Fun 2010. Will be even better 2011.

Bad day: Now that my smoking rant is completed, I have to tell you all about what I've been doing! I have had some serious errors on the bus/sherut/taxi system here. (A sherut is a large van taxi that rides the same route as the buses). But I'm slowly learning. They have such a good system here. I'm really not sure why I keep getting confused!! There was one particular day that our city coordinator had said to me in the evening, "tomorrow we're going to meet at 1pm at the bus station." I didn't read her email the next day, I just went to the station. Well, I assumed that it was the Central Bus Station. It was not. It sucked. It was such a bad day. The Central Bus Station is 30 minutes away. It's a big building that seriously needs a good scrubbing. The station I was supposed to go to was within walking distance from my apartment! Sigh. Becky came with, so she was not happy. Then, we had to go to ulpan. We have never taken a bus or sherut to ulpan, we always walk there, so I'm not even sure of the cross streets. With a few phone calls, we eventually figured it out. But it was really stressful. It took us 45 minutes to get there because of traffic, our sherut driver was a Russian guy who spoke bad Hebrew and no English. He was a big meany too. A South African woman on the sherut yelled at him for being an impatient ass to us. We eventually found our way, but we were half an hour late. Becky and I have never been late to ulpan before. Everyone in our group strolls in late, except for the two of us (I know. I know. That's shocking coming from me). Well, this was a very very bad day to walk in late because apparently, every single person in our class was at least 15 minutes late and our teacher Tali was PISSED! Becky and I were the last two to walk in and she blew up at us. At the break, I went to talk to her and she said sorry about that, that she knows the two of us are never late, it was just that we were the last to walk in. The bad, lost day got worse when Tali was so mad. She calmed down by the end of the class. This was last Thursday. Yesterday our class was much nicer. Phew. And today, Tali actually walked in a few minutes late and we gave her a hard time. haha.

Ulpan: Speaking of class, there was one particular day that was much better than all the others in class. We went to the market and had to answer questions written for us in Hebrew. We each spent 15 shekel and bought food. We walked over to the river and had ourselves a really nice picnic with our ulpan class. Then, we went back to the classroom and we had a really fun activity. Each of us got a card, on it was something in Hebrew and we had to figure out what it said. Mine said to draw a gold star around the left eye. Yep! It was face painting time! So much fun! What's funny is this is completely something that we would do if we were in kindergarten. haha. It was great!

Beach: One of my favorite days so far was going to the beach in the morning and then finding my way to Shenkin street. I missed my stop, of course. And meeting two of my wonderful cousins, Liora and Rinat, for lunch. We ate at a restaurant called Ora and Ella's (I think). They had ordered three dishes, which we shared: gnocchi, tortellini, and salad with a lot of basil. Honestly, the salad was one of the best I've ever had. And being with the two of them makes me very very happy. It was a great day!

Another great day that I've had here involves going to the beach. (I'm beginning to see a pattern!). Becky and I went together and spent a few hours before ulpan. We played paddleboard on the beach, and we even swam in the Mediterranean Sea, even though it was super cold. Once my legs went numb, it was okay to swim. A highlight of this trip so far was when I went to the beach and a man came up to me and said "I know how to do this well. Not palm read, but read your foot. Can I read your foot?" Uhhhhh.... no. That line will definitely go down in the books for me.

Christmas Eve in Israel: I have been on the lookout for Christmas lights since I got here. There are not many. Ilan and Efrat picked me up in Tel Aviv, and we went to Jerusalem to go to Bev and Chezi's for Shabbat dinner. On the way, we looked for lights. We found them in Jerusalem.... on the YMCA building, and even that wasn't very impressive. I guess they really just don't do Christmas lights here. We speculated that in the more Christian areas there might be more, but maybe not. At dinner, it was great to be with the family! Donna, one of Bev and Chezi's twin daughters was there. Shira is currently in Africa. Donna lives on a kibbutz up north. Yaron, their son, was also there for two days. He was visiting from Chad, Africa, where he works for UNICEF. The conversation eventually turned to politics, which I find very interesting. And an issue that came up is the Sudanese refugees. A lot of refugees from Sudan come to Israel. Some illegally, and others legally. It's caused a big problem in Israel because Israel is so small that the financial strain is very great. But morally, how could they turn them away? So they take them in, even though they can't afford it. Other countries are turning them away, but where are they supposed to go? In Egypt, they're slaughtering them as they're trying to cross over to get into Israel. Obviously it's a very big problem! I have to decide on a volunteering project while I'm here, and now I am interested in the Sudanese refugee center. I'll let you know what I decide, as there are many options here.

Back to the nightlife: I'm not sure where I ended my first blog post. I have been to Club Octopus, Dizzengoff, and Markeed. These are all really popular here. Markeed, my cousin, Shemi took me to. That was really a great place! Dizzengoff is an interesting one. There's no sign for it. It's in Dizzengoff Square, where the big fountain is. You enter the club where the sign says "Dental Association." That place is unbelievably busy on Tuesday nights. Why on Tuesday nights? No idea. But that's their big night. It was really packed, and as you know, smoky. They had great music too. By the end of the night though, we all felt like our ears were bleeding because of how loud it was. I went with a bunch of people from the program-- Michael, Becky, Aaron, Bari, Ben, David, Dan, Danny, Tammy, and Aviva (sorry if I left anyone out who came with!!). Simon and a bunch of other people from the Tsidon building came out because it was a friend's birthday, Naor. We also saw Lisa and Brady come out. Lisa and Brady are in Tel Aviv only for ten days on a program through Oranim as well. Just as we're starting to get to know them, they're leaving. But they were fun!

Oranim threw a welcome party for us at a reggae club called Lima Lima. (Pronounced Leema Leema). It is in the Florentine district. I was feeling pretty sick that night. It was in the middle of my sinus inflammation cold, but I went anyway. It was a fun night. The Russian girls on our program came out too. Most of the people in our program don't know them too well, but they live on my floor in Tsidon. They're sweet and I love having them as my neighbors! There was a reggae band that played that night. They played some songs in English that I knew. The next night, a few of us went to a venue called Sublime, also in the Florentine district. This was a hard rock/glam rock band. Definitely entertaining.

I know it sounds like all I'm doing is going to the clubs and bars. And yes, it's true, I'm going to a lot. But it's the beginning and we have nothing to do in the mornings until our internships start. So back to more nightlife... :)

New Years Eve. Here, the Israelis call it Sylvester. New Years here is on Rosh Hashannah, so they had to have a different name for this one. During the day, I went to lunch with Tamir at a really good Italian restaurant called Rustico. I had mushroom risotto. We sat at the bar and they kept firing up the creme brulee right in front of me, so naturally I had to have it. It was so good!!! We then wandered around Neva Tzedek, which is an area that used to be really poor and now it's one of the richest neighborhoods. It's very artsy, so I loved every second of it. After I got back, it was already time for dinner! I met up with Sivan and her two friends (now my friends too!), Galit and Efrat. We ate at a place called Goocha. It's a seafood restaurant, that was also really really good! So basically my last day in 2010 was spent eating great food! Not a bad way to end the year!!! That night, I went to an apartment party with Jake, a friend of mine from Cleveland Heights. Jake has lived here for six years. Bari and Aaron from my program came too. We had a great time!!! There were mostly Americans there that have lived here for years. The countdown was very unclimatic.... there wasn't one. I looked at my phone and it said 12:03, so then we started screaming "Happy New Year!!!" We toasted it with champagne and had a great time!