הסוף, והתחלה חדשה

Have you ever noticed how all of my blog posts written between midnight and 4 AM? Maybe it’s because I think more at night. Maybe it’s because the nighttime brings out emotions. Maybe it’s because I need more sleep. Yeah, it’s probably that.

I wish I wasn’t writing this. I don’t want it to be over. #cliché. Yep. I used a hashtag in a sentence. Get on my level. Now back to being sad. 5 months. Over and done with. So many things done. So many things not done. So many ‘stories to tell the grandkids’. And I’m going to miss every second of it. Walking my multitude of ways from the dorms to Building 90. Hanging out and sleeping on the plushy red things in the OSP office. Kapiyot borekas. 10₪ Shakshuka during Ulpan until 11. Zygota burgers. Munchilla. Zygota burger with goat cheese. Beit Holim Soroka, Universita! Meeester Daglas. Getting weird looks from Adi everywhere and responding with weirder ones. Sarah being the nicest person ever. Adi being the meanest, evilest person ever. Shabbat at Benzi and Rakefet’s. The long walk to the JSeids house every Monday night. The weird guy from Lotan talking about pee-pee. Sitting out under the stars in Machtesh Ramon. The beach at Nitzanim. Ima’s Kube. Too much wine at Shabbat. The days when Nisha was innocent. Long lines and annoyed clerks at Shufersal. Trying to figure out the correct pronunciation of שופרסל. Complaining about Israeli cleanliness with Ilana. Forcing my way through the lines to get tickets at Reggae BaMidbar. Getting banned from the Irish Bar. POIKE. Roadside shwarma. Hearing Sam and Ava from across campus. Wine festival. The cheeses at wine festival. Spending Rosh Hashanah in the Old City. Tiv Taam. Rockets on Sam’s balcony. Midnight drunk walk to the Western Wall. Kayaking in the Golan. Hiking in the Golan. Failing at hiking in the Golan. Meeting the mayor of Be’er Sheva two weeks after arriving. Winning that race. Finding the hidden mall behind BIG. Random concert at random kibbutz with random guy I met hitchhiking. Sunset on the beach with Goldstars and Chloe’. Aifo Shay????? Not being allowed to hike because of flash floods. Biking through the streets of Tel Aviv and Yafo. As a child, I mashed potatoes. Clive getting at least 1 phone call and 3 texts in every class. Not listening to Natan. JACKIE. Not actually being able to speak Arabic. Israeli roomates. Still not knowing one of my roommates’ name. Panic attack on the first day of the Israeli semester. Expensive everything at Aroma. Crappy pizza everywhere except Faculta. Concerts at HaHalutz 33. Beginning of the year Hadag Nahash concert. Dance parties in the office. AIN’T NOBODY GOT TIME FOR THAT. Learning to make Shakshuka. Buying my own groceries on a regular basis for the first time. Accidentally taking the 446 instead of the 470 and spending 2 and a half hours on the stupid bus contemplating life. Yelling at the spoiled Israeli 9 year old brat on the train and getting congratulated for it. Obnoxious convert guy, Victor. Halloween party. Getting yelled at by lady in Supersal for not knowing how to use the self checkout. Fresh challah and bagels on Friday morning from the supermarkets. Walking across town to get Shwarma on Sukkot. Birthday fireworks. Skyping with Danielle during the Balagan. Getting evacuated to Sde Boker. Getting evacuated back to Be’er Sheva (thank god). Being truly scared for the first time in my life. Sunrise Masada hike instead of 9AM 115 degree Masada hike. Doing absolutely nothing in Sde Boker. Clive thinking we’re actually going to work on a paper during the balagan. That cute puppy who followed us to the dining hall. Going to the spa for Ben Gurion Day. Sneaking back to Be’er Sheva during the balagan and seeing the city empty. Week-late birthday party at Kampai. Clarissa surprising me at my birthday party. CATS. EVERYWHERE. Not getting a free Schnitzeleh with my frequent customer card. OSP event of the century not being the event of the century. Those games on the Golan trip. The amazing group, hikes, everything on the Golan Trip. “This jeep smells nice, because there are only girls here’. “Toda”. SHOSHI. Stealing a Danger, Mines sign from the Syrian border. Adi=אמא, Sarah=אבא. Seeing coyotes in the morning on the failed Golan hike. Actually enjoying the failed Golan hike. Classic. Ya Zoe. Still not being entirely sure how the printers work. Forgetting tickets to Baraka, then finding 4 on the ground on the walk back. Roza. Einshtein. Coca. Passaflora nargila. Nana tea. Challah making and the pictures it produced. Stealing Shoshana’s phone. Being able to have full conversations in Hebrew. Teaching Adi how to pronounce the ‘th’ sound. Batsheva always smiling and being happy. Bookman Old Style. Going to Hevron during Chayei Sarah (my torah portion). Rockets on Clive’s field trip. Chris Christie is the leader of the JNF? The many sights and smells of Be’er Sheva. Sitting in the aisle on the Jerusalem bus. Midnight guitar and singing on the edge of the cliff in Sde Boker. Spending five months with a group with such an amazing dynamic and cohesion.

I’ve done so much, yet I’ve done so little. There are so many things I didn’t get to do. And it’s been an internal dilemma and critical decision of the State of Israel whether or not I want to stay here or go home more. And I’ve been typing here for over two hours intermittently laughing, crying, re-enacting, and reliving in my mind as much as I can remember. And all of it was amazing. This whole trip was nothing I could have imagined. But from the moment I got off the bus in from of the Meonot until the moment I board the plane home tomorrow night, midnight 01 January 2013, has been the greatest adventure I have ever embarked on. I will forget none of it, and treasure the myriad of memories made. And regardless of whether or not Verizon decides they want to give me my upgrade discount and I get a phone and a phone number back home, I’ll make sure to keep in touch with everyone. Israel, this isn’t a permanent goodbye (especially if Benzi has his way), only a temporary l’hitraot, because this won’t be the last time Meestehr Daglas comes to visit. Just a small note for next time, please hold the fireworks.

A Novel Concept

Normalcy. A novel concept. Who'd have thought that everyday routines would be missed? Who'd have thought that Be'er Sheva would be missed? But, who'd have thought it would be gone? Wednesday 14 November is a day I won't soon forget. Nor will I forget the week that followed. We left the barrage of rockets early Thursday morning. We went hiking at Masada (מצדה). We went hiking at Sde Boker. We stayed in nice hostels in Sde Boker. We had meals provided for us. We had counsellors who put up with all of our crap (They deserve medals. And a raise). But, on top of all of the great things the OSP provided for us last week, it wasn't normal. It wasn't familiar. Everything seemed surreal. I mean, why would we ever go to a spa in Israel? Regardless of how amazingly relaxing it was, it wasn't normal. Or cheap. I mean, 60₪ for lunch? Ripoff...

But on Wednesday night, the ceasefire was announced. And on Thursday, we got the all-clear to return to campus. Cue celebration. Finally, after a week of being the most spoiled 'refugees' on the planet, we were going back. Back to Be'er Sheva. Back to normalcy. Back to our 6-month home. And finally, I could celebrate my birthday. I turned 20 on Friday the 16^th, but it just didn't feel right to have any sort of party. But we were back. So let’s party. We went to my favourite restaurant, Kampai, for some Bamba sushi and Sufganiot, the best dishes in the world. And to make the night even better, Clarissa came down from Tel Aviv and surprised me, even though she was sick and had to be back in TA in the morning. On Friday, we went to Rakefet’s for a Thanksgiving-esque Shabbat dinner. While it wasn’t Dad’s cooking, it was still an excellent way to welcome us back to B7. And to top off the return to normalcy, whether we liked it or not, Clive’s Environment paper was due yesterday (Sunday). What a great way to spend your Saturday. Also, note that this post is written in Bookman Old Style font, my new best friend.

Classes started back up yesterday and everything is putting itself back together after a week of disorder, balagan and rockets. As for me, I’m good. Yes, I was shaken, not stirred, after Wednesday night, and for most of the week, every loud noise made me jump a little. And the IDF didn’t help by shooting test missiles and having gun practice nearby every place we stayed. And I didn’t feel comfortable at Sde Boker, to no fault of anyone but my nerves. Like Adi, I just wanted to be back in Be’er Sheva, because (and mind you, I like being in small towns, but) like I said to a few people over the past week: Sde Boker is somewhere nice to visit, or to commute to to have classes. And Be’er Sheva isn’t a place to travel to, because there isn’t much here for a traveller to do. But it IS home. I’ve established myself here. I’ve got my routines. I know where the good restaurants are (BTW, I’m really craving a Zygote burger, if anyone wants to go soon). I have my classes here. I can go anywhere easily from here. And by god I’m glad to be back. Nothing could make me unhappy this week. Except Jackie’s paper. That might make me pull my hair out. 

49 Hours

It’s been 49 hours since the first siren. And everything is surreal. Nothing feels like reality anymore. Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Caught in a rocket attack. Escaping with only 2 hours of sleeeeeep. As I sit here in the hostel in Sde Boker, enjoying the second cup of tea I’ve ever drunk/drinken/dranked/drinked, it’s been 49 hours since the first siren sounded over Be’er Sheva; 52 hours since the IAF strike on Hamas’s military chief, {someone}. And since then, I've gotten maybe 7 hours of sleep. If that. Everything feels weird when you haven’t slept. But now, nothing even seems real. Is this some sick, fucked up joke that my mind is playing on me? Is all of this going to go away as soon as I wake up from this hellish nightmare? God, I hope so. I’d give anything for this mess to stop. But even on birthdays, your wish probably won’t come true.

It’s been 49 hours since that first siren. And I still hear them everywhere. When I hear a motorcycle. When a plane flies overhead. When the kids playing in the street yell. When the gazelles, I mean Ibexes, run past. Basically, when I hear sound, my mind hears the start of a siren. And there’s no escaping it. I tried playing music on my laptop, and I still heard it. Listening to the wind howl around me as I watched the sunrise atop Masada, I heard it from every direction, as I did sitting in my room Wednesday night. My heart has dropped more times in the past two days than ever before. I didn't stop shaking until mid-Thursday afternoon. Everyone has been asking each other if we’re okay. And I think we collectively lie in an attempt to make the other person feel more secure. But inside, not even deep inside, we’re all panicking.

It’s been 49 hours since that first siren. And I’m becoming less and less sure about anything as the time passes. Our original plan was to go to Jerusalem on Sunday. But now rockets have fallen in both major cities in the centre of the country. Now we have nothing, except to stay here. In a tiny kibbutz in the middle of nowhere. Which in all honesty is probably the safest place we could be outside of the Dead Sea area. But still, civilisation is comforting. Even with rockets falling, I feel more secure in numbers. And OSP group, I love all of you, but having only 8 of you plus 3 counselors is less comforting than having hundreds of students surrounding me in a shelter, or thousands of people surrounding me in the city. I honestly just want my blanket. Or a hug.

It’s been 49 hours since that first siren. And everyone at home seems to be freaking out more than I am. Which is saying something. Of course the parents are scared. Hell, I wouldn’t sleep if my child was 6,000 miles away in a war zone. The Facebook posts on all of our walls aren’t much comfort, although being able to communicate with close friends and family is helping somewhat. I want everyone to stop worrying and know that I’m safe. But honestly, I’m not entirely sure I feel that way. I got my first email from Dickinson acknowledging that they remembered I was in Israel and that they watch the news occasionally. I think the most unexpected thing, however, was the phone call I received from one of my professors at BGU this morning. Natan left a voicemail message saying in true, British form that if I wanted to extend my paper from 5 pages to 100 to cover all of the first hand accounts I was getting, he would allow it. But, out of character, he ended the call telling me to stay safe and get back to his class soon. And he sounded very concerned. Which, while very unlike him, was a nice virtual hug from a man who, until now, I didn’t really like. If only I could get a few more real hugs right now. And maybe some peace. Wouldn’t that be nice…

It’s been 49 hours since that first siren. And I don’t know anything anymore. I can’t speculate on this. I don’t know what we’re going to do after tomorrow. I don’t know when we’ll go back to Be’er Sheva. I don’t know if we’re ever going back. I don’t know if I’ll finish the semester. I don’t know if we’ll be able to leave this awful-smelling hostel. I don’t even know where we’re eating breakfast in the morning. I don’t know anything anymore.

It’s been 49 hours since that first alarm. And it’s my birthday. What a great present. Aren’t I the luckiest? I know. Happy Birthday to me…

It’s been 49 hours since that first alarm. And it still hasn’t stopped. And it doesn’t look like it will anytime soon.

It’s been 50 hours since that first alarm. 

A Hardening

Get your minds out of the gutter...

This morning, when I wrote my other post, I couldn't fathom how anyone could hear these sirens, and rockets, and explosions, and not be shaken, not be as visibly scared as I am. I couldn't understand how all of the Israelis in my apartment weren't freaking out, and instead being calm. And it took until after Round 7 for me to calm down, which in the case of a rocket attack isn't really anyone's imagined version of calm. But it wasn't really a calm, and I see that now. Now after 12 rocket barrages, I realise that I'm not calm, but I'm hardened. After being woken up almost every half hour or hour by rockets, I'm hardened to them. I am still upset that they're happening, but the emotion I show is minute. And I think I'm beginning to understand, not how the Israelis feel when they deal with this, but how they react to the attacks, that for some, my roommate included, have happened almost their entire lives. I don't think anyone who hasn't lived through this or anything remotely close can begin to imagine what it's like to live in fear of death, as do so many Israelis who live within firing range of Gaza. But I also can't imagine what it's like for those on the other side of the border, who not only have to worry about the Israelis shooting rockets, with little to no warning, but to have to deal with so many terrorists who put rockets, bombs, weapons, and high-ranking officials in kindergartens, playgrounds, schools, hospitals. This whole conflict, as someone put it last night over nargila, is so unbelievably complicated, that it's hard to wrap our minds around it and try to comprehend not only what has happened, but what will continue to happen, and how to stop it all. I can't give an answer. I can't give any possible solutions. All I can do is ask. Ask anyone reading this from either government. Ask anyone you believe in up in the sky. Ask anyone. Stop. We got the message. Both sides did. And have. We just want to sleep. We just want to be safe. We just want quiet.

Till Death Do I Part...

I never knew what it was like to think you're going to die. I never knew what it was like to hear death coming. I never knew that it would tease you; let you hear the sirens, the explosions, and the terrible calm that followed. And just when you thought it was over, another round. And another. And another. And another. But the thing that boggles my mind the most: how so many people live like this everyday. I'm sitting here clutching my blanket, crying like a baby, begging to go home, back to America, where the biggest problem is that the local restaurants aren't open, or the dog peed on the floor, or your neighbour's music is too loud. I want my simple problems, my first world problems, back. But no. Not yet. They just keep coming and coming and coming and coming...

It's 12:30 AM. The 5th round of rockets just hit; 2 sirens, 7 explosions. Each one scarier than the last. The first round came around 8:15PM. I knew they were coming; school had already been cancelled, we were told to stay within 15 seconds of a shelter, and to expect to leave early tomorrow morning and be gone for a few days. But what they didn't tell us was how to deal with the next 12 hours. We're expected to leave around 10AM tomorrow. This won't be the last attack of the night. 8:15 and I was watching an old episode of NCIS on my laptop, procrastinating writing my Environment paper due Sunday, bitching to friends about it on Facebook, and wondering what food I was going to get for my birthday party on Sunday. I knew that at some point in the night rockets would come; they have before, and with what happened earlier, it was almost guaranteed. Gibbs had just told the team to grab their gear, they've got a dead Marine. Tony made a crude remark to Ziva, and McGee tried to defend her. They walked in to the elevat-whooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. And not in the going-down-a-roller-coaster way. In the death-just-got-launched-from-Gaza-in-the-form-of-a-Grad-missile kind of way. Freak out. Grab keys, open door. Get 1/2 way to the front door. Realise I'm not wearing pants. Run back. Quickly put pants on. Run back. Burst through front door into stairwell. Stand next to roommates in stairwell. Assume it'll be quick. Wait until siren stops. BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM.Watch the faces of the Israelis go pale. Run with them down the stairs to the shelter in the basement. Gather with other Americans there. Wait 2 minutes. Walk back upstairs to apartment. Facebook post. Call friends and make sure they're ok. Skype with best friend from Carlisle. Talk for 30 seconds about how fucking scary it is to hear explosio- whoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. Turn laptop towards window so she can watch. Make sarcastic remark. Run down stairs into basement shelter. Wait 2 minutes. Return back to room. Chat with best friend who's now also freaking out for a minute. Tell her about now probably defunct birthday plans. Try to hide the shaking from the camera and my voice. Sarcastically get books and prop laptop higher so she can actually see out the window if another sir- whooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. Curse. Curse. Louder curse. Run out of apartment. Stay in stairwell. Listen to siren finish. Tell roommate in Hebrew that I want this to be over. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. Maybe more. I forgot. Wait another few seconds. Come back into room. Now friend is really scared. I'm more than really scared. Try not to show it. Get off skype with her. Facebook chat anyone from home who's online. Spend over an hour trying to calm myself. Finally get heart rate back to normal. Continue watching NCIS. Finish episode. Change to Youtube and watch Rick Mercer. Laugh at his antics at the Canadian National Ballet in Toront- whoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. Fuck. Not. This. Shit. Again. Run out into stairwell. Laugh at neighbours playing guitar during siren. Wait until siren stops. Make joke in Hebrew with neighbours. Wait another minute. Return to room. Call other Americans in the dorms. Go to their room. Smoke nargila. Try to talk out everything that happened. Depress each other even more. Run out of anything to talk about besides war. 11:30. Realise I'm exhausted and need to wake up early to pack. Return to my apartment. Catch up on Facebook notifications. Realise I need to call parents.

You know, I never realised how insignificant problems back home were. Yeah, Hurricane Sandy was bad, and my parents still don't have hot water. But talking to my dad, and trying not to yell at him for complaining about how Perkins and Friday's were closed all week, while I'm sitting here trying not to break down crying from fear. A fear that I've never felt before. A real fear of dying. I understand that being in the middle of a situation is different from hearing/reading about something 6,000 miles away. But, fuck, I've almost died 4 times tonight. I think that trumps the fact that the breakfast at Gus's Diner was crappy. 

Start to wrap up conversation with Dad. Tell him to not worry Mom about this. That I'll be fine. He tells me that if I need anything, to call and let him know and he'll do it. He tells me to keep  saf-whooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.Gotta run, can't talk, bye. Hang up. Run back into stairwell. Curse. In English and Hebrew. Wait for sirens to end. Roommate makes remark about not sleepi-BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM-Whooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.BOOM. BOOM. Walk slowly back into room. Try not to show emotion in front of Israelis. Close door. Sink slowly down like in the movies. Cry. Grab blanket. Snuggle and dream of being home and away from sirens. Away from rockets. Away from war. Away. Not here. Not anywhere within 100 km of war. Not anywhere but home. Beg God to stop this. Stop all of this. Yell. Scream Curse. Nothing. Cry more. Watch alarm clock count up the seconds. Minutes. Time is much slower when you're about to die. Like in the movies. Or in TV shows. The NCIS episode I was watching was a flashback that Gibbs had the moment before he was shot. Right before he died. What irony. Slowly crawl into bed and hope that somehow I get a few hours of sleep. And guess what? Whooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

BOOM.

בתיאבון!

I write to you now on a full and happy stomach. Something that I rarely get from cafeteria food at Dickinson. I just returned from Kapiyot (כפיות), what you would consider the cafeteria on campus. While BGU has no meal plan, it has plenty of options to engorge yourself on delicious cuisine. And it's generally healthy. Generally. There are two eateries in the בית הסטודנט (Student House/Centre), a dairy option which has pastries, salads, and sandwiches, and Kapiyot, the meat kitchen. It's served on a buffet line, and you have a choice of salads that you pile high on one plate to get as much as possible, then a choice of entrees. They vary slightly day-to-day, but today's choices were chicken (coated in a delicious sauce, grilled), beef stew, and a fish entree. You also get a side, which today was either couscous or something else that I didn't look at because I saw couscous, which I still forget to call פצפצים, but oh well, it's too delicious to worry about. You get all of that, which is piled on a plate that Americans would consider a lot of food, for just ₪23 (a bit under $6)! I think Drinkinson's cafeteria needs to take some notes and serve delicious food more often and not for $14... Not that I would ever say that the KOVE is bad, because it's the saving grace of the Caf.

That's not the only place to eat on campus (thank god. If it was, I'd be much fatter...). My favourite place to eat is דללי (Delali), a Middle Eastern grill, which serves up breakfast foods, like Shakshuka (₪10 before 11AM, awesome), as well as other delicious things like Shwarma, Hummus, Falafel, Hummus, Shnitzel, Hummus, and other things, like hummus. Did I mention there was hummus in Israel? Cause there is a bit. Anyway, I think the only way I survived Ulpan was by getting Shakshuka during our 1/2 hour break and devouring it in front of everyone in class. And when the Germans would make fun of me, I'd ask them where their delicious food was. Ha. America 1, Germany 0. There are also a lot of Daily! coffee stands which sell pastries, disgustingly buttery chocolate croissants (uhhhhhhhhhhhh), and sandwiches, as well as some that sell bagels and giant salads.

But, if I'm feeling adventurous, or happen to be in Building 90 (where all of our classes are), I can walk right outside the gate and grab a shnitzel sandwich at Shnitzeleh. I've been there so much, I have a frequent customer card, which is getting tantalisingly close to that free sandwich (buy 9 get one). Bee-tee-dubs, shnitzel, for those of you who live under a rock, is fried chicken breast, and at Shnitzeleh, they have a Spanish sandwich which, on the scale of deliciousness, is slightly under orgasmic. There are plenty of other restaurants close to campus, but those are more sit-down, dinner places, like Little India (הודו הקטן), Zygota (זיגוטה), Abu Dhabi Hummus, and more.

As of right now, besides Sarah, and sometimes Adi, the food is going to be the thing I miss the most when I go back to Carlizzle. Until then, I'm gorging myself. (Relax, Mom.) And maybe I'll bring back some recipes and make them for Big Daddy. And maybe some friends. Maybe. (Since you wanted a shout-out, hi Danielle) Until then, בתיאבון!

Halftime Report

Wow. Almost halfway. ½ of the semester gone and done. And classes haven’t even really started yet. It seems like yesterday I stumbled, exhausted off of El Al flight 002 and made it down to Be’er Sheva.

And I’ve done so much in such a short time that I never would have done in Carlisle. I’ve been close to every border Israel shares with its neighbours; our first weekend in Eilat,

Courtesy Youval Yadlin

 the two trips I’ve taken in the Golan Heights,

staying at the random Israeli guy’s kibbutz next to Lebanon.

I’ve been twice to this nation’s largest city, Tel Aviv, and have barely seen part of it.

I’ve spent a holiday in the holiest city to three major religions, Jerusalem, and experienced Rosh Hashanah at the Western Wall of the Holy Temple.

I’ve hiked in the world’s largest Machtesh, the Hebrew word whose closest English translation is crater, and seen more stars and galaxies than I have ever seen before.

also courtesy Youval Yadlin

I’ve stayed in two kibbutzim, a strange socialistic society that makes my capitalist mind go crazy.

courtesy Melanie Stanek

I spent 6 weeks in an intensive Hebrew language immersion program, and am now able to have conversations with Israelis in their language.

I’ve had a whole apartment basically to myself, with a strange roommate coming and going and making the place messier each time.

I’ve met amazing and interesting people from around the world that I’ve eaten with, shopped with, travelled with, and learned with.

I’ve learned to cook and have started experimenting with moredifficult entrees, from Shakshuka to Mediterranean veggie sandwiches (which ended up being just an appetizer).

And after doing all of that, there’s still so much more that I want to accomplish before leaving here.

I’ve barely scratched the list of places I want to go and things I want to see; I still haven’t stepped foot in Haifa, the third largest city in Israel. I want to be able to have more complicated conversations and learn more things in Hebrew. I want to meet more Israelis and learn how their lives are different from mine in America. I want to cook more and bring back some Middle Eastern recipes so I can make my Dad something he’s never had before, and maybe he’ll like it. I want to have my classes start, because so far I actually like all of my classes. I especially want to not only continue learning Hebrew, but I want to excel in my new class, Elementary Spoken Arabic with a Palestinian Dialect. I want to make more friends here, and deepen the relationships that I’ve made so far. I want to actually finish my backpacking trip in the Golan, and hopefully do another. On a deeper note, I want to come back to the states different, in a good way. I want to be more organised, to be more outgoing, to get my life on a track leading somewhere good, and so much more. I hope to finally lose some weight, and I think I’ve already started, considering my shorts are starting to get to small on me. I hope to be able to do all of these things and more, and even if I don’t get to complete all of them, I want to at least make the effort. And I know I can.

It’s October. Nights are starting to finally cool down into the high 60’s and low 70’s. I’m not sure how I’m going to adjust back to winter in the states, considering the temperature is still 95 in Be’er Sheva during the day. All of the major holidays are over, meaning I don’t have any more crazy, two week vacations until the end of the semester, something I’m sure to regret in November. I’m a month and 10 days from my 20^th birthday. All of this and more is sure to happen in the coming 3 months. And sooner than I will expect, I’ll be back in Carlisle, with only 3 semesters left. Now that is something I don’t want to think about just yet. No, I’m just going to keep focused on making the best out of my time here, and enjoy every second in the holy land, Israel.

 Also, I’m growing a goatee. Again.