-- EW.  Let's not forget to mention that my suitcase couldn't even stand up to the amount of water that fell from the sky, and many of my belongings within it were soaked for a couple days.  Oh, also. Let's talk about the blue folder which I got at Cornerstone that bled blue onto everything near it... There are drops on my siddur, my notebooks, and any other papers or things that I was given at Cornerstone. Sad.  At one point, I just walked into the New Yorker Hotel and was so discouraged and wet that I was tempted to spend a percentage of my life's savings on one night of not getting wet anymore.  Alas, I didn't.  Instead, I called my friend Garce, who happened to be in New York, and she was luckily in a taxi near where I was and she managed to pick me up on our way to Stern College.  Also, I actually looked like I had just jumped in a pool.  Too bad I was covered in smog rain and not pool water.. Yucky.  

Anyways, my trip to America was wonderful.  My time in New York was fun, and my time in Pennsylvania was educational and fulfilling.  As I sit here looking at my Washington calendar which my Mom mailed me a few months ago, I am astonished to see that it June has come.  Though I am pleased to see that the picture this month is of my Mt. Rainier, and I am deeply looking forward to gazing at it (safely) as I cross I-90 once again, I am in disbelief that this year has passed by as quickly as it has.  I am so very thankful to everyone that helped me get here that I was able to have the vast amount of experiences that I have had, and I am looking forward to making my last couple of weeks really count.  

I'll be spending the majority of the time I have left here focused on finishing up school with my ten finals, but I hope to be able to leave some room to create some good memories as well.  Wherever you are, try to take a few minutes to reflect on the time that has passed between last June and today.  Consider where you were, what you were focused on, what you were looking forward to, and what direction you thought your life was going in.  Maybe you're there now, maybe you've gone somewhere completely different, or maybe you've taken a few steps in the journey that you once set out on.  Summer is a time of sunshine, happiness, and opportunity.  As we near that time think about where you picture yourself in a year from today, and try to create some room for growth in that vision.  

Shavua Tov!

My Adventures Since Pesach

A note to the you:  If you have a limited amount of time, scroll all the way down and read the section titled "The Airport."  That's not to say I don't recommend it all, but I just highly recommend that part... Enjoy!

Pre-Pesach and Pesach:

Over the past couple months I have had a ridiculously high number of awesome experiences and adventures.  It all started on a cold Thursday morning in March, when I had the pleasure of taking a taxi with my friend and madricha, Ronit Miller, at 3:30 am to Ben Gurion Airport.   No imagination could have prepared for the character that picked us up.  Imagine the most throaty smoker’s voice you’ve ever heard and multiply it by four.  Then put it on a woman.  “Boker Tov,” she said.  And we both threw our bags in the trunk and got in the taxi to enjoy our most wonderful chauffer. 

I had the pleasure of taking a couple hours of two different planes to the beautiful island of Rhodes.  For those of you who don’t know, Rhodes is actually where some of my family is from.  And, it’s where the tradition of my so treasured Ezra Bessaroth (synagogue) traditions come from!  And not only did I get to go to Rhodes, but I actually met my family in the Rodos airport.  What a cool moment it was to see them for the first time in six months in the airport on the island where my family came from.  We spent a gorgeous four days there, staying in a small “Pension” in the old city of Rhodes.  The vibrant blue color of the ocean was stunning, and the constant history around us was fascinating.  We had a wonderful tour guide/taxi driver named Nicolos, who had more information to share than any collection of books any one person could ever own.  My highlights were seeing the old Jewish cemetery, the old synagogue, the donkey ride up to one of the two acropolises (very Mamma Mia style), and the experience of spending Shabbat together with my family in the old city of Rhodes.  On the way from there to Israel, we had a 10ish hour layover in Athens.  Although I think most of my family members will agree that it wasn’t the best 10 hours we’ve ever spent together, it was definitely an adventure.  We went to the Chabad Kosher restaurant, we went to the first Olympic stadium- really cool!- we saw (with our eyes only) the acropolis of Athens and the Parthenon, and we definitely walked around the downtown area.  Then, we made our way to Israel where we’d spend Pesach together.

We landed at about midnight, and while my parents and brother got in a cab to Jerusalem to go to our apartment I met up with some very patient and awesome friends who had returned to Israel from Cyprus about an hour earlier and we cabbed to our living campus together.  I ended up spending the night there, and made my way to Jerusalem in the morning to meet up with my family at our apartment.  What an incredible place it was to stay.  One of the best locations possible- right off of Yafo street by the HaDavidka rakevet station, for those of you who know the area- and a beautiful living space and view overlooking Jerusalem.  This was the Monday morning before Pesach started, so as soon as I got there we quickly shuffled out and towards the shuk (marketplace) to make some purchases in preparation for Chag.  It was fun to watch my parents and brother try to figure out their way in such a hectic environment, especially because I had gotten so good at that kind of navigation over the year.  We had a good time with the shuk and the rest of our Chag preparations, and we were lucky to have Adina Polack stay with us for the first part of the holiday.  It was so great to spend the seder with my family, because I really missed our customs and songs and it was so unique to be together in such a wonderful apartment overlooking the holy city of Jerusalem. 

On one of the middle days of the holiday we headed out early after renting a car and made stops in modi’in (for some lunch), Zichron Ya’akov, Akko, and Tiveria.  The trip reminded me of how much I love driving even though I couldn’t actually drive, and I really loved how I had a sense of direction for the majority of the trip because I have paid such attention to roads on any trips this year.  It made me think about how lucky I am to have had the amazing opportunities that I have over the course of this year, and how unique my Israel experience has been.  We had a great day with all of that, and came home that night to get ready for Shabbat the next morning.  We had a great Shabbat and last days of chag, and spent the day before my family left on an incredibly informative and enjoyable tour of the Old City of Jerusalem and the City of David.  As we all packed our things in preparation for my family’s departure, I realized that my pile of things I got to take home with me was getting bigger and bigger- awesome! Free stuff!  When it was finally time for them to head to the airport and me to go home, we filled a taxi to the absolute brim.  It’s a good thing one of my favorite things to do is pack.

April:

The only awesome thing that I can remember about April is that we finally graduated from Magen David Adom (the EMT volunteer training program we’ve been taking all year) so the twenty of us were certified to volunteer in ambulances.  Unfortunately for me there isn’t really enough time for me to volunteer at all, but I am still really happy that I took the course because of the useful medical information I gained.  I guess there were a couple other cool things in April such as Holocaust Remembrance Day, Independence Day, and Memorial Day.  I also spent a couple weeks actually in school, which was weird to come back to after having a month-long break for the Masa Leadership Summit and Pesach. 

Mostly May:

The best part of April, though, was probably the last day.  Tuesday, April 30^th was the first day of our program’s week-long trip to the Northern part of Israel.  We spent Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday hiking on various trails to or involving waterfalls, which was gorgeous and heavenly.  We also went on a zip-line, visited a chocolate factory, went rafting down the Jordan River, and spent a night in Tiveria.  We slept at this beautiful hotel which overlooked the Kineret, which is one of my favorite bodies of water, and provided us with wonderful food.  On Friday we rolled out and spent the day in Tzfat.  We saw the candle factory, a glass-blowing museum/factory, and a place where Torah scrolls and texts for mezuzot and tefillin are written.  We also had a lot of free time to walk around or hang out in the hotel rooms.  We spent Shabbat there, and had a great Shabbaton.  On Friday night I went with my Sephardic Rabbi, Rabbi Menaged, and a couple friends to this beautiful Sephardic synagogue.  On Shabbat morning I woke up bright and early, just like the last time I was in Tzfat, and made it to the Sephardic Ari Z”l’s synagogue for its start at 7:30.  After, we all met back for Kiddush and lunch a while afterwards.  I decided to take a short nap after lunch so that I could be awake for some classes we had available later in the day, but somehow my one hour nap turned into a six hour sleep… So I didn’t exactly make it to the classes.  I did wake up in time for Seudah Shelishit, Arvit, and Havdalah.  We had a band play for us for havdalah, and had a great time dancing around once Shabbat was over.  We made our way back home after that, and I got to sleep at about 2:30.

The next morning there was an optional trip the K’nesset, which I went on.  So cool!  We met with a member of K’nesset as well as the J-Post leading correspondent (I think that was his title?), and got a tour of building.  I was surprised at how few of us decided to go, but I guess that was likely due to the late time at which we got home the night before.  I then spent a couple days in school, and on Thursday morning (May 9^th) returned, via taxi, to Ben Gurion International Airport.  This time, with a new destination: Spain.  My grandparents had been on vacation there for about a week, and early this year offered to fly me over during their trip.  Luckily and thankfully we were able to work it out, and amazingly the time had finally come.  I first flew to Barcelona, then made my way from there to Seville where I met my grandparents and our tour guide for the day Moises.  We spent our time with Moises touring the old Jewish quarter of Sevilla, which was awesome.  Similar to my experience in Rhodes, I was amazed by how much knowledge our tour guide had and I was so appreciative that I had the opportunity to learn from and meet him.  Going into Spain I wasn’t exactly sure what I was going to do for Kosher food, but Moises really helped me out.  Apparently, every time he travels to America or Israel and he flies back tens of kilos of Kosher food in order to combat those difficulties in Spain.  He kindly gave me plenty of food for lunch that day and the next, and later returned with a frozen Kosher chicken meal.  SO amazing of him!

My grandparents and I spent a couple of hours on Friday driving South from Sevilla to Marabella/Malaga, where we spent Shabbat in a beautiful Crown Resorts.  I spent a lot of time hanging out with my grandparents, sitting in the sun, and we even took a great walk to the beach on Shabbat afternoon.  I was fascinated at how un-attractive the beach was, especially in contrast to my expectation of a gorgeous white sand experience.  For those who know Seattle, it was like the beach at Alki.  Super rocky and very cold water.  The difference between that side of the Mediterranean and the side which one experiences on the beaches of Tel Aviv is like the difference between any beach on the Washington Coast and Hawaii… Definitely not what I was expecting.  We spent Sunday driving North to an hour outside of Valencia.  It was literally 500 miles, and about nine hours of car time.  Although I was impressed with my grandfather’s driving, I won’t hesitate to mention my constant questions regarding allowing me to drive.  Sitting in the back seat I was actually experiencing pain in my heart because of my desire to drive.  I guess it’s good that I’ll be home soon, because I have got to get myself back behind the wheel of a moving vehicle!  We spent the night there, then made our way on Monday morning to Barcelona.  When we got there we hung out at the hotel for a little bit, then decided to take a double-decker bus tour of Barcelona.  I definitely loved it.  Not only did I get to just relax and enjoy touring the gorgeous city, but I got to get tan while doing it.  Argue with that, I dare you!  I made my way to the airport, and slept on the plane from Barcelona to Tel Aviv.  I made it home by a little bit after 5, and managed to sneak into my room without waking up my roommate before sleeping for a couple more hours. 

When I woke up I had about two hours to finish getting ready before our bus would be leaving towards Jerusalem for Shavuot.  Before I left to Spain I had already packed most of my things, but I had a couple things to finish up.  We got to Jerusalem, and I spent the afternoon hanging out with some friends and doing some work before Chag would begin.  Once it started, we had Arvit then dinner.  After, the all-night learning began.  First, I learned about the first all-night learning on Shavuot with Rabbi Menaged.  Then, we all had a class by Rabbi Kahn titled “(un)common decency.”  Then, a class by Rav Nissel about how to maximize Shavuot learning.  And finally, a class by my eim bayit Melanie about middot (character traits).  At 4:00 am we all met in the lobby to walk to the Kotel.  I spent the walk learning with one of my Rabbis, Rav Ari, which I really enjoyed.  It was so amazing to see that as we got closer and closer to the Old City more and more people were converging on it.  And when we finally got within the walls of the Old City, most everyone was making their way down towards the Kotel.  There were hoards and hoards of people, all going towards the same place.  We got there a little after 5:00, and prayed Shacharit there independently.  I walked back and made it to the hotel at about 7:00, and slept until 1:30 when it was time for lunch.  We had lunch, some learning in the afternoon, some hang out time, and a little bit of a closing ceremonies to end it off well.  Those who were keeping one day of chag went home, and the twenty of us who were keeping two days (or a variation of it) stayed the night. 

In the afternoon we walked to the Israel Museum, which was really cool.  I saw the Herod section, most of the Art sections, a model of the second Beit HaMikdash, and the Dead Sea Scrolls.  I really enjoyed walking around, and after a while I headed back to the hotel with Adina to hang out for the afternoon.  Chag ended at about 8:10, which was good because I had arranged for this taxi service to pick me up at 9:00 to go back to- you guessed it- Ben Gurion International Airport.

The Airport:

I was a little bit annoyed, though, because from what I had understood my flight would not be leaving until 1:35 am, which would mean that I’d have about 3.5-4 hours to kill at the airport.  And unfortunately, since I decided to take this group taxi service instead of an individual taxi I’d be saving about $60 by leaving at 9.  So I really had no choice.  But, I figured I would be able to make use of the time somehow and headed towards Ben Gurion once the taxi guy picked me up.  This time I was leaving to spend a week in Pennsylvania, on behalf of Sephardic Adventure Camp, at a conference called Cornerstone which is put on the by the Foundation for Jewish Camp.  The way the times worked out, though, I’d be spending the Shabbat before and the Shabbat after in New York.  So anyways, I got to the airport at about 10:00 and wasn’t as annoyed as I’d usually be to see a humungous line to get to the primary security from El-Al.  That line probably took about twenty minutes, when I finally got to a place to put my one checked bag through a security machine.  By the time all of that was done, I finally got to stand in another line to actually check my bag and print my boarding pass.

Now let me tell you all a little something about my suitcase.  So, over the course of this year I have luckily been able to acquire somewhat of a library of books.  Of course, something that has been in the back of my mind all year is how on earth I’d get them all home at the end of the year.  Luckily for me, this beautiful opportunity arose and I decided to take a suitcase full of books to New York- where I’d be able to keep them until I return for Stern in August.  I most definitely spent an very large amount of time packing and weighing my bag, as well as calculating overweight baggage costs, so as to prevent the issue of unnecessary baggage costs at the airport.  If I may say, I did a wonderful job and had my bag at just under 70 lbs- at least according the scale I was using- incurring a relatively minimal fee when factoring in the e-ticket discount I would receive. 

So I finally got to the counter, and all was fine and dandy until I actually put my bag on the scale.  Apparently there’s something really wrong with the scale I used, because instead of the overweight baggage maximum 32 kilos, my bag was actually 37 kilos.  And for the mathematically challenged American bunch of us, that’s approximately 12 lbs overweight from the overweight maximum.  She was actually kind of impressed.  Lucky for me, as I mentioned earlier, my most favorite activity is packing challenges.  So I moved to the side, and tried to make some trades with my carry-on in order to fulfill the weight requirement.  When I was finally pretty confident that I had done my duty, I weighed my suitcase on the scale which wasn’t being used and was wonderfully impressed to see “31.5” come up on the screen.  BOO-YAH!  I love my packing skills. 

Before I continue on with this story, I’d like to do a little bit of thinking with you all.  Let’s imagine my one checked bag, one carry-on roller suitcase, and one purse scenario.  If I start with 37 kilos in my one checked bag, and we all know that 5 kilos can’t fit into a purse, where must it go?

For some reason the El Al checker lady can’t do the same math that you and I can, because after printing my ticketing info and receipt she asked me to put my carry-on on the scale “just in case.”  I hope you’re as confused as I was, because she JUST told me to transfer 5 kilos out of my suitcase… where in the world could it go aside from into my expertly packed carry-on? Nowhere!  So when she told me that my carry-on was 7 kilos overweight, I really just didn’t know what to do.  Here I was standing with a woman who told me to transfer 5 kilos of weight out of my checked bag, but was surprised when my carry-on was 7 kilos too heavy.  Dumb.  I’ll spare you all the details, and say that she very kindly spared me from the one hundred extra dollars I would have had to pay and only charged me for the first overweight bag. 

Luckily for me I was then lucky enough to get back into line to send my new checked bag through the security machine, which of course took another too many minutes.  When I finally exited the entry plaza of Ben Gurion, I got to introduce myself to a new counter!  One where bills get to be paid and a plethora of screaming customers can be found.  As I approached the counter I noticed a middle-aged woman who looked like she was about to have a heart attack.  I knew that was a bad sign for my near future, but sucked it up and proceeded forward.  Thankfully a different woman was available, and as she twiddled her thumbs and complained about how my receipt didn’t make sense I listened to the heart attack woman scream.  Basically, for some reason or another she was being forced to pay a total of $1300 for her and her husband to take their flight.  I guess they missed it or something weird happened with their luggage, because they had an upgrade fee, a no show fee, and a flight change fee which added up to some $650 each.  Oy.  Thankfully I wasn’t in that boat, but after a solid twenty minutes of nothingness I got to pay my baggage fee and continue on my merry way. 

The next big line took place at security.  Contrary to any security experience I had ever experienced before this year, positive and quick security experiences have come along with all of my seven flights this year.  Unlike those seven flights there was a very large number of people in the security area.  I was happy, though, because of how much more efficient Israeli security is than American security, and I wasn’t freaking out because I still had about two hours to go until my flight at 1:35.  When I finally got through, I spent a couple minutes talking on the phone to some friends and slowly made my over to the Aroma café where I bought a salad.  Thinking that I had a lot of time to kill, I really wasn’t focused on eating and took my time in order to enjoy the experience.  At some point I looked at my watch and saw that I had exactly an hour until my flight, which made me think that I should start making my way towards the gate and maybe stop to buy some water and gum on the way.  For some reason this flashing sign caught my eye, so I checked it out.  What I saw was that it was the “last call” for a couple of flights, and I thought about how much it would suck for anyone to miss a flight.  Then, I happened to notice that one of the “last call” flights was to Newark and that its departure time was 12:35.  For a second I thought about how weird it was that there would be two El Al flights out of TLV to Newark within an hour, and then it hit me. 

This image flashed into my brain which read “00:35.” 

OH. MY. GD.  That means 12:35; not 1:35!  I grabbed my things and took off running, somehow managing to check my gate on my boarding pass while doing so.  After getting out of the food court area, I noticed an El Al stewardess standing with a clipboard at the beginning of the hallway which I needed to go down.  All of the sudden, “are you Julia?!?!” she screamed, “We’ve been looking ALL over for you! Where have you been?  Your flight is taking off!”  And we sprinted together for a solid minute and a half, before reaching the gate.  There, about four other El Al staff members stood with excited faces throwing questions at me left and right.  I pulled out my passport and boarding pass mid-sprint, and the woman ripped my ticked and pointed us in the correct direction.  When we made it onto the plane, this flight attendant man said, “four hundred people have been waiting for you, where have you been?”  As I shuffled past him and found my seat, I took a deep breath and felt the plane start to move.  I couldn’t even believe that I was not that person who the whole flight had to wait on, and that they actually waited an extra ten minutes to find me. 

In reflection, I am so inconceivably happy that the taxi service guy could only take me at 9:00.  I also realized that I need to read my ticket better in the future, and internalize the fact that 00:00 means 12:00 midnight.  I am SO happy that I made my flight, and can’t wait to spend Shabbat with the Yossi and Judy Azose family in West Hempstead and then spend my week gaining and sharing a tremendous amount of Camp knowledge at Cornerstone in Pennsylvania. 

More from Cornerstone and my New York experiences to come, but until then I wish you all a Shabbat Shalom!

Yam Le--- ?

Before I get to the good stuff, here are a couple pictures from Purim... Both are from the Tel HaShomer hospital, where we went on Purim morning to give Mishloach Manot the sick children...  Notice that I did, in fact, bring the penguin suit to Israel!!

Last Sunday through Thursday I attended the Masa Jewish Leadership Summit in Yerushaliam.  A number of my friends from Bar Ilan were also there, along with the other 400 gap year and post-college international students in Israel this year.  The week was incredible!  We spent each day in different workshops, learning about different aspects of Jewish leadership and how to be effective in it.  Masa set it up in such a way that each student was in a group with people who were going to the same area for college.  So, my group was all students who will be in New York/New Jersey next year.  They did that so that if we wanted we could actually work together over the coming years, which is awesome.  In addition to learning as much as I did, I made a number of friends from very different backgrounds and had a chance to learn about all sorts of programs in Israel that I had never heard of or learned about.  And, the food was awesomeee!! Who could complain?

Here's a picture of myself and a couple friends at the Gala Dinner event on the first night...

I got back on Thursday night just in time for my favorite night class, and went to a Chametz party at my program director's house after.  When I got home, I packed for Shabbat and went right to sleep.  For Shabbat, I traveled with three of my girl friends- Emma, Miriam, and Yael- to the holy city of Tzfat.  The bus we had to take took four hours due to traffic, which wasn't as bad as it could have been.  When we finally got there, we were picked up by our lovely hosts and we went to their house to get ready for Shabbat.  Our hosts were our program director's mother, which was so nice!  Their house is absolutely beautiful, and it is literally next door to the Ari Z"l's synagogue and overlooks his mikvah and the old cemetery.  Very cool.  We had little time to get ready for Shabbat, but as soon as we did we headed out to find somewhere to pray Kabbalat Shabbat.  The synagogue we initially found wasn't such a good fit, so after a couple minutes we headed out and just walked until we could hear "Yedid Nefesh" being sung.  We followed the song and ended in this little shteibel of a synagogue.  We packed in with the other maybe twenty women, and enjoyed the happy, sing-y kabbalat Shabbat.  Mid-way through the lights went off, which was unexpected but exciting.  After tefilah, we asked how to get to the place where we'd be eating dinner and we found it after about ten minutes.  On the way there, I really enjoyed how I recognized many things from when I had been there with my class in eighth grade.  

Dinner was absolutely wonderful.  Our host family hosts people each week, and they're very good at what they do.  The Rabbi was from New Zealand, and thankfully everyone spoke English.  They had a number of other guests, so it was fun to talk to everyone about where they were in their lives and how we all ended up in that one house for Shabbat.  The house itself was stunning.  It was a couple hundred years old, and the ceiling was arched and probably twenty feet high.  The meal itself was great, too... The challah was one of the best I've ever had, there were salads galore, and it was all topped off with a wonderful chicken.  We might have done the most singing in one meal possible, but we sang some good songs so it was great.  At one point the Rabbi stepped out and the wife started singing a Sephardic song which I like very much, so it was basically the two of us singing and I really enjoyed it.  After dinner, the four of us walked back to where we'd be sleeping and fell asleep quickly.

In eighth grade we visited the Ari Z"l's synagogue, and I remember so clearly how much I loved it.  So, on Shabbat morning I woke up at 7:20ish and made it to synagogue by the 7:45 start-time.  It was Sephardic, which I loved, but even better was how similar it was to our nusach in Seattle.  The men were all sitting down on these comfy-looking couch/bench things which lined the walls, and though one of the men was clearly the chazzan he was sitting with everyone for the beginning, too.  Tefilah was over by 9:45, and everyone went outside for a quick kiddush.  The chazzan man offered me a potato borekah, and it was actually really good. I went back to the house afterwards, and since everyone else went to a different synagogue I was the only one home.  I decided to take a nap, so I slept for about two hours until lunch which was awesome.  Lunch was great!  The food was great, the company was great, there was also some singing going on which was fun... All good.  We spent the afternoon walking around, which was nice.  After Shabbat, they actually offered to drive me home because they were heading to Beit Shemesh anyways, which was SO nice.  The other three girls stayed the night in Tzfat, which is why they only offered me a ride home.  

I got home at some time between 11 and 12, and cleaned my room a bit before putting my laundry in the washing machine.  I hung out with one of my madrichot for a bit, as I was waiting for the laundry to finish. About nine of the guys were heading out to Cyprus for the week at 4:00 am, so I ended up hanging out with some of them before the taxi came and got back to my room at about 4.  I folded my laundry and did some other miscellaneous things, so I ended up staying up until about 6:30.  

I slept in on Sunday until about 1, which I was happy about, and spent the afternoon preparing for a trip that Adina and I decided we'd take starting on Monday.  But we'll talk about that a little more later.  On Sunday night, Ilana, Adina, and I went to this place called the Blackout Restaurant for dinner.  What is special about it is that you eat in complete and total darkness, and your waiters are blind or visually impaired.  It is part of the blind museum, and it was an incredible experience.  I don't think I had ever experienced such total darkness before... Our waiter led us to our table in a train and she helped us find our seats and everything else.  It was cool that she was able to help us find our way.  It took a long time to get used to not seeing, but we finally got the hang of it after fifteen minutes or so.  Something I thought was incredible was that my other senses went into like over-drive as soon as I couldn't see.  I tasted the bread in a way that I had never before... It's hard to describe, but it was very "real" on my tongue.  I know that sounds weird, but I don't know how else to describe it.  The meal itself was pretty good, but it was clear that the experience is what we paid for.  Which was great.  Ilana pointed out that we got to walk out of the room and see again, as opposed to our waitress, which kinda put it into a different perspective.  Overall, it was an amazing experience and highly recommend it to anyone!

There is this famous hike in Israel, called Yam L'yam (Sea to Sea) which stretches from a city called Achziv (on the Mediterranean coast) to a place called Ginosaur (on the beach of the Kinneret).  When I had first heard of this hike from a friend of mine three years ago, I knew it was something that I wanted to do.  A bunch of my friends were doing it this week at different times, and Adina and I decided that we wanted to get in on that action.  On Sunday, a friend of mine was at the mall so she went to this map store and I very clearly told a woman who worked there which map I wanted and she gave it to my friend for me.  We bought all the food we'd need for the three days, and when we got back from the Blind Museum we packed it all up.  I had spent a couple days heavily researching the hike, reading every website in existence about it and talking to as many people as possible who had done it before.  We were planning to get to the starting point by about 10, and we figured we could definitely get to the first camp site by nightfall.  Everyone who I had talked to said that this time of year was the absolute busiest and best time to do the hike because we'd surely run into another group and travel with them.  In addition to that, a couple of friends of ours were planning to do it also on Monday morning but they were traveling by car and we by bus.  We were pretty sure we'd meet up with them at some point, and if not we'd just befriend a different group doing it.  

We left home at 5:30 in order to catch a 5:45 bus, which was the first of four.  Each bus was faster and easier than expected and we actually got to a city called Naharriya earlier than we thought.  All was looking great for us.  Everyone I had talked to said to just ask around and we'd surely find the trail head like that.  We started asking and after probably twenty different people we found no one who had even heard of the supposed trail head.  So I checked my phone and found out that the actual starting point was in Achziv.  This was, by the way, after about forty-five minutes of walking the streets of Naharriya.  We started walking towards Achziv, but found out that the walk was much further than we'd thought.  A Rabbi offered us a lift, and he kindly drove us to the exact place where we needed to be.  We found three Israel young teenage guys who were also doing the hike and said that they had actually done it before, so we followed them for a bit but since they were walking too slowly we went ahead of them and kinda kept an eye on whether or not they were turning the same way as us.  The first hour or so of our walk was through banana plantains, and I knew that was right because of all of the websites I had read.  When we got through that part, we were at a highway and since there was only a road to follow we did that.

Oh.  I forgot to mention.... On the third bus, I took a look at the map to study it a little bit and realized that the woman had done exactly what I told her not to do.  She gave me the "Shvil Yisrael" (trail which stretches from the North to the South of Israel) map as opposed to the "Yam L'Yam" map.  Rude!!!  I said specifically that I did not want that map, because I knew that the two were similar.  Dumb.  So, Adina and I did not have a functional map but figured that we could just follow trail markers until we found our group.  

So we followed this highway for way too long, until we were just fed up because we wanted to be on a trail- not concrete!  We stopped this classic mid-50s Israeli driver, and asked him where to go.  And, by the way about ten feet behind us there was a trail blocked off by a sign which discouraged entrance.  So we were talking to him for a while, and he vaguely remembered doing the hike at one point and said that we should go down the blocked off trail because it would meet up with the real trail.  So, instinctively, thinking that it was a smart question due to the sign and barbed wire, I said, "it's not dangerous?" Leaving his motor running, he got out of his car, walked to the fence, and pulled the poll of the fence out dirt and threw it on the ground.  "Ein sakanah" ("it's not dangerous"), he said.  Typical Israeli.  Whether it was smart or not, I don't know, but we followed the trail until it met up with a big trail about five minutes later.  Hurray! A real trail!  Good news, right?

We stopped for a quick lunch, and headed out in the wilderness.  Beautiful.  After a while we actually found a trail marker, which was the most comforting thing I had seen all day... I'm pretty sure I screamed.  Haha.  The rivers we had to cross, and sign we saw were all things that I had read about in my research, so we were finally confident.  Minus the lack of map.  We came across a biker, who had the exact map that I asked for, and we knew for sure that we were going in the right direction and that we were moving at a good pace.  Good news.  We continued for a couple hours, still seeing trail markers, and when we looked up we saw nothing other than:

three cows!! We gently made our way through them, and continued forth.  Soon after that we saw:

a castle which we later found out is called Montforte's castle.  We had a number of little rivers to cross over, and I have to go ahead and publicly pay tribute to how incredible my hiking boots are.  I think I might actually write an email to REI in thanks for the recommendation.. I was able to walk through the water, and as long as the water line remained below the top of my boot I didn't get wet.  That's right, people! Waterproof boots!  Then, one time I accidentally stepped too deeply but because of my awesome hiking socks (also from REI) my foot was wet for like five total seconds, if even that.  Amazing.  And while I'm praising REI, I might as well mention how much I adore my backpack... That thing is a force to be reckoned with!  Love it!  Here's a picture of Adina crossing the river carefully:

So anyways, we continued along for a while until we got to a point where the trail went very up.  We hiked up this very steep mountain for a while, and as much as it sucked it was that much better when we saw:

It's kinda hard to see, but the ocean (the very light blue on the left in the middle of the picture) is the ocean and where we started not that long before... AWESOME to see how far we had hiked in such little time.  So cool.

We kept hiking up for about fifteen more minutes, and we got to: 

Beautiful!!!!  But, there were four different trail options.. Confusing.  We put our stuff down, and when we were done moaning and groaning I found this random guy who I asked about where to go.  He spoke some Hebrew, but wasn't the best communicator.  What I understood was that in order to get to the place for our first campsite we needed to go back down the mountain and a very far way to a place called "Abirim."  He told me not to go down one of the paths, which was 25% helpful. Haha.  We also found this very kind German father and son who are touring Israel for five days.  They offered to help us, and showed us this map which they had which was only semi-helpful.  It wasn't specific enough, so we couldn't tell which trail to take... We only knew which direction to go in.  An additional problem we were having was the fact that the sun would be setting in about an hour and a half.  And although we were prepared to hike at night, which flashlights, it is obviously not the safest idea especially when we didn't have a map and there would likely not be people to ask on the trail.  So we walked down one of the trails for about ten minutes before realizing that that was definitely not the right one.  We stopped to discuss our options, and headed back up the trail.  Now we had two possibilities: walk back down the huge mountain which we had climbed up and hope that it led to a trail we missed for some reason, or take this trail which seemed like it was going in the wrong direction.  

When we got to the top we saw that the German tourists who we had run into were about to leave.  We really did not know what to do.  It was clear that we weren't really prepared for our future as hikers because of our lack of map, but we were definitely mentally and financially invested in our plan to finish.  What to do?  After much deliberation, we decided together that the best and most responsible thing we could do was ask our German tourist friends for a ride out.  So we did.  

Definitely a bitter-sweet ending. We had an absolutely awesome day, full of hiking- through cities and the forest- and we had a great experience together.  Lame because we really really wanted to finish yam l'yam, but happy because we made the good and safe decision.  Luckily for us our tourist friends were actually heading back to Tel Aviv, and they offered to drive us there with them... So nice!  

What's worse than sitting in a car for three hours because of traffic?

Sitting in a car for three hours because of traffic and having to pee the entire time... Sorry if that's a little to open for you, but I thought it was an important part of the day.  I'm serious I don't think I had ever had to pee that badly in my entire life.  Thankfully when they dropped us off on this random street, we found a little market with a bathroom after about ten minutes of walking.  Heaven! After that we walked for about twenty-five minutes to the Azrieli towers, where we were able to take a bus home.  We got home about fourteen hours after we had left, and it was a truly adventurous day.  Aside from a sunburn and some definite soreness, I'm totally happy about our day yesterday.  When I got home, I unpacked and showered quickly so that I could get right into bed... And so I did.  I slept for a solid thirteen or fourteen hours, which I haven't done in a looong time, and I plan to return the map and some of the food today.  

Bright and early on Thursday morning I will be heading to the airport to catch a flight to Rhodes.  For those of you who don't know, Rhodes is an island off of Greece and it is the homeland of my Ezra Bessaroth ancestors.  I will be meeting my parents and my younger brother there, and I could not be more excited for that!  We will hopefully have a lovely Shabbat together, for the first time in about seven months, in the coolest place ever.  And on Sunday night we'll fly back to Israel, where we'll all spend Pesach together in an apartment in Yerushaliam!

Remember when we said "L'shana ha'bah b'Yerushaliam" "Next year in Jerusalem" at the end of the Pesach seder last year??  We really meant it!!! 

The End of Break

 As much as I absolutely despise the sport of football - most particularly watching it - I loved the superbowl.  I usually watch it on the couch with my family, but I enjoyed the change of pace.  We had a whole tailgate bbq before it started and a bunch of people stayed up to watch despite its 1:15 am start time.  By half time most of the people found their way into their beds, but a solid twenty of us stuck around.  Though by the power outage and end of the game I'm pretty sure there were only ten of us.  Regardless, it was great! I'm going to go ahead and give my two cents about the power outage... Some people probably think it was a 49'ers conspiracy, and I can definitely see where that comes from.  The whole doing horribly then have an expected break and do much better thing is completely legitimate.  My sophomore year in high school we had a basketball game which decided whether or not we'd go to State.  About half way into the 4th quarter we were down 39-32.  A really unfortunate injury was sustained by one of our own, and it took about ten minutes for everything to calm down before we could start the game back up again.  Those ten minutes were as good as it gets.  We proceeded to win the game 42-41, beating Highland Prep Christian, and moving on to the State Championship.  What a game.  All I'm saying is that I support the break thing, and I'm kinda angry that the 49'ers couldn't pull it together to win.  I mean honestly I couldn't care less that they lost because quite frankly I didn't even know which two teams were in the superbowl until I got there, but regardless I always root for the comeback story so I wish it would have worked out.  Anyways though, by the time the game was over it was about 6:15 in the morning and my-oh-my was it was weird seeing the sun start to rise when the superbowl was over.

I didn't end up going to sleep until about 7, so I slept until 3:30.  Totally unexpected, and yet totally amazing. I got so much sleep this break-it was beautiful and much needed.  When I finally woke up I went to the grocery store, and spent the rest of the evening cooking.  I planned to work out, but I was quite honestly too successful with all of the cooking to make it to the gym in time before closing.  I made quinoa salad, broccoli, sweet potatoes, anddddd a dish which is brand new to the Israel kitchen of Julia Owen... Spaghetti with MEAT sauce!!!  I know you are all asking how on earth I made spaghetti when I'm not eating grains this month.  So, I will tell you that my lovely mother sent me a box of quinoa noodles for my birthday and I decided to put them to good use.  I am totally serious when I say that I couldn't even make that at home, and that I am beyond proud of myself for coming up with that.  I was too afraid that I'd under-cook the meat, but I decided that meat is an absolute necessity for me and that I had to learn to do it at some point.

I know that looks like Hamburger Helper or Kraft or whatever that commercial that's always on is for, but it's not! I promise!! I made every ounce of that, and I will be eating quite well this week because of it.  Hurray!

Today, we had a hike planned. By we I mean my roommate Miriam, Adina, and Emma.. We were going to hike with this most wonderful woman named Mrs. Seigal.  And it was going to be great.  But then, the bus was delayed by an hour and by the time we'd get there it would be too late to go hiking.  Lame!  Especially since this is the second or third time that we had to reschedule already.  But what can you do.  We decided that since it wasn't worth it to pay money to bus back home that we'd just make the best of it and "hike" it.  First, we stopped at the gas station so that a couple of us could get ice cream.  I must mention that I made one of the best purchases of my year so far at this very gas station. Any guesses?  A $10 barbecue! Whattup?!  Not a big one, and by no means a Weber but it will definitely do the trick.  So after I picked up a bbq, and some others purchased some other treats, we headed out.  We basically hiked along the freeway.  And by hiked along the freeway, I really mean on the freeway.  As safe as that doesn't sound, if we were actually jeopardizing our safety we wouldn't have done it.  It was really fun though.  It was a great way to turn a lame cancellation into a fun "hike."

When we got back, I showered and headed out towards Yerushaliam.  Ilana Greenberg just got back from her week-long trip to Poland this morning, so we went out to dinner.  Additionally, I stood in a very very long line at the Israeli version of a D.O.L. Why?  In order to get this beautiful thing called a Rav Kav.  It basically gives me a student discount on buses and other public transportation, and it's awesome.  I'm not totally sure why it took me this long to get it, because I am infinitely happy that I have it now, but I was finally able to get this special piece of paper which validates my studentness so I did it today.  Yay!

After dinner I stopped at the shuk and bought some super cheap dried fruit which I love and am excited to have to snack on.

It's crazy that school is starting up again, because I have really enjoyed being able to relax, sleep, and roam freely.  But, it's always good to get back into a real routine and the truth is that I enjoy school.  So as annoying as it will be to wake up in the morning, I'm looking forward to the first day back.  It's been a little too long since I've walked the streets of the Bar Ilan campus.

Anyways, I hope that this week progresses positively for you all!

A Fantastic Weekend

With plans to go to Nof Ayalon (a Yishuv where one of my teachers lives) with Adina and my friend Emma for Shabbat, we looked up which bus to take and when.  Of course, there's only one bus that runs on Fridays and it's not until 2:59.  Since there was no chance we were going to miss it we left at 2:25, which would put us at the bus stop at 2:35 at the latest.  It obviously had to start raining on our way there, but we finally got there and to the right bus stop with about 20-25 minutes to spare.  All we had to do was wait for our 200 bus.  There are 3 other buses which go to the same general area as this bus, but the other ones are much more out of the way for our teacher to pick us up so the 200 was the winner.  About 10 of the other buses went past us as we waited, but we confidently waved them all off because we knew that it wasn't until 2:59 when our bus would arrive.  We waited, got a little wet from the rain, and waited some more.  2:55 rolled around with no bus-- no worries at all. Right? We still have 4 minutes.  3:00 comes around and still no bus-- no worries because it's running a little late with all of the rain.  3:10 comes around? A little nervous to say the least.  And, it's been about ten minutes since the last of those other three buses has come through.. What are we to do?  So I called our teacher, Dr. Tannenbaum, and I asked her what we should do.  "No problem," she said, "just take one of the other three!" We hung up.  The watch strikes 3:15 and we were kinda just like... uh oh.  I checked the bus times on my phone and it didn't exactly seem like one of the other three lines were going to show up either.  So I decided to call a taxi company to see how much it would theoretically cost for us to get to Nof Ayalon.  The price was definitely not what we were expecting to pay to get there, but it wasn't out of question.  I asked him to lower it, and of course he met me half way between my offer and his.  Adina, Emma, and I talked it over and decided that there was no way we could miss Shabbat at Dr. Tannenbaum's house and that the buses were for sure done running before Shabbat.  So I said yes to the taxi company man, and he came about five minutes later.  It was for sure a much more pleasant ride than a bus would have been, but it was lame because we had gotten there with so much time to spare.  It was likely just full so the bus driver didn't even stop at our stop, but what can you do?

We got to their house with plenty of time to help them get ready for Shabbat and meet everyone, which was nice.  We went to the Ashkenazic synagogue for Tefilah on Friday night, but we visited the Nusach Sefard synagogue right after because they were hosting some visitors.  Apparently, for one Shabbat each year Nof Ayalon pays for a choir to lead Shabbat tefilah services in a couple of their synagogues.  And we, so luckily, decided to come for that Shabbat!  For those of you who hail from within the four glorious walls of Ezra Bessaroth, do not imagine the choir we used to have.  Imagine about fifteen middle-aged men, sitting in the front of the synagogue around a conductor- all wearing matching purple ties.  And, a tall black-robed man with a two-tiered black hat with gold tassel things standing at the bimah.  I have absolutely no understanding for how someone could legitimately pray listening to all of that going on, because it was way too distracting if you ask me.  But basically, they sung out each and every note in every syllable for the whole tefilah on Friday night.  It probably took them two to three hours from start to finish-- if they're lucky.  It was of course nice-sounding at times, but it seemed a bit drawn out.  After listening for a while, we headed back to the Tannenbaum's house for dinner and had a wonderful meal.  After eating we played card games for a couple of hours, and then it was time for bed.

I woke up at 7:30ish, which is surprisingly early, but I accepted it and went to synagogue.  Since I went by myself, I went to the Sephardic synagogue which was of course a lovely treat.  It's so not often enough that I get to follow along in my siddur with the tefilah, and even got to hear a couple of familiar tunes.  What a joy.  After tefilah I went back to their house and we all had a beautiful lunch at 11.  At 1:00 I went with Dr. Tannenbaum to this parsha class that she goes to every week, which is about ten women who take turns preparing a class on the parsha and they go to each others' houses each week.  It's kinda the cutest thing I've ever seen, haha.  So I enjoyed that class, and getting a feel for the dynamic there, which was great.  Afterwards I took a little nap, played some card games, and read a little.  Before we knew it Shabbat was over.  Dr. Tannenbaum got us a ride back with her neighbor's parents, who live very close to us.  Buckets!!!!  It was unfortunately trafficey on the way back, but we made it home pretty quickly.  I went to bed relatively early last night, which is why I was more than surprised to look at the clock upon waking up and see that it was 2:00 pm.  No clue why on earth I was that tired, but that's what break is for.  Right?

I went to the grocery store with my program director this afternoon... We shopped for our big super bowl tailgate tonight, and I bought some meat for myself so that I will actually be able to eat this month! Hurray!!  I also bought some nuts and dried fruits in Bnei Brak, which look great and were quite cheap compared to most places.  I'm just hanging out for a little while as we all anxiously await our midnight super bowl tailgate, to be followed by the 1:00 am super bowl.  It will definitely be different than the usual hangout with my family, but I'm looking forward to being with all of my friends as we watch a game for which I have no care between teams that don't matter to me.  But that's always the case, so the only new thing is the location and the people I'm with.  That's how it goes, though, so I am excited.

Wherever you may be and whoever you are with for the super bowl this afternoon, whether you are watching it, feeding people who are watching it, or you have nothing to do with it... may you enjoy what you are doing and be safe while doing it!  I'm looking forward to watching the commercials, and you should be too!! Have a wonderful week.

Break!

Break is blissful.  No assignments, few commitments, and a whole lot of sleep and friends.

Yesterday, we had an optional trip to a place called Zichron Ya'akov.  We started off the day with a visit to the First Aliyah Museum, which help me understood what it was like to settle in Israel in 1882.  Cool stuff.  So we spent a while there, and afterwards went to a park.

In case you don't recognize it, it's the same company and similar layout to the new side of Graham Hill.  It's weird how something so simple as the brand of playground can make me feel so at home! We played around for a couple minutes, which was fun.

Afterwards, we had about two hours of free time to walk around and eat lunch in the main town area.  Zichron Ya'akov is such a cute, very European little area.  It reminded me a little bit of Leavenworth.  There was a paper mill that we visited, and we just walked around and saw all the little shops and stuff.  About ten of the sixteen of us who went on the trip had lunch together, at this nice Italian place.  SO good.  I treated myself to a Norwegian Salmon with grilled potatoes...

SO great!  I love when I buy myself presents, especially when it's food.

After lunch, we went to the Carmel winery.  I absolutely loved the tour because I learned a lot about wine-making, but also got to try five different wines.  Our tour guide was really great at balancing giving over information with remaining engaging and interesting.  I learned about the differences between red and white wines and aged and non-aged wines.  At the end, we had this awesome dessert wine! I'm not even such a wine person, but I've tried to change that since coming here and it has actually kind of worked.  I have developed more of a pallet for wine, and I enjoy it depending on what kind it is.  I've always hated that chalkiness to dry red wines, and I learned a word for it yesterday!  Stringent.  Chalkiness = stringency.  But I usually love white wines, always love dessert wines, and sometimes I can go for a red wine.  Here's a picture of the red wines which I most definitely did not like.  It looks super legit though, so I had to take the picture.

After the tour, I took advantage of the available price and bought quite a few bottles of wine for Shabbatot in the future.  It was good stuff.

Oh, I spent Monday grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, and working out... What a great day it was.  Our room is so clean and perfect, and I have so much food available it's beautiful.  Also, I put my crock pot to good use and cooked up a great vegetable/tomato soup which I loved.

In other news, my roommate and I discovered a really yucky amount of mold on the ceiling in our bathroom. The maintenance guy came today to deal with it, which is good.  It's quite possible that it is the source of my repeatedly getting sick in this country, so hopefully all sickness will go away soon.  My roommate has also been getting really sick a lot, so if all goes well it'll be gone asap.  That's the goal.

I've been working out a lot lately, which was been da best.  I've also been playing basketball, and it's getting more and more natural again.  It's really different to play basketball now, after having put so much focus on boxing, because much of my basketball has changed a lot.  Something I worked on in boxing is alignment of the body, and holding myself well.  It was so awesome to see all of that work impact a totally different sport in such an awesome way.  My shot, dribbling, and defense is so much better now which rocks.

Tonight I think I'm going to get some meat Chinese food with Adina and Emma, which will be awesome.  My madricha, Shev, showed me this video, and it's cute enough for me to suggest it to you all. So props to her, and enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-gQLqv9f4o

Have a great rest of the week, people!

Post-Finals

I am so very happy to say that Finals are finally over.  In the past two weeks I took sixteen finals, and I can proudly say that I'm pretty sure I rocked them all.  I kind of forgot how freeing the feeling of walking out of the last final is, but I was warmly reminded today :).  I'm now on break until I have school next Wednesday February 6th.  On the agenda are a couple of hikes, a visit to a winery, definitely some Jerusalem time, a very necessary haircut, possibly the Israel Museum, and, if all goes according to plan, a whole lot of working out.

I've been working out and playing basketball lately, and it's been so great.  I'm infinitely upset at the fact that the gym isn't open on Sundays because - hello - Sunday is the best way to work out!!  I made it happen anyways, though, which was good.  I think I'm going to take the night off and just hang around, because I'm feelin the need for a break from activity haha.  

Okay, people.  So I have been thinking about how much I like challenging myself, and how I haven't had enough challenge in my life lately and I have come up with a new plan.  And I must mention that it is inspired by my mother's best friend Jane Claxton Drichta, who posted a status about her "Whole30."  Here it goes... For the duration of the month of February I am planning to avoid sugar, grains aside from a slice of Challah at each meal on Shabbat, and I will continue to not eat dairy.  In other words, I'm gonna stick to fruits, veggies, and meat.  Haha.  If anyone has any ideas for recipes or food, you can feel free to share... Thinking about this new challenge, I guess it's a little crazy.  Especially considering the fact that I eat granola for breakfast every morning and spaghetti for a meal most days.  But, it will help me think outside of the box in terms of my food here and I'm excited to get back to my ways of the summer. 

Other news... For those of you who don't yet know, I have decided that I will attend Stern College for Women starting next year.  Originally, I had been planning to go to Rutgers University.  I loved the school, and still do, but I have found different things which attract me to Stern.  To sum it all up:  NYC, superb academics, wonderful friends, and continuing my Jewish education.  I definitely value my education, and I really think that Stern is the best school for me.  As a side note, I will have the opportunity to play basketball which will for sure be a good time.  

By the way, the weather has been beautiful here lately.  Aside from a totally random drizzle last night on the way home for Yerushaliam, it's been sunny and warm for the past while.  It is absolutely crazy how Seattle has two months of summer, and Israel has two months of winter... What a different world!  I'm not sure how I'm going to feel about it when my life has been absent of rain for months on end, but for now I'm enjoying the sunshine.  

I wish you all a wonderful week, and I will definitely be checking in as this break progresses!

Mid-Finals

I would say that my Finals experience thus far has been quite the success.  I have taken eight of my sixteen tests so far, and I feel overwhelmingly confident about how I did on all of them.  People ask me why I do well on tests, and I really think that it's because I genuinely enjoy being tested.  Why?  Because, when I know the answers or I can properly formulate learned ideas into thought-out essays it really shows that I have learned the material.  And that is something that I appreciate.  I think I must also attribute some of my success to my ability to study in a way which best suits my learning ability.  And the reason that I am good at studying is because of the ridiculous number of tests and finals that I took during my time at Northwest Yeshiva High School.  At some point, I naturally figured out how to study for different kinds of tests because of the variety of tests at Yeshiva.  So, kudos to NYHS.  I feel so bad for my friends who struggle with effectively studying and test-taking, but it makes me thankful for my unique education.

Anyways, my Shabbat was incredible!  I went to the Dahan family's house in K'far Sabah.  It was so much to fun to hang out with the whole family. And, the food was great!  On Shabbat afternoon I walked to this huuuuuge park, and we hung out there.  The playground is the biggest playground I've ever seen.  I can't even adequately describe it.  Then, between Mincha and Arvit I went to my teacher's house.  Dr. Ferziger teaches me two different Jewish History classes, and I absolutely love them both.  I met his wife and two of his sons, and we just spent some time talking.  It was cool to see him out of the classroom, though he is very similar in both settings.

This morning I had my Ulpan final, and later today I have my Biology final.  I feel very on top of my studying, which is a great feeling.

In the beginning of the semester when I was signing up for classes, two of the program's head Rabbis told me that by the time finals came around I would indefinitely drop classes.  I have to say that it's cool to be in the very middle of finals and know that there's no way I'm planning to drop any classes because I love taking a lot of finals and I love challenging myself with learning and tests.  It's good stuff.  Thankfully we have nothing doing this Tuesday because it will be Election Day, so I can spend the whole day studying for my two difficult finals on Wednesday.  Aside from that, all should be relatively simple to study for and succeed in.

I am so excited to have a week-long break after I'm done with all of these finals.  I will be going on a couple of hikes, and seeing some other cool things around Israel.  It's going to be just like the Early Start days, so there should be many blog posts expected!

I have to go do some last-minute studying for my Biology final, so I will sign off for now.

Shavua Tov to all!

2 Down, 14 To Go

In preparation for today's two Judaic finals, I held two study sessions for the other girls in my classes.  We went over all the material, and it was a wonderful way for all of us to learn it all together.  First we had Dr. Tannenbaum's A Survey of Biblical Literature final.  In that class we learned one perek (chapter) of eleven different books of Navi, and we had to know them well enough to be able to answer essay questions and recognize which story related to a Pasuk that she gave us... It was good stuff.  Honestly, I like finals.  And I really liked hers.  I knew the material a bit too well, and my first essay was about triple the length that it should have been-- which kind of threw me off in terms of the time that I had available to me.  But I spent the remaining hour and a half writing as quickly as possible, and I managed to get it all down on paper and only be a couple minutes late to my second final.  I actually would have been on time had the classroom we were in not been in the middle of a bunch of trees-- a.k.a. un-findable.  That final was on Women in Halacha, which was a classic Halacha test.  Easy as can be-- so long as you know the material.  And that is just how I like it.  You either know it or you don't, and there's basically no other excuses for not knowing the answers to questions.  Good stuff.  That one took me about forty minutes which was nice, though I expected the test to be much harder.

Tonight, Adina and I went to Yerushaliam to meet the Jacobsons and present Genauers for dinner.  What a treat!!!  It was so nice to sit across the restaurant from the Jacobson and Genauer parents along with Carol, Rena, Shira, and Adina.  The food was great, and the company could not have been better.  I always love getting together with Seattle people, but there was something specifically lovely about being with this crew.  I think it's just because there's a whole lot of love, and it's all so tangible.  I really really enjoyed that.  Also, Rena brought me the world's best present! Not one, but TWO bottles of MY mousse! From America!  Beautiful.

I'm going to bed early tonight because I have one final tomorrow and a whole lot to do to prepare for other finals that I have later this week.  And.... I might even be playing basketball again.  Craziness.

Wishing everyone success in all that you do this week! Take care of business, people.

Back In Action

Public apologies for my un-announced leave of absence from the blogging world... It's been a crazy couple of weeks, and the coming three are sure to be even crazier.

School and home life has been surprisingly challenging over the past four or five days due to the unrelenting torrential downpours.  For those of you who don't know, it has been snowing in Yerushalaim since last night-- a rather exciting story.  But the precursor to the snow, is the very intense rain and wind.  In my neck of the woods it all started on Sunday night, and it has been basically on - with a little off - since then. 

Pause: In my youth, my Dad often read the book Fortunately by Remy Charlip to us and it basically tells the story by starting every other page with "Fortunately. . ." and every other page with "Unfortunately. . ." For example: Fortunately, I found a parachute to jump out of the plane with.
Unfortunately, the parachute was broken.
Fortunately, I landed in a hay stack!
Unfortunately, there was a pitchfork in the hay stack."

And so on, and so forth.  GREAT book- by the way.  Anyways though, for the following story which I am going to tell about this past Tuesday I am going to follow Remy Charlip's method. 

Tuesday:
Fortunately, I had a dinner to go to at a really nice restaurant, in Yerusaliam, on Tuesday night.
Unfortunately, it was a goodbye party.
Fortunately, school is over on Tuesdays at 12 so I could get to Yerushaliam on time.
Unfortunately, I had four hours of Magen David Adom class starting at 2.
Fortunately, I could theoretically get to the bus stop in time to make it to Yerushaliam and the restaurant in a timely fashion!
Unfortunately, there was a massive rain storm all day and the highway to Yerushaliam was closed (due to Israel's complete and total unpreparedness for rain-- similar to Seattle's response to snow).
Fortunately, the buses and highway were open for business again by the early afternoon
Unfortunately, I had to plow through the rain to get to the bus.
Fortunately, my mother sent me a poncho in the mail and I was actually able to put it to use.

Unfortunately, my friend Jason (who came to the dinner) and I had to wait at the bus stop - in the rain - for much longer than we normally do.
Fortunately, the bus came and we got to Yerushaliam with enough time to get to dinner.
Unfortunately, the streets of Ben-Yehuda/Yaffo looked like an apocalypse just hit because of all the broken umbrellas and garbage on the ground.
Fortunately, there wasn't actually an apocalypse and we made it to dinner in perfect time!
Also fortunately, about 16 friends were there and it was SO much fun!

I hope you all go and read Fortunately now, because it's a great book.


In other news, I did something crazy today... I picked up a basketball for the first time since basically last March, and I actually shot around for a while.  It felt good to get a ball back in my hands, and I think I'm going to start playing on Tuesday nights with a couple of other girls from my program.  Should be fun to get back in it a little bit.  After bball, I worked out for quite a while which is always great!  I worked on some boxing stuff, which made me miss my Cappy's even more than I already do.

Finally, I'd like to say that over the next 2.5 weeks Finals will be taking place.  I will surely use blogging as a stress-reliever if and when I have time to do so, but there approximately zero promises that such an opportunity will arise.  We can all thank my sixteen finals for that one.  Hurray! Ha.  No actually though, even though it's a little stressful to have so many big tests in such a condensed period of time I really do like finals.  I learned how to study for and take tests in High School, and I love putting that skill to good use.  So we'll see what we can do.  But again, no promises about maintaining the blog.  February 29th is the beginning of a much-needed, beautiful week-long break.  And I assure you all, I will be kicking that off with a blog post. 

All the best to everyone, Shabbat Shalom.