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.

A Carlebach Shabbat

On Thursday night I didn't finish class until 7:30 p.m. 11.5 hours of a school day is quite long!  But, as soon as I was done I had places to go and people to see so I was on my way very quickly.  Where was I going?  The famous Lea Geller got into town on Thursday evening, and we had made plans to rendezvous.  The plan was to take the 63 bus to Arlozorov and take the 10 from there.  But after waiting at Arlozorov for way too long I decided that I didn't want to be any more late than I already was.  I did nothing other than break cardinal rule #1 in the Israel life of Julia Owen.  I am almost embarrassed to share this with the public... What did I do?  I hailed a taxi.  The first guy was on the mental institution side of things in terms of the price, so I encouraged him to drive away very quickly.  But I was able to convince the second one to lower his initial price to something much more reasonable, and I got in.  

Even though it really did pain me to willfully take a taxi, something quite positive came out of it.  After a couple minutes of speaking with the driver he asked me where I was from.  When I said "America" he didn't believe me!!  Know what that means?  It means that my Hebrew was so good that he couldn't tell that I'm American.  A real miracle, people.  After a couple of minutes he dropped me off at the hotel, and I went upstairs and knocked on Lea's door.  SO great to see her!!! She even brought me letters from the Gindins, a bottle of mousse, and muffins from my aunt!!  Could not have been a better present.  What a wonderful thing it was to eat my aunt's muffins as I read the cards from my cousins!  I still have muffins left, and let me tell you people... They're my most prized possessions right now.  And, I have such a stock of mousse-- it's amazing! Anyways, it was so so great to be able to hang out with Lea for a while.  It's so happy to get a breath of Seattle over here.  On the way home I actually found out that there is a singular bus which takes me from her hotel to where I live, so that was kind of rude.  But it's all good.  As I was walking home from the bus stop this wave of complete and total exhaustion came over me, and I passed out soon after I got home.  

Friday morning I went on another adventure into Tel Aviv-- third time in one week-- to meet Orlie for one last hurrah before she left.  We spent a couple of hours together walking around, which was super fun.  At one point we were sitting on these benches which surround a fountain, and we noticed that a couple of guys were trying to make a circle around the fountain by holding hands.  After about two minutes one of the guys approached us asking if we'd help them make a circle, and we said yes.  The guys were from the army, so we figured that it was our responsibility, as supporters of Israel, to do what we could to help them.  The guys kept asking people to help make the circle, and every time a person would come one person would leave.  Which wasn't really helping... After like five minutes they gave up, but it was a hilarious while it lasted.  People were taking pictures of or staring at us the whole time because it looked funny.  And it was.  

I got back home in time to catch the bus for our optional Shabbaton.  Eleven girls and two madrichot.  We went to the Carlebach Moshav, which is basically a hippy community.  Rabbi Trugman, who runs a program for the kids here once every two weeks, invited us to stay at his house for the Shabbat.  What a beautiful view they have!  It overlooks a forest and Modi'in.  Before Shabbat we listened to him and this guitarist play music, which was a nice way to bring in the Sabbath.  We went to synagogue, which was quite lengthy because the Carlebach followers like to incorporate song and dance into most everything, and it was good.  After we had a nice dinner, and spent the night hanging out and talking.  A couple of us stayed up until about 3, which is so unusual for me and way past my bed time.  But it was fun, so it's all good.

Shabbat day a couple of us planned to wake up for synagogue, but unfortunately none of us did... We all woke up a little before 11 and had lunch.  After lunch, a couple of us walked around the moshav and went to their little farm and park.  Then we came back and hung around until seudah shelishit time.  When Shabbat was over we went to the guitarist's house to watch a "musical Havdalah."  It was just like it sounds... Havdalah + guitars.  After some time to pack up, we headed back home.  I spent my night watching tv shows, for the first time in about a month, and sleeping.  Hurray!

This morning I went to Ulpan, and received a lovely text message saying that Magen David Adom was cancelled for the day.  I went to the grocery store, stocked up on fruits and veggies among other things, and came home and cooked and cut vegetables.  I made myself a great salad with cabbage, tomato, avocado, peach, carrot, asian crunchy noodles from America (thanks, Mom!), and I dressed it with balsamic vinegar, lemon juice, pepper, and olive oil.  It was wonderful.

I plan to spend the rest of my afternoon and evening doing some studying for finals even though they seem far off from now.  I think it's just better to make it as easy as possible when it comes to the real finals days, because I will have sixteen finals in a much too short time span.  

I wish you all a Shavua Tov!

A Quick Week

I cannot believe that tomorrow is already Thursday... Thinking about it, I definitely feel that often here.  Because my class schedule is so interestingly formatted, I think it makes the days feel like they pass much faster.  Only having a half day of classes on Tuesdays tends to make Wednesday feel like another Monday, which means that my body feels like my last day of school for the week is a Tuesday (Thursday).  In other words, I appreciate the layout of my school week.  Haha.

After my morning classes on Monday, I hitched a ride with one of my teachers to Jerusalem and spent the afternoon and evening there.  I hung out with Ilana a lot, and we even got to go to dinner together because Mondays are her night off.  We went to a place called Japanika, which is a nice little Sushi restaurant.  Obviously neither of us ordered sushi, but we got this chicken and noodle thing.  Good stuff.  I observed something there which was totally formative and monumental in my approach to salads and guacamole... The sushi man did the coolest thing with the avocado! Forget avocado fingers, people! He peeled it!!  And not only did he just peel it, but his peeling was an entirely effective way to de-skin it!  I was utterly amazed.

I came back from Yerushaliam on Tuesday evening, and I of course picked the absolute worst bus time back to where I live.  The bus, which usually takes about forty minutes, took an hour and a half.  That's right, more than double the time... What a pain.  That's why we all hate traffic.  But, I ended up just sleeping so the lengthiness was actually a positive thing.

Last night a couple of my friends and I spent about three hours studying for the debate/test that we were supposed to have in one of my Jewish History classes today.  We had a great time doing it, which was good because we found out today that the debate/test isn't for another two weeks.  Additional good that will come out of our study sesh is that it will be much easier to study when it's actually time to do so.  Hurray!  In related news, I really do love my two Jewish History classes on Wednesdays.  It's extremely out of character for me to enjoy any kind of a history class, but my teacher (for both of them) is really engaging and I enjoy observing his thought process.  He's the person who wrote a textbook... So, ya.  He's quite intelligent, and he has much knowledge to share with the world.

I forgot to mention that I had the pleasure of seeing my friend Orlie Golan earlier this week, as she is in Israel, and she so kindly brought me two whole bottles of mousse!  That's right... Two.  In other words, she's clearly a very good friend. Haha.  We had a great time hanging out though, and hopefully I'll be seeing her again before she leaves.

Tomorrow is Thursday, and it is my longest day of classes.  On days with Bio Lab, like tomorrow, I have class from 9:00 a.m. (8:00 including Tefilah) until 7:45 p.m. with thirty-minute breaks in between each of the six classes.  Fun, I know!  It really is a good schedule.  I enjoy the business, and all of the learning.  So by no means am I complaining.

I will be spending Shabbat, along with about ten other girls from my program, on the Carlebach Moshav, which should be quite an experience.  If you don't know what Carlebach is, google it and you'll see what I'm talking about.  Word on the street is that it's basically a hippy Moshav, so I will be sure to report back adequately.

Aside from that I don't have much to share, other than that it is late and that I should already be asleep.  The problem is that I am finishing up an assignment and I am having quite a difficult time locating an article on a certain chapter in Tanach.  So, if any of you happen to have an article on Hosheia Perek 8 you can feel free to let me know immediately.

In case I don't get the chance to write before Shabbat, I will say Shabbat Shalom!  But I will hopefully make that happen.

An early morning in the Old City

Being that this week was our first week back into school after Chanukah break, nothing too exciting happened.  There was something oddly enjoyable about getting back into the school routine, though, so I'm a happy camper.  

On Monday night, because of my minimal classes on Tuesday, I decided that I would spend the night in the Old City with Sarah Varon.  I got to bed on the early side of things because I knew I'd be waking up early on Tuesday morning.  I planned to get up early because I wanted to speak to my Vava (great-grandmother on my Dad's side) about some Seattle Sephardic history.  I was given an assignment to write a Historical Fiction essay, and I realized that it would be really cool if I could write it with facts based on my family history.  And in order to have enough facts, I planned to discuss it with Vava.  We spoke on the phone for about two hours, which was awesome.  At some point, hopefully soon, I'm going to write up the things we discussed, and if I do that I will make it available to anyone who is interested.  But anyways, it was awesome to learn about life in Turkey, the journey to Seattle, and life in the early stages of the Seattle Sephardic Community.  

In order to speak with her at a good time, I woke up at 4:15ish in the morning.  But, I had another reason for waking up so early... In the Old City there is a famous jewelry store called Hadaya.  They make beautifully engraved silver or gold bracelets, necklaces, and rings.  They open each morning at 5:30 am, and they have a deal for anyone who is the first person in line in the morning.  I decided that because I slept literally around the corner, I might as well take advantage of my opportunity to get the deal.  What's the deal? 50% off of one piece of jewelry.  Luckily for me, I got there at about 4:40 and I was the first one there!  I took a seat on the ground outside of the store, and spoke to my Vava there as I waited for Hadaya to open.  

When the store opened and I went in, I told the girl what I wanted and was waiting for her to write up a receipt.  But, I heard the engraver man saying to her that he needed help replacing the 5 gallon water jug since he has a bad back.  And because she is pregnant, she obviously couldn't help him.  Since I totally have no problem picking one of those up, I offered to help.  He showed me where to get the water bottle, so I replaced the old one.  He was so thankful that I replaced the water that he offered me a free engraved Jerusalem skyline.  Then, he said, I'll make your bracelet first this morning so it will be done in twenty minutes!  What a deal!!  1/2 off, free skyline, and done in twenty minutes... Plus I got to learn about Seattle Sephardim while I was waiting for this to happen.  How much better can you get?

Afterwards I realized that sunrise was going to happen soon.  And, I realized that the sunrise would definitely be visible from all of the spots which lookout over the Kotel.  So I booked it towards the Kotel, and this is what I found:

Beautiful!!!!!

What else can I say about this week... 

Last night I decided to try a banana, after having not liked them for about 14 years, and for some reason I actually liked it.  I must say that my mouth was quite confused at the texture/banananess, but over all I enjoyed it.  And I even had another one today.  Crazy! 

I will be spending my Shabbat on campus.  I have spent many of my recent Shabbatot out, and I was looking for some serious reposaring- as we say in Ladino.  I'm having dinner at my Av and Eim Bayit's house tonight, and for lunch tomorrow I threw a whole bunch of things in my crock pot.  I'm definitely hoping that it turns out good, but ya never know.  We'll see.  

Shout-out to my Dad, whose birthday it is today-- muchos y buenos!! 

Shabbat Shalom, everyone.  

What A Week-- Negev Trip!!!

I brought my computer with me on our Negev trip partly so that I would be able to blog day by day, but unfortunately there has yet to be enough wifi for such a thing.  I have a lot to share, though, so this might be a rather large post.  But, we’ll find out.

I’m going to start by talking about last Shabbat.  On Friday, on the way to Yerushaliam, we stopped at a place called Neot Kedumim- a Biblical nature reserve. A Biblical nature reserve is a place where every tree was mentioned in the Torah.  It was established in the late 1960’s, and it’s truly a beautiful place.  To do the activities that were planned for us, we all split up into three groups.  My group started by walking up a path through various trees and shrubbery, and when we got to the top our tour guide man was standing there.  Looking out, we could see Modi’in, as well as stunning greenery.  He told us about how the famous battle of Chanukah between the Chashmonaem (Maccabees) and the Mityavnim (assimilated Jews) actually took place where we were standing. After his historical introduction we walked about ten feet to this big rock.  He told us to find strong rocks which we could hold in our hands, and he busted out some olives.  He put them on top of the big rock and showed us how to crush them with the smaller rocks.  Then, for the people who were interested in coloring their hands a shade of deep brown, he offered to teach us how to get the juice from the olives which could turn into oil after a process of distillation.  I didn’t participate in the juicing activity, because I instead picked olives with my friend Tal.  Afterwards, we all walked down a path so that we could watch a donkey pull a huge wheel which crushed olives.  This was to demonstrate the method of olive-pressing from back in the day, but also to show the amount of force which is needed to effectively press olives.  Then we walked further down the path and went inside of a tent.  We were each given clay, and most people molded it into a little jug/bowl for oil to sit in and burn.  When we all finished with that, we walked back to our bus which took us to the front part of Neot Kedumim and we went inside of a pen to heard sheep.  That’s right- shepherding!

After Neot Kedumim, we loaded the buses and made our way towards the Old City!  I was unfortunately super nauseated on the bus, so I tried my best to sleep.  We went a Shabbaton to the Sephardic Heritage Center in the Old City of Yerushalaim.  I had been there before on my 8^th grade trip, but they actually made quite a few remodels since then.  Coincidentally, I actually slept in the room across from the room I slept in in 8^th grade! It was such a great way to spend Shabbat.  Everyone spent the little time we had before Shabbat getting ready, and we had candle-lighting on the bottom floor.  After, we said Mincha together and had a wonderful welcome to Shabbat by the girls’ Av Bayit- Moshe Mernick.  Then, we all walked together to the Kotel.  All of the girls had a big Kabbalat Shabbat (prayer for Friday night) together, where we sang and danced all together.  It was a little cold, but we had a lot of fun together.  And, I saw Sarah Varon there on her way to dinner.  When we all finished praying we met up with the guys in the plaza, and walked together back to the Sephardic Center.  We had a really good dinner together, with, Thank G-d, lots of Sephardic foods.  The soup we had was nice and spicy, and one of our Rabbis was walking around saying that, “the true test of Sephardihood was within the soup.”  I loved it! I don’t always like spicy things necessarily, but there’s a certain type of heat that my mouth loves and that soup had it.  After dinner we had a shiur (class) from Rabbi Mottyberger of Aish Ha’Torah.  He’s apparently a super world-renowned, sought-after speaker, and we were lucky enough to hear him speak.  I appreciated what he had to say, so I stuck around to listen to other people’s questions afterwards.  Since I hung out there for a long time I missed our program’s Oneg, but it was totally fine because I enjoyed listening to him.  Afterwards, at (I think, but am really not sure) about 11:00, a bunch of people headed down to the Kotel.  Some people said tehillim, some people learned, some sang, and some prayed… It was cool to be there with such few people and total quiet.  It was really cold, and after sitting there for a while I had to get up and do some toe-raises to warm up.  We hung out there for a while, and when I got back I went to sleep.

I woke up on Shabbat morning and went to the Kotel for Shacharit and Musaf.  There I saw my friends Sydney and Jesse, which was super nice!  After tefilah, I headed back up the Sephardic Center and we had Kiddush.  Then we had a program with the prize of free Burgers Bar (a really good but relatively expensive restaurant chain here) for the winning team, and I am pleased to announce that my Ashrei team kicked butt and we will be eating Burgers Bar with Rabbi Bryks at some point! Then we had a really great lunch all together.  Afterwards I went to a class from one of my madrichot, and then spent the remainder of the afternoon, until Mincha, with Sarah Varon and Adina Polack.  Mincha, Seudah, and Arvit were all good, then we had havdalah together.  We had a lot of dancing and singing, which was fun, and then lit a menorah together and had more singing and dancing- this time more geared towards Chanukah.  We headed home, and I slept through the bus ride which was perfect, and when we got home we actually lit chanukiahs.  I got to sleep relatively early because I knew that we had an early day on Sunday. 

Sunday, we were up and out by 8:00!  Prepared for a hike, I geared up like a true Owen reppin’ REI hiking boots/socks, a backpack, and a lightweight jacket. 

We drove for a couple hours to a place called Ein Ovdat, and we did an easy, hour-long hike.  It was totally beautiful though, because we started in what seemed like total desert and continued into this canyon thing with a small stream in it.  We rounded a corner and the dry land turned into beautiful yellow-leaved trees with wet ground.  It was really interesting to see how it changed so quickly because of the higher concentration of water.

When everyone was done with the hike we loaded up our buses and rolled out towards the middle of nowhere.  Why would we want to drive towards the middle of nowhere?  Bedouin tents.  When we got there, we all rode camels.  It was definitely much different than the donkeys we rode in eighth grade, but it was undeniably uncomfortable so I didn’t love it.  Good times, though.  I was in the first group of camel-riders, so once we were done we went into the Bedouin tent complex and put our stuff down in the sleeping tents.  I decided to explore a little bit, and found the bathrooms and whatnot.  For any of you who have not been to a Bedouin tent, I’m going to try to explain what it’s like because it’s exactly the opposite- in a good way- of anything I ever imagined it to be.  Here’s the picture:

Imagine being in what seems like the very middle of the desert.  You look to your left, you see sand and mountains; you look to your right, you see sand and valleys; you turn around, you see sand and rolling mountains; and when you look straight ahead, you see basically a brown, tall, modified tent-city with a fifteen-foot opening to the compound in front of you.  You walk towards and through the opening, and you see a big open space in a sort-of circle with many tent openings around it.  (By tent I don’t mean the kind of tent that is pitched at a campground, but rather the kind of tent that has one full side of burlap’ish material which folds up.)   You walk straight through the open circle area, and directly ahead there is a wall with a fire pit area about ten feet in front of it.  As you get closer, you realize that on the other side of the wall there were many camels and other animals.  Your directions were to turn right at the fire pit, so you do, and there you see a super long and deep, and about ten-foot tall, tent with tens of mattresses on the floor.  It is surprisingly nice. You decide that after you put your stuff down on a mattress you want to go explore a little bit.  Next to the big circle area, on your left after walking out of the tent, there is a huge teepee, with a fire about five feet into it, and a couple of Bedouins hanging out inside.  After the teepee there is a building with bathrooms, and when you turn left from that building you again see the big open circle space.  But, before it, you see a lovely shack with two boiling urns and a variety of fruit next to it.

That’s my attempt at giving an understanding for the Bedouin tent area.  When I saw the shack with hot drinks and fruit, I went over immediately to see if there was tea- because Bedouin tea is quite talked about, and, being a new tea-drinker, I wanted to try it.  As I walked over there, I saw my friend Jason, who helped me get into tea, standing next to the urns.  He said that one was coffee and one was tea, so we both took a cup of steaming hot tea and enjoyed it.  Then, everyone was told to go to the teepee for a welcome to the Bedouin tents.  A sweet-looking Bedouin man brought us in, and we all sat on the floor in a semi-circle around the fire.  One of my friends, Dorin, translated for him as he spoke to us about information on and the history of Bedouins.  He told us that if a Bedouin comes to your tent, and you don’t want him there, you should fill up his cup of coffee to the top- as opposed to about 80% full.  That made me wish that we could implement that into American society.  Can you imagine if every time you didn’t like or want to talk to someone you could fill up his or her coffee cup to the top and the person would just get up and leave?

We had a nice introduction, some free time, then met together outside the eating tent to say Arvit.  Afterwards we lit Chanukah candles then ate dinner.  Dinner was awesome!  I sat with a beautiful group of fellow Sephardim, for the most part, and we enjoyed the incredible spread together.  We started with random salatim and pitas, and were quickly brought a humungous lafa platter with mountains of rice, lentils, corn, stuffed peppers, and more on top of it.  Rabbi Menaged, our resident Sephardic Rabbi, made it quite clear that the only proper way to eat from it was to rip the lafa then scoop up food inside of it.  I must say that every part of the lafa platter was absolutely delicious, but I most enjoyed the stuffed peppers.  The next course was chicken on skewers and- wait for it- cinnamon stick kabobs.  Let me explain what that means. . . Take a cinnamon stick, clump ground beef around it, spice it, and cook it.  I think it was one of the most innovative methods of flavor-infusing that I have ever seen, and boy-oh-boy was it delicioso! I highly recommend it to anyone who is looking for a fun and unique new recipe, because it both looks good and tastes good.  Dessert was a plate of various baklava, cups of jello, and little satsumas.  After dinner we had free time for a while, then a fire pit.  We had marshmallows to roast, and skewers to do so with, and Rav Ari busted his guitar out.  We all ended up standing around the fire pit in circles and singing and dancing around, and we had such a fun time doing it.  It was really incredible to look up and see the vast sky perched above us.  After the fire pit, I went on a star-gazing adventure with the coolest woman ever named Mrs. Seigal and a bunch of my other friends.  We exited the Bedouin compound from the opposite side that we came in on, and decided to just walk until the light was no longer clouding our vision of the sky.  For the record, I was wearing flip flops because I only had those or hiking boots and didn’t feel like lacing up the boots.  It turned out to be a mistake, because I got a huge cut underneath one of my toenails which bled a lot and caused me far too much pain during the hikes thereafter.  Anyways, though, I so beyond enjoyed the star-gazing, because although we have some serious star action in and around Seattle it is far less amazing than the desert starry night.  We found a random spot, and most of us laid down on the ground to enjoy.  Seeing such a completely full sky of stars makes it really easy to get “lost” in the sky.  I saw a shooting star, which was great.  We spent a solid thirty or forty minutes out there, and when we came back I tended to my wounded toe. 

When I had finally cleaned it up, with help from one of my madrichim Samuel of Australia, I sat at the camp fire to listen to the end of a shiur that Rav Ari was giving.  When he finished I decided to eradicate the very strong smoke smell from my hair and body, and took a shower.  Thank G-d for the Bedouins and their hottest shower water I’ve experienced in forever!  What a great feeling cleanliness is.  I went to bed pretty soon after my shower, because wake-up was 4:20 A.M. for a sunrise hike up Masada.  When I got into our tent it was steaming hot, and I really didn’t need anything other than pajamas to sleep with.  However, not to my prior knowledge, the plan was to turn the heat off in the middle of the night.  Why? No one knows.  So, when I woke up about an hour and a half later shivering violently I was, to say the least, surprised.  I did my best to warm up by scrunching up into a ball, but it didn’t really work so well and I woke up again about twenty minutes later.  I put on a jacket and went back to sleep, but of course woke up again.  Then I decided to get into the sleeping bag that the Bedouins provided me with, which could be considered yucky but is also considered warm.  And since I was experiencing the coldest body temperature of my entire life, it was worth it to me to put the yuckyness on hold.  I still woke up again, but this time at 3:01 A.M, and when I saw that I got legitimately angry at the fact that the alarm wouldn’t go off for another hour and twenty minutes.  I was so cold that I tried to do jumping jacks inside of my sleeping bag, but it didn’t really work.  Somehow I managed to close my eyes and survive the duration of the allotted sleeping time, and when I heard the alarm go off I was the most excited I’ve ever been to wake up.  Just saying, my modeh ani was ridiculously energetic for a prayer that occurs upon getting up in the morning. 

I want to pause and throw out a shout-out to my first cousin Aiden Gindin, whose Bar Mitzvah it was this past weekend! I wanted and tried to Skype in to the party, but the Bedouins don’t exactly have such an appreciation for wifi or cell phone service.  It was super lame that I had to miss out on that opportunity, but I heard that he read Torah and spoke amazingly and that the party was awesome! So, although I am really sad that I missed out- both physically and technologically- I am really happy that all went well, and SO proud of him!

And here we have the second day of our Negev trip.  When I stood up to go brush my teeth and whatnot in the bathroom, I did about twenty jumping jacks which didn’t even warm me up.  Walking to a bathroom in complete darkness, if I may say so myself, makes a person feel like it is night time even if it isn’t because it’s only a little bit past 4:00 A.M.  Just a thought.  After I got dressed, continued to feel like a popsicle, and grabbed my stuff, I headed out of our tent with my stuff and was treated to a wonderfully hot cup of tea as well as a couple of crackers for the road.  I loaded my stuff on the bus, took a seat, and tried my best to mentally heat my body up.  It was weirdly successful, and by the time we got to Masada I was semi-content.  Despite it being a little bit after 5:30, and still freezing cold, I rolled out for the hike with shorts and a light jacket.  We went up the Roman path, which is basically a walk in the park, and I made it to the top with maybe a drop of sweat on my forehead, and in what felt like fifteen minutes.  The sun was nowhere near rising, and we all headed to the southwest side of Masada to a little deck area where we would be saying Shacharit. 

We spent a couple of minutes marveling at the view and getting ready for Shacharit, and then we started.  It was a truly incredible experience to pray Shacharit at the top of Masada, looking over the Dead Sea, as the sun gradually appeared on the horizon.  It was timed precisely so that the sun rose during the Amidah, which could not have been cooler. 

After Shacharit, we split up into two groups and got little tours of Masada.  It was truly lame that we couldn’t have spent more time up there, because it has an awesome history and we were already there.  We saw the synagogue, which was cool, as well as another room and some awesome views.  I hiked down the snake path with two of my friends, Noam and Jason, and when we all got down we ate breakfast at this place at the bottom of the mountain.  Most of it looked like really good food, but I could barely eat because of my non-dairy diet.  It was a nice breakfast, though.  On the way out, we grabbed pre-made schnitzel (yay, meat!!!) sandwiches for lunch for the day.  From there, we split up into two groups.  One would have an afternoon centered around the Dead Sea, and the second (better) group would go on an awesome, three-hour hike above the Ein Gedi springs.  Obviously I, and every other cool person on the program, picked the hike, because who wouldn’t! Just kidding, there were plenty of people who picked more time at the Dead Sea. 

When we got to the starting point for the hike, we were at a beautiful lookout point over the Dead Sea.  Little did we know that the view would only get bigger and better, because we were going to climb upwards.  The first thirty’ish minutes of the hike was all total up, and it was awesome.  I loved feeling like we were literally climbing a mountain-side, because we were, and being able to notice the progress by the quality of the view.  At what we thought was the highest point of the hike, we had to climb up about ten feet of rock to really get to the highest point.  It was a scary kind of awesome to know that with one wrong step I would be falling off of the mountain.  Thank G-d, no such wrong step was made and all went according to plan.  At the front of our group of hikers, we had about five people consistently—The Wolf Pack. 

We hiked up, down, and around for about three hours until we got to the Ein Gedi springs.  What a perfect feeling it was to cool down by sticking my head and body underneath a waterfall. .. Just saying, it was awesome. 

When everyone finished the hike, we loaded our bus and drove for about half an hour to the Dead Sea.  We spent about forty minutes there, but since I was freezing cold from going in the waterfall I didn’t go in the Dead Sea.  In addition to my low body temperature, because of the cut on my toe from the night before I was quite fearful of the screaming pain I would have been in if I went into the very salty water that is the Dead Sea.  So, instead, I watched some of my friends go in, and hung out with the other cold/cut up girls.  Afterwards we met the other bus at this pier place, said Mincha, and we were on our marry way to our destination for the night.

We got to the place we were staying at in Yerucham (a.k.a. the actual middle of nowhere) and jumped on the shower opportunities that were awaiting us.  Great feeling to be clean after that day.  We all lit Chanukah candles together in the lobby, and had dinner afterwards.  Because of the super busy day of hiking that about half of us did, we consumed a lot of food.  For real though, I kept comments from people at my table about how they could eat all night long.  I love when I feel like the eating I’m doing is completely to fuel my body from the energy that I expended… Definitely had that.  At 9:00 we had a Texas Hold ‘em poker tournament, which I for some reason decided to take part in, and we had a really good time.  There were about five or six tables, of seven players, and the top two from each table would go to the Final Table.  A friend of mine, Maya, and I somehow both won our table (whattup!), but we also both decided that bed was much more important than the Final Table.  Hahaha.  So, no one from our table went to the Final Table, which obviously made it much easier for my friend Jason to end up winning the whole thing—including a free steak dinner. 

The next day we planned to leave at 7:30ish, so we had an okay breakfast at 7.  We loaded up the buses, drove for less than half an hour through desert, desert, and more desert, and stopped in what seemed like a different middle of the desert than the Bedouin tents.  After about a minute of exploration when we got off the bus, I realized that there was in fact a trail-head. 

I’ve never done a hike that was anything similar to this one.  It really felt like we were just wandering through the desert.  In fact, if we didn’t have two tour guides and trail-markers, I would call what we were doing wandering.  It was so cool, though, to look around, in each direction, and see nothing but dirt mountains and valleys.  One of the tour guides, Yossi, showed us this awesome plant!  If you take a branch or two, hold it, and rub it between your hands until it cracks open, it completely purifies your hands! It’s like nature’s Purell.

And, he said, when combined with a different plant, which we did not come across, it turns into Shampoo!

About half way into the hike we went through a waterless river-bed, and we were going further and further down.  Obviously this meant that we would eventually have to climb way, way up, but we didn’t really know when or how.  All of the sudden, the trail-marker pointed 90 degrees upwards.  You’d think the rock with the trail-marker had just been knocked over, or something, but really that is exactly what it was supposed to look like!  We climbed up the side of a mountain, literally, for five to ten minutes.  Since I was basically in the front of the group, I got such a cool picture of everyone else hiking up the mountain way below us:

We hung out at the top for a couple of minutes to take a break, then began our decent.  It took about fifteen minutes for us to get down, and the first bus-full of people to finish loaded up and headed over to gas station that was not even 1/4^th of a mile away from the trail-end.  After we had all been there and had a sufficient amount of time to go to the bathroom or buy snacks, we got back on the bus and drove for about thirty seconds.  There, we split into two groups.  One to go Jeeping first, the second to go repelling first.  My group went repelling first

It was fun, in principle, but since we were all exhausted from the hike and it wasn’t the most exciting repelling wall, there wasn’t so much energy going on.  It was a good experience, and I’m glad I went.  Then we switched and went jeeping… Not sure I feel the same way about jeeping.  When we went with the Early Start group it was an awesome experience, but this time it was like a drive with some bumps sometimes.  Honestly, I slept for the entire first half of the ride.  I felt badly because the driver asked what was wrong with me—I think I offended him and his lack of jeep-driving skills.  It was a nice and necessary nap nonetheless. 

When we all finished both activities, we got on the buses and headed back to Yerucham.  I thought I appreciated the shower the night before, but I loved it so much more after the hike that was actually through the dirt of the desert.  I guess I could just be thankful for all of my showers all the time, but whatever.  We had a charity auction for the night program, which was surprisingly awesome and successful.  People auctioned off different talents or classes or services, and people in the crowd bid on them.  Originally, I thought that the bidding would go up to maybe twenty shekel a piece.  People ended up bidding hundreds of shekel for most of the items, which was really cool.  We raised a lot of money, had a great time, and people got some good stuff out of it.  Great program! I hung out with Noam and Jason for a while after and had some tea, then it was bed time. 

In the morning, we loaded up the buses after breakfast, and most people went right to sleep.  The destination for the day was Eilat, which was a couple hour drive away from Yerucham.  Instead of sleeping, I talked on the phone for a while then talked with people around me.  I think I fell asleep for about twenty minutes.  When we got to the most beautiful city of Eilat, we had about two hours of free time on the Boardwalk.  I spent it with Adina (Polack).  First, we walked around for a little bit, then parked it on some rocks on the beach and just soaked up the sun as we talked.  Good stuff, if I may say so myself. 

We all met up a little before 1:00 to go on a glass-bottom cruise.  Obviously that sounds cool, but you don’t understand how cool until you’ve been on it.  First of all, the lunch they served us was delicious.  Secondly, the view was stunning because the water is so clear and blue from the top of the boat—yum.  Thirdly, when we got to the mid-way point in the boat ride and we slowed down and were welcomed to the bottom of the boat, the glass-bottom view was unreal!  It’s crazy how crystal clear the water is.  I really felt like I was swimming with the beautiful fishies that were around us.  The expansiveness and depth to the ocean made me want to go snorkeling or scuba diving so badly! We saw all different sizes of fish, eels, the reefs, and much more.  I totally loved it.

After the glass-bottom boat ride, the bus headed back home.  After four or five hours we made it back, and I hung out for a little bit and lit candles before going to bed.  I rested, did laundry, and did some work on Thursday then hung out with Ilana Greenberg and Sarah Varon for the night. 

The three of us went to a beautiful Yishuv (specific kind of community) called Kochav Ha’shachar for Shabbat.  How did we get there?  Ilana and Sarah met this really nice family in a schwarma restaurant a couple weeks ago, and after talking for a while the family invited them for a Shabbat.  Obviously they took them up on their offer, and I tagged along.  What a beautiful place to live.  Overlooking Jordan and the Jordan valley, they have about 350 families who live together on this hilltop.  The scenery is obviously stunning, and the whole community was soooo nice and peaceful.  What a great way to spend Shabbat!

Tomorrow I have Ulpan and Magen David Adom on the schedule… I’m going to find out how I did on my test- crazy!

Shavua Tov to all!

Happy Tuesday!

I have good news, everybody!  Today is Tuesday! Do you know what that means?? Only two more days of classes until a nice, long Chanukah break.  Hurray!  I know you're all as excited about that as I am, especially those of you who continue to have school or work during Chanukah, so let us all celebrate together.  

The only thing that I'm not really celebrating over here is that fact that I have a nice, big Biology mid-term tomorrow and a Psychology mid-term on Thursday to follow.  The plan is to just punch out studying in the easiest, fastest, and most effective ways possible, because quite frankly I need sleep between now and Friday.  So I guess my goals are to sleep, study, and learn in the rest of my classes.  Good stuff.  

Unfortunately I am somehow in the middle of a cold, which is confusing to me because I just recently had the flu and I definitely don't usually get sick so soon after I get over something.  No worries, though, people.  I am taking care of business over here in terms of sleeping and hydrating well, and I should be back to normal in a jiff.  Haha.  

This Shabbat, we'll be in the Old City of Yerushaliam, which is sure to be a party.  Plan, as I hear it, is to stay at the Sephardic Hertitage Center, which is where my class stayed in 8th grade.  Blast from the past, if I've ever had one!  It should definitely be a fun time though, because everyone will likely have friends around and it's nice to be in the middle of everything.  Plus, I've yet to be in the Old City for a Shabbat.  So this is good.  Side not about Shabbat: This Shabbat with be my cousin Aiden's Bar Mitzvah... Totally unbelievable to me! I'm so sad that I'm missing it, but so excited for him at the same time.  Mazal Tov, Aiden!!

I'm trying to think of a good story to share with you all, because I do believe that it has been far too long since I have done so.  Sadly, there aren't any that are really coming to mind.  The only thing I can say is this:

As you may know, I spent Shabbat with many of my Seattle friends in honor of my birthday.  We had a super lovely dinner, and afterwards we said Birkat Hamazon and had a little dessert.  My favorite part of the whole Shabbat was that within five minutes of Birkat Hamazon, the whole room broke out into totally chaotic screaming/super passionate arguments.  Why in the world was that, of all things, my favorite part? Because it's SO classic Seattle.  And even more classic Seattle teenagers. Why? Because each one of us has three thousand opinions about each and every little thing, which makes it impossible to have a conversation using only inside voices.  Some think it's crazy or obnoxious, but I love it.  It shows that we're all thinking human beings.  And of course we listen to one another and learn from each of many opinions that stem from each person.  So, when I looked at Ilana and said, "Welcome Home" with a smile on my face, I really felt it.  Good stuff.  

Okay, I don't have so much more to say.. Both because my brain is preoccupied with Biology thoughts, and because I'm not thinking of interesting stories or occurrences to share.  Thank G-d, next week we'll be in the Negev and Eilat so I will likely have many journeys and adventures to share each day.  

Have a wonderful week!