And so the Internship Begins...

The whole point of this program is to have a fulfilling internship. Honestly, a few weeks ago, I would have said that it doesn't look like I'll find one. Some people still haven't. But never fear! I found one that's perfect for me!

Internships are a very new concept to Israel. People don't understand your role. They think of you as a volunteer. What's the difference between a volunteer and an intern? Well, an intern is supposed to really learn from the work that you give them and develop as a person professionally. They are basically an unpaid employee. A volunteer should have a meaningful experience as well, but not so many responsibilities.

I am fortunate for my internship. I am working at Tel Aviv University in the International Students Department, in the Student Union under the supervision of Yael, who is awesome, by the way. I am now the coordinator for the Buddies group, which matches up Israeli students with foreign students, that help integrate them into Israeli society. I'm planning events and parties for them, along with outings and different meetings, etc. It's a lot of work, but it's fun work! I work with four students with major roles: Ofer, the president; Gon, whose in charge of PR and our weekly updates; Noa, the communications lady; and Keren, the events planner. During my very first week, I had two programs! During the day on Friday (which normally I wouldn't work because it's the weekend), we had a Welcome Event by the dorms for the new Overseas Student Program participants, where we served falafel for free, along with 5 shekel beer, which is basically for free by Israeli standards. It was a lot of fun. Many many many students showed up for it.

We wanted to keep that welcome vibe going, so we had a Welcome Party at Hemingway Bar that evening. Hemingway offered buy one drink, get a free chaser. A "chaser" in Israel is a "shot." Again, alcohol at bars is very expensive, so this is a great deal! Normally, a bar would not get full, even on a Friday night until 11pm or so. We planned this for 9pm, otherwise we wouldn't be able to get everyone in. Hemingway has a 250 person capacity. We filled the place super early!!!! By 10:30pm, there was a long line to get in. Awesome. Really fun event.

Not all of our events are going to be at bars. We have a lot more in the works, especially for the "buddies" to get to know each other. You can't really do that at a loud bar with everyone dancing on tables, on the bar, etc. But in the meantime, it was one hell of a party! Here are some of the pictures from during the day and evening events.

Israeli & American playing "Matcot"

Foreign students going for the falafel

With the volunteers and the beer keg machine

Welcome Event in the evening at Hemingway

Dancing on the bar at Hemingway

The Leaders of the Buddies: Ofer, Noa, Gon, Keren, & me

Visitors: Rose, Yael, the Alaskans, & Daniel Bedingfield



Ariela, Rose, & I at Gazoz





Rose at the beach

Rose is who I mentioned in my last post, someone who came to Tel Aviv just for the week on a "cultural" experience. The program didn't have much planned for her, so I ended up being her unofficial welcoming committee. This ended up being fantastic because we got along great! She's from Brooklyn-- the accent that you hear on tv and in movies-- definitely true! :)

Rose's first full day here, we walked along the beach and went to Shuk Carmel (the marketplace). Part of the week, Rose's friend, Ariela, joined us. The three of us got to go to a club called Gazoza in the port, which was a MegaEvent party put on by TLV Connect. It was their winter themed night. Honestly, it was just strange going to a club in a tank top and the decorations are of snowmen hanging from the ceiling. Oh well. This club completely and utterly ripped us all off on prices for a drink. This one took the cake for me-- vodka and cranberry-- 51 shekels!!! And I'm pretty sure that was almost all cranberry juice.  



Shuk Carmel



Next up, my fun filled day of hanging out with one of my best friends, Yael! Yael is from Israel, lived in Ohio for several years, and within the past year, moved to Arizona. Now, I got to see her for a few hours, just me and her. Yay!!! She picked me up and we went to Jaffo to go to the market. They had great stores with funky items and collectibles, like the lamps that you see pictured, but they also had the center of the "market," which is the flea market. Flea is right. It looks like someone just threw a bunch of junk together from garage sales and left it all on the ground for you to dig through. I definitely did not want to dig through anything, especially with the smell of the place. Bleh! I'll stick to the stores, thank you. Anyway, I did well that day and bargained down two out of the three purchases I made. The best part of our day was going to Abulafia's Bakery. Mmmmmmmmm. I'm in heaven, so much so that I have no idea what to describe first. There are these deliciousness that are similar to a calzone, but inside there is Bulgarian cheese, or you can have eggs. There are fried goods covered with honey. Bureckas filled with potato. Sesame seed bagels. Sandwiches. Everything.Is.So.Good. There is a constant line at Abulafia's. It doesn't matter the time of day or night. And don't think of a bakery that you walk into. It's an open bakery. I hope the cute picture of Yael by the bakery helps with my description of it. After eating and shopping, Yael and I did our favorite thing--- we ate some more! :) She took me to a cute place in Neva Tzedek called Susanna's. We had some type of meatballs covered in tzatziki sauce, and we each had a lightly fried dough sandwich-- mine was filled with eggplant and goat cheese, hers was filled with liver. Both excellent!!!

The invasion of the Alaskans! Introducing Andy Miller. He worked at Kent State as the JCSC at Hillel when I was a student. We were not allowed to be friends because they had a strict policy about the JCSC having any fun with students, besides during programs, even if everyone was close in age. We have always been friends even if we were never allowed to hang out. Pictured is Andy and I having our very first drink together after being friends for 8 years! :) Andy brought along his best friend, also from Alaska, Jeremiah. Jeremiah and I get along super duper well!!! Within 5 minutes of meeting him, Rose came over to my apartment and she thought Jeremiah was my friend from Hillel. Ha! So the three of us-- Andy, Jeremiah, and I-- had a great time all over Tel Aviv and Jaffo! The first night we hung out, we ate at a restaurant called "Jeremiah," of course! And we went to a few bars with other Oranim participants. The next night, however, was really awesome!!! We got in a cab and told him to take us to the best chummus in Jaffo. He said "I'm not sure about the best chummus, but I know of the best shakshuka." So off we went to Dr. Shakshuka. Honestly, we could forget the shakshuka. Can shakshuka really be spectacular?! But everything else really was!!! It was by far, the best Middle Eastern meal that I've had here thus far. Then we wandered around Jaffo at night, coming across Hookah bars, small restaurants and bars down various alleys. We saw a hell of a lot of bats. I took a video of a swarm of them. Again, I will have to wait until I have better internet service to post any of them. We also saw a lot of the sites at night. It was fantastic! Then we completely changed the atmosphere of the night by going to the Theater Club in Jaffo, where we were told a fun student party was taking place. They were definitely right! There were live drumming performances, then a dj. This was an awesome "club" for the night!! I found out later that the group that I'm working with at Tel Aviv University put on this party. Ooooh yeah! This will be a great job!!!   

 

On Friday, I spent some time at Shuk Carmel again. This time, all of the artists were around, including some circus acts. Friday night was interesting. It was Kabballat Shabbat, which is a potluck Shabbat dinner. At first, I wasn't really happy that we were required to be a part of this for the main reason that I go to my family on Friday nights. But in the end, it worked out great and I was with my "family" of new friends. I ended up just buying rugalach for dessert. Many of the students cooked and made different types of salads, pasta, even some chicken. We also had to go to synagogue as a group. We went to Beit Daniel, by the Yarkon (river). It's a reformed synagogue and I actually quite enjoyed it. Many of the songs I knew, except that the melody was completely different. Here, people wear whatever they want to synagogue-- jeans, boots, sandals, t-shirts. It's very weird for me to see that. After dinner, we went as a huge group to a pub called Backy's, but pronounced Becky's. Someone forgot to do spellcheck.

On Saturday, I had lunch with Sivan and her family. I was looking forward to this for a couple of weeks and they did not disappoint! Great food and great company!!! That night was Rose's last night. I had found out about Daniel Bedingfield performing a free show in Tel Aviv at the tiniest club ever called Rothschild 12. Rich, Rose, and I went there and were going to meet Sivan and Efrat. While on the way, it started pouring. Sigh. We were totally soaked, and THEN we had to wait in line. The security guard was being a complete ass. But in the meantime, Daniel Bedingfield came out of the club to talk to everyone still in the pouring rain. I don't think many people realized that it was him. You know me... I definitely did and had my camera ready! Unfortunately for Rose, I handed my camera to someone who clearly has never taken a photo before. There are actually two photos. The first one, she cut off everybody's head. The first and second one, Rose was not included. I took another pic of Rose later standing by Daniel's back! haha. Back to the ass security guard, due to him and the rain, we decided to hang out in a-- gasp!!!-- smoke-free bar to get warm. After spending some time there, we went back to the show, and saw one hell of a performance by Daniel Bedingfield. He completely surprised me with his vocal range, and even more surprising, his beatbox skills. Brilliant show! At 1:30am, Daniel was STILL performing because he was loving every second of it, and as much as we were, we all had to go to work in the morning, so home we went. I'm still marveling in that show!

Busy Bee: Public Singing, Jaffo, Ein Gedi, Dead Sea, Celebs, & More



Public singing





Uncle David at Friends Underground

Time to play catch-up! The beginning of last week was a big ball of fun! Sunday, I had dinner with Sivan and Yael!!! Yael is one of my best friends, whose originally from Israel, but went to Kent State, which is where we met, and now lives in Arizona. Whew. The three of us went to a sushi place for dinner called Moon. Even though Yael was freezing, we walked around and had ice cream outside after dinner. I'm going to see her again in a few days before she goes back. Yay! On Monday night, I had burgers with a few of the people from our group made by chef Aaron, one of the awesome guys in our group. Sivan and I then walked over to a place called Friends Underground in London Ministores, where my uncle David was supposed to sing. We didn't know what to expect. It ended up being "public singing," which is basically karaoke with special guests singing and the entire place can sing along. I have never seen anything quite like it. Uncle David was one of the special guests-- he's well known here in Israel, as he finished in 3rd place on one of the singing talent shows. It was a fun experience. I have a video of it, but no videos will be posted until I'm back in the States or get better internet service.


Brady & I in Jaffo



The next day was one of my favorites so far in Israel. I spent the entire day with Brady, who I mentioned in an earlier post. He was here in Tel Aviv for just over a week through a "cultural experience" program through Oranim. It was his last day here, so we did as much as we could. We got bikes and rode them from Tel Aviv to Jaffo along the beach. I was VERY nervous about it, since I didn't learn how to ride a bike until many years after most kids. I was really surprised that it was an easy ride and how much I enjoyed myself on a bicycle. In Jaffo, we listened in on a tour going on in English, and then had delicious bread that had artichokes baked in. Yum! It felt very European. I also had pomegranate juice that the guy squeezed right in front of me. That was also really good, but quite a shock to the taste buds at first! After we rode our bikes back to Tel Aviv, I interrupted our day of fun by going to ulpan, though ulpan is fun for me.



Bike riding from Tel Aviv to Jaffo

Brady and I ended up having an interesting dinner. We decided to get food near the theater because we were going there afterwards. But, I swear, this is the only area of Tel Aviv that had no food! Eventually we found a convenience store, bought fresh bread, chummus, cucumbers, and water, and had our feast on the side of the road. It was really funny! It ended up being a dinner that I won't soon forget! We then went to a theater where there were two jazz musicians-- a soprano saxophonist and a pianist-- who improvised everything. It was incredible. I've never seen/heard anything quite like it. Think back to movies or television shows where the characters are in these really cool jazz clubs.... it was kind of like that, but even better! We could have stayed there all night, but unfortunately for us, we both had to be up ridiculously early, so back to our apartments we went...

Sunrise, along the way to Ein Gedi



...At 5:45 AM, I was outside, in the pouring rain, with other people from our building waiting for our tour bus. Here comes the bus that reads "Maya Tours." Yep, that seems fitting. Our Oranim group drove south, to Ein Gedi to go hiking. The weather ended up being perfect for the climb. I thought the hike was easy, especially because we kept taking so many looooonnng breaks with the tour guide. Your heart rate goes up and you sweat, but that's one of the reasons why hiking is fun. Unfortunately, quite a few of the people in our group were completely winded. I guess they don't feel the same way about hiking as I do. I'm worried about what's going to happen on all of our other hikes for them. Ein Gedi is one of the easiest that they have planned for us, as far as I know. Anyway, the hike was so refreshing for me. You get to see wildlife, great views of the Dead Sea, and waterfalls. After the hike, the bus took us to the Dead Sea. 



Bari & I at Ein Gedi



Ein Gedi



The Dead Sea is the lowest elevation on Earth's surface on dry land. It is one of the saltiest bodies of water in the world, where animals cannot flourish within it, hence the "dead" part. The Dead Sea is so dense, that you float. The salt and minerals in the water and mud work wonders for the skin. Bari, Tammy, and I covered ourselves with mud, let it dry, then floated around. When the mud finally did come off... and believe me, we had scrub!... our skin felt completely smooth. Ahhh. Coming back from the Dead Sea, I thought about how great my last two days were. Then there was a nice surprise for me on Skype. Veronica finally set hers up and we got to talk "face-to-face" for almost an hour! I was so thrilled to see her and talk to her. (I miss you, Veronica!!!) Then, I read my email from Alana about her mother passing away, and those two very high, happy days came crashing down.

The next few days were much more somber, where the rain seemed to fit my mood perfectly. I did have a long talk with Rafael (some of you from home know him as Paul), and that made me feel better just by hearing his very familiar voice. I decided to stick with the people I know from home and went out with Jake for awhile on Thursday night. Aaron and Bari came with. Those two are really feeling like "home" for me. When I am with them, I feel like I'm hanging out with my buddies in Cleveland, but with better weather. On Friday, I didn't do much. I hung around the apartment building, mostly in Michael's place and we watched the Discovery channel. But Friday night I was very happy again to be at Ilan and Efrat's place with Gal, Doron, Roey, Meital, Michal, Mika, & Daniel. Not only was it great to be with my family, but to also have one hell of a meal. Efrat can really cook! It's also good for me to listen to the Hebrew. I may not say much, but it's good for me to just listen sometimes. After returning to the apartment, some of my friends from this building went to 223 for a drink. Inside of it, I met Evan Starkman from MTV's Read World/Road Rules Challenges. He's staying in Tel Aviv for a few months. You see? Even in Israel, I meet the "celebrities." I would not have known who he was if it wasn't for this girl, Sharon, who was pretty much freaking out about him. It was hilarious! 

Saturday was just another day I took it easy. Saturday night, Tamir picked me up and we went to the old train station, which is just before Jaffo. It's not a train station anymore. They made it into a neat place with restaurants, boutiques, and galleries. We ate at a tapas restaurant, which had excellent fish and a dish of plums marinated in wine and covered in blue cheese that was delicious. We also went to a bar that he promised to take me to--- one where cigarette smoking is not allowed! Yes! I think it was called Hamoes. It was on King George, near the theater on Rothschild. It was so refreshing to come back to the apartment not reeking like smoke.

Tamir and I had a very interesting conversation about his family. His grandfather had been recruited into the Red Army during WWII, which ended up saving his life. He sent a letter home and received no reply. So he sent another letter home, and still no reply. He sent a letter to the next village, and received a reply saying that all the Jews are dead. Imagine that. All of his 10 brothers and sisters, parents, grandparents... everybody was dead and that's how he found out. The Holocaust effected so many people for generations. In Cleveland, I have heard a few Holocaust survivors tell their stories. I have gone to the museum in Washington, DC, and to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum in Israel. But to actually be in Israel, sitting at a bar, hearing someone's story about how the Holocaust changed their family in such a non-chalant way... now that feels different. So many people here are descendants of Holocaust survivors. Hearing about the Holocaust always makes me angry, sad, and even hopeful for a better tomorrow. To be able to be open about your history and your beliefs with no judgment, with no anti-semitism is beautiful. That's what Israel is... beautiful.    

The next day I had two interviews at Tel Aviv University for different internships. (I already had an interview last Sunday with the nicest people. They want me to do fundraising for them). The first one of the day was a bust, where they didn't even have me written in on the schedule and it took me 45 minutes to even find the building that the interview was in because the secretary kept telling me it was in the Goodman building, but that building does not exist. Eventually, I realized that she never told me the name in Hebrew, she finally did and it was nothing like "Goodman"!!!! It started with an M!!! Ugh. Annoying. The second interview was great! It was definitely more of me interviewing them than the other way around. They-- Yael and Kayla-- want me to run a group called Buddies, where I would work with all of the international students that go to the university and plan events for them on and off-campus, along with Israeli students to help the international students feel more acclimated into Israeli society. I love everything about the program that I heard about. So this will definitely be the internship for me! I start next Sunday. 

Yesterday afternoon, I ended up watching the Manchester United v Liverpool game at Mash with my British neighbor, Rich. Right after the game was over, Orly (the city coordinator), called me and told me that there was a new short term program person living on my floor. I went back to the apartment to meet Rose. I already like this girl! Rose, Rich, Tommy, and I all went out to dinner, walked around the port, then had a movie night in Rich's room, watching "Salt." Rose has already showed up at my door tonight asking where we're off to tonight. Also, my friend, Andy Miller, from Alaska, who used to work for Kent Hillel, will be in town this week. I am so pumped! I haven't seen him in years. Something tells me that this week is going to be a memorable one!!