Fun in the sun in Tel Aviv

This past weekend I visited the city of Tel Aviv. It was a lot of fun but a little more on the expensive side. So here's what I was up to: Thursday, March 19- Went to Tel Aviv as part of a sponsored event by the organization who gave me a scholarship here, called MASA. We got to go on a tour of part of Tel Aviv, and I went on a tour of Old Jaffa. This is the big port area and there are lots of art-sy areas around here. Actually, it was funny because as we were walking around, our tour guide brought us to this hanging tree in the middle of the city...the same place that I was with my family 10 years ago. So of course I took a picture with it. Then around 10:30 we got back to the bar where the band GAYA was going to be playing for us to have "dinner", or at least that's what they advertised. By the time we got there, mostly everything they were offering had been eaten, except for some terrible falafel and a couple of pitas. Anyways, we GAYA performed for awhile and then after it turned into a dance party which was fun. We left at 1:30 to go find our hostel. Friday, March 20- After a fairly early morning wake up to check out of the hostel and into our next hostel (which was cheaper), we decided to go walk around a street called Nachlat Binyamin. Every Tuesday and Friday, this street is turned into an art fair, with tons of jewelry stands and paintings and lots of little craftmakers making things you never would have thought of. I found a pretty ring that I purchased for only 15 shekels! After that we wandered down to the Dizengoff mall, not to go in it but because we knew that area had lots of fun shops around it. After walking around for several hours, we stopped for lunch at a little cafe near the mall, where I met up with my friend Ofir from camp! She is studying media at Tel Aviv U, so it was nice to meet up with her before she headed home to Haifa for the weekend. After a late lunch, we were in the mood for some dessert, so Ofir took us to a frozen yogurt shop very similar to a place in NYC called Pinkberry. So the frozen yogurt here in Israel is different than in the states, it's more sour here. It literally is their plain yogurt in it's frozen form. Anyways, so at this frozen yogurt place you can put almost as many toppings as you can fit on your froyo. Fruit is the main topping to put on, with kiwi and pineapple and strawberries galore, plus several flavors of syrup, and many kinds of nuts. It was just absolutely delicious and exactly what we all wanted. Then Ofir left to go home and we continued walking around, through the Shuk to see if we could get anything really cheaply. We were able to get a lot of Challah and other croissant type treats for basically free since it was right before Shabbat. Afterwards, we returned to our hostel for a brief refresher nap/shower and then went to have dinner at a nearby Ethiopian restaurant. As I was starting to feel sick (my stomach bug hasn't quite left me yet) I called it a pretty early evening as almost everyone else stayed out at the pubs. Saturday, March 21- My stomach bug chose not leave me alone on Saturday, so I took it pretty easy. I walked around on the boardwalk with my friends for awhile, enjoying the sunshine and the sea. Then we came across something really interesting. About 100 people were participating in Israeli folk dancing to music that was playing. We sat and watched them for awhile before I realized I knew one of the women dancing...she was the dance teacher at camp when I was there! We talked for a bit and she invited me dancing with her there, but as I still wasn't feeling well, I just observed. My friends then decided they wanted to walk down to Jaffa and explore the area down there, but again, I passed since I was feeling nauseous. Instead, I spent my afternoon lounging on the beach, under the beautiful sunshine. We caught a sherut (big taxi for a lot of people) back to Jerusalem that evening, and I just stayed in from exhaustion. Sunday, March 22- This part of my weekend wasn't in Tel Aviv, but it was quite an experience. So there was this food festival at the Shuk in the evening, a mixture of Grandmother chefs and actual restaurant chefs. The food was pretty cheap and you could go up and down the shuk trying all the different dishes out there. I went to check it out with a couple new Israeli friends I made here, and when we got there...absolutely CHAOS!! I can't even begin to describe to you how crowded and pushy it was (although to my family who was in DC for July 4th with me, it was that crowd x10 with the Israeli aggressive pushy attitude!). The funniest and saddest story that came out of that experience was that after we realized we weren't getting anywhere to get food because of the crowds, we decided to leave, and as I was leaving, there was a father with his 3 young small children in front of me. The children were crying and screaming because they were so afraid of the crazy crowds. We left and got some food elsewhere because it just wasn't worth getting trampled to death. Craziness! I enjoy your comments and they let me know you're actually reading these blogs, so leave me lots of comments!

Purim and Rappelling Trip

So my week continued with school keeping me mostly busy. But a few interesting things happened. Mar 9- As part of my curriculum here, I’m participating in an internship with an organization called StandWithUs. They seek to promote a positive image of Israel in communities throughout the world through various media. Anyways, my boss, who’s really a young girl about 24, firmly believes in saving the soldier Gilad Shalit. For those of you who don’t know about his situation, you should check it out online, but the short story is that he’s an Israeli soldier who’s captured and being held somewhere in Gaza. Hamas is really only willing to trade him for thousands of terrorists that Israel holds in their prisons. So continuing on with my story, outside of the Prime Minister’s house a couple different groups have a booth that stands there all day every day collecting signatures in support of Shalit and in support of trading for him, while across the street, a protest goes on against this, by the families of the victims’ of terrorists’ attacks. It’s quite a spectacle to watch this and at times, you don’t really know whose side you’re on, but I stood at the Shalit table helping to attract people over there because my boss firmly supports this side. It was quite an eye-opener. Mar 10-11- You want to talk about an eye-opener, come visit Israel over the Jewish holiday called Purim. Oh my gosh, I’ve never seen such madness. Basically, this holiday is an excuse for the entire country to drink more alcohol than I’ve ever seen consumed at one point. Everyone dresses up in costumes, as per the holiday, and drinks to oblivion. The commandment for this holiday is called “Ad lo yada” which means until you don’t know, and the commandment says to drink until you can’t tell the difference between the good and bad guys in the story of Esther (so Mordechai and Haman). I personally feel no need to follow that commandment, so instead I just observed the spectacle. Two other things I noticed during this madness… 1) As sad as this sounds, this time period seems like the perfect target for terrorist attacks as thousands of people are gathered in small areas and everyone is covered in costumes. 2) The reason I noticed this is because as I was standing on a very crowded Ben Yehuda street, people were throwing firecrackers down and it sounded like many little explosions. For those of us not used to that sound, we half expected to see people flying at any minute, which was a little scary. Overall, I did not really enjoy this holiday, but it was an experience. I especially didn’t enjoy it because I was missing my mother’s hamenstaschen, which are the triangle shaped cookies eaten for this holiday, and the ones made here (which are actually called Oznei-Haman in Hebrew/Israel) are not filled with the same fruity fillings that my mom uses. But at least one good thing that comes out of this holiday is something called Mishloach Manot. This is a tradition of giving goodies to people, usually in need, but people just give gift baskets of yummy treats to anyone and everyone. I received one from a friend and it had lots of tasty treats inside  Mar 13- I went on a rappelling trip with my school to explore the area of the Qumran Caves. This is where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. We began the trip very early in the morning and hiked up to the top of this spectacular mountain. It was a tough hike up, as we were literally crawling on our hands and feet at times to clamber up over the rocks. There were about 30 of us students, plus 2 “madrichim” which are counselors, plus 2 medics/armed guards (a requirement for big school trips around Israel), plus 2 guides. It took us quite awhile to get everyone to the top and set up, but it was well worth the wait. They explained to us that we would be doing 3 rappels, off cliffs that were about 100 ft, 50 ft, and 150 ft. Then they told us the more challenging part. These caves are technically located in the desert, but because of their location, they frequently receive copious amounts of water rushing through, and sometimes, the water doesn’t dry up fast enough. So basically our guides told us we were going to be rappelling into water 1.5 meters (that’s about 5 ft), meaning head to toe covered in water. Everyone went into a mass (read: slight) panic because we weren’t expecting to get wet and also because everyone had cameras and phones. Anyways, those were put into a special bag that was sent down differently, so that’s why you will not see many pictures from this trip, but the experience was worth it. I’m now a much more comfortable rappeller, as I have conquered many cliffs and I’m not so afraid of them anymore. It was amazing to rappel down these cliffs only to land in pools of freezing water and have to unclip yourself, send the rope back up, and swim across the pool fully clothed to the other bank…3 times over! I had a great time and I will post the few pictures I have from this trip. So that’s the updates for now…this weekend, as I said before, was uneventful due my sudden illness that literally took everything out of me, but I’m recovering now and will continue updating you on my Israel adventures!

Adventures in Jerusalem

Ok ok I know I’m slacking big time on my blogs, but I did have a mild excuse. I was all set to blog this weekend and then I somehow contracted some sort of stomach bug, and spent my weekend crawling between my bed and the toilet. As I’m now taking one personal day from school and I’m slowly on the mend, I figured I could at least sit here and type up what’s been going on in my life. Mar 5- I went to see a concert here in Jerusalem by a group called the Idan Raichel Project. If you know nothing of his music, you should become familiar, it’s great. He’s an Israeli musician (Idan Raichel) who formed a band of people from all over the world, although his two biggest singer stars are Ethiopian. They sing in many languages and play instruments, and perform wonderful music! This concert was put on privately for all of us who participated in this organization called MASA, which basically gives out thousands of dollars in scholarships to students coming to study in Israel. There were thousands of people at this concert, but almost all were American and almost all were probably under 21. I went to a smaller performance by him in the states, actually at my school, which I enjoyed a little better because of the intimacy of the gig, but this time, listening and dancing to his music with soooo many other people who enjoy his music as much as I do was a lot of fun. My two friends who I visited in Haifa actually came to Jerusalem for the concert (and to visit/stay for the weekend) so a couple of us walked around downtown Jerusalem afterwards. We stopped off at a very yummy place called Babbet’s for waffles. The waffles here are famous, and it’s one of the great late night foods to snack on. Mar 6- There were 5 of us hanging out this weekend that were part of the Neri/Jess visit, and we decided to walk around the Old City in the morning before Shabbat. Sadly, despite the fact that I live in Jerusalem, I hadn’t been to the Old City on this trip yet. I don’t know why, it just worked out that way. Anyways, we got a nice tour-ish thing around the Old City by the sort-of boyfriend of one of the girl’s who lives in the Old City, and that was really nice. We visited the Kotel, and walked all up and down the streets, stopping at a few stores. Then we walked from there to Ben Yehuda street and then the Shuk (marketplace). We earned our food that day from all our walking. We finished our Friday off with a wonderful potluck Shabbat dinner at my place, with 9 people bringing so many yummy dishes, it was one of the best meals I’ve had. Mar 7- The next day was rather uneventful, but since we had absolutely beautiful weather, we laid out in the sun on the yard in the Kfar for awhile, enjoying our time together. That night we all went downtown again and found a semi-quiet bar, King’s Bar, to chill out in, where our old camp friend Jacob Sager joined us in the festivities for awhile.