A Very Busy Week

Sorry it's been awhile, but unfortunately not much had happened until the last week or so, and then I got a concentrated dose of activity. Be patient through this blog, there's a lot... February 2- Made my way on a couple buses down to an area called Emek Refaim to have a dinner/movie date with my friend/former coworker Michal Kabatznik. She recently made aliyah (moving to Israel) and is essentially half American, half Israeli. We had dinner at a cute restaurant called Kafit, which has amazing food, of all kinds. Then we traveled on more buses to the Malcha Mall to see the Benjamin Button movie, which again had an intermission if you don't remember. In the end, Michal offered me her companionship and Israeli knowledge, which are both an asset here. February 3- Our ulpan class was ended a little early so we could go on a historical tour of the campus. It wasn't the most interesting tour I've been on, but in the end, we were taken up to the rooftop of the school, where we saw an amazing view (see attached photo). February 5- I attended (along with friends) a political rally for Benjamin Netanyahu in the Crowne Plaza hotel, downtown Jerusalem. I won't say that I believe in all of his political stances, but it was very fun to go hear him talk. I sat in the second row, and was very close. He spoke in English, with this rally directed at the 250,000 English speakers living/voting in this country. We also got some free stuff and had a great time hearing the potential leader (and a very similar physical replica of my Uncle Avi) of this country speak 30 feet from where I sat. February 6-7- Definitely the highlight of this blog... I went up north to the Golan (the disputed territory in northern Israel) for Shabbat. I went with this orthodox/frum group of people/organization who work for a man named Jeff Seidel. They didn't force religion on us at all, instead, provided the opportunity for us to participate and learn from them if we wanted. But anyways, the day began with the bus leaving Jerusalem at 6:30 am on Friday. We arrived at a place called Manara to ride a cable car up to the top. From there, we could either choose to take a zipline halfway down (which looked like a lot of fun) OR we could rapel down a 42 meter cliff (~137 ft). As you could guess, I rapelled down a cliff in Israel!!!! It was absolutely the most terrifying thing I've ever done, but by far the COOLEST thing I've ever done. After which, we had to hike about 10 minutes straight back up to get to the top. Only 3 people chose to rapel, and all 3 of us were girls. Then we drove to a place called Ramat Naftali to go ATVing. There weren't enough ATVs for everyone, so I ended up driving this little off road golf-cart thing, but it was ok, I still had a blast driving through vineyards and orchards and resting at one of the most stunning views from one of the highest points in the Golan. At one point, we were standing 5 km from Lebanon. After ATVing, we drove to a hotel called Kinar near the Kinneret. This hotel was kind of cool for me to see because it was Shomer Shabbat hotel (this meant that it observes all aspects of the Sabbath, so the lights are on a timer, etc). I've never seen so many Orthodox Jews running around with their 30 children (slight exaggeration, but not really). We were mixed in with kids from Tel Aviv University and Beer Sheva and had a very pleasant Shabbat, eating and relaxing at this hotel by the Kinneret. I spent the majority of my evening (after Shabbat dinner) sitting on the shore of the Kinneret in the moonlight with a few other friends. In addition, our security guard/medic for the trip was a guy named Arye, who was born in America but his family made Aliyah here 19 years ago (he's 24). The most interesting thing about him was that he was in the recent operation in Gaza, he just got back 2 weeks ago. I spent many hours talking with him, hearing his war stories (and man does he have a lot). In the end, I learned that he actually lives 6 floors above me and is going to be a great resource to have here! All in all, it was a wonderful weekend of major excitement followed by much relaxing. Thanks for being so patient with my long blogs, things just come in clumps sometimes! -Talia