Maya In Israel: Time Flying By

Time sure has a way of flying by in Tel Aviv. Everything is go, go, go. Tonight seems to be my first evening off, away from doing something, where I'm not totally exhausted, I will finally catch you up on this whirlwind of a city.

Let's start with my internship. I have had several programs since I last wrote-- several orientation events for some of the exchange students, "G-d Went Surfing With the Devil" movie screening, and our biggest success-- two Nation 2 Nation parties. I want to mention the MBA Exchange Orientation event. I worked really hard on it, and had to come up with an activity for everyone to get to know each other. Hello, People Bingo! It saved the night! And I think people really enjoyed it!!! After the activity and dinner, we took everyone to Mandalimos, a great bar, to hang out. The MBA Exchange students have become some of my closest/funnest friends to hang out with!

Our important events-- Nation 2 Nation parties are where we celebrate a nation's culture. Each month the Buddy System will have another party. The first one we decided to do was Israel since many of the students have never been here before. We had that at Markid, which is one of the hottest clubs in Tel Aviv. It was a HUGE success, with more than 400 students showing up at the club with our wristbands to get in. We had another last night at Dizingoff, also a very "it" club in Tel Aviv! Last night we featured Switzerland. I wanted everyone to wear red and white for Switzerland's flag, and mostly, they did! It was really beautiful! I ate a lot of swiss cheese and chocolate last night to last a lifetime... and I don't even like Swiss cheese! Next month, I hope we will do Holland. I'm friends with 5 or 6 Dutch people here on different exchange programs. They're the best and they know how to throw a party!

Concerts that I've seen since last writing: I'm not going to go into too much detail. One night, I accidentally saw one of the best 90s bands from Israel (I love the 90s!!!) called Effo Hayeled at Club Octopus with Sivan and Yuval. I actually knew a few of their songs. That was really awesome! I've also seen Monica Sex, another 90s band, at a Purim party in south Tel Aviv called Stoopa with Sivan. The Giraffes are a band that I saw at a different Purim party in the port at a club called Reading 3 with a bunch of people that I know, and you guessed it, Sivan was there too! And a big show that the Student Union from Tel Aviv University put on featured Shlomi Shaban, Efrat Gosh, Marina Maximillan-Bluemen, Karin Alall, and some other woman with the biggest hair that I've ever seen with a few people from work. That was a really relaxing show, where each one sang and played piano. I didn't understand that much of what was said, but Shlomi Shaban is quite the performer and Efrat Gosh has a BIG voice for such a tiny, little body!

Eilat Weekend: Oranim took all of us to Eilat during the last weekend of February. This was a fantastic trip!!! Eilat is the resort city of Israel, at the most southern tip, bordering Egypt. It is the place to go for a great tan. We actually left early Friday morning, went hiking on the "Snapir" trail at the Big Machtesh (creator) along the way. It was 3km (whatever that means!). I love to hike, so I especially enjoy it when Oranim plans for bigger, more difficult hikes. This fulfilled that. There were parts that were extremely steep going up, where you had to use your hands along with your feet. There were also some amazing views!!! After our hike, we continued on to Eilat just in time to get ready for Shabbat. We had a really nice participant-led service and had a buffet style dinner with 250 Oranimers. Friday night, we, of course, hit the town! The next day, Bari, Aaron, and I hung out on the beach all day. Ahhhh, heaven.

Saturday night Oranim planned for us to go on a booze cruise. This is a cruise that lasts for 2-3 hours with happy hour prices on alcohol. That's all you do--- drink and dance. Which was fantastic!!! Except for whoever the "brains" behind this operation was because our hotel wake up call was for 6 in the morning!!! And what were we doing so early in the morning after a night of drinking, you ask???? Well, hiking, of course!!! And not just any hike, a really hot, sweaty, steep hike with people who were very much still drunk from just a few hours before and very dehydrated. But not me! I got the most sleep out of everyone in our hotel room (I shared with Aviva and Bari). I definitely didn't feel great. I was very tired, but I seriously LOVE to hike! The first very steep part was all I needed to wake up! This was Mt. Tzfachot, also 3km, and very close to Eilat with beautiful views. Afterwards, we went to Ben-Gurion's grave and then made it back to good old Tel Aviv!

March Birthday Madness: The first 2 weeks in March were filled with birthdays and of course, birthday parties! This is one of the reasons why I am so behind on this blog and my lack of sleep. Bari's birthday was on the 6th, Dor's on the 7th, mine on the 9th, and Aviva's on the 11th, along with Jiri, Joanna, Marjolein, Yair, Ofer, and Irina's birthdays, to mention a few! I guess I'll just talk about my birthday week since there are so many birthdays to discuss. It started off with Saturday night, at midnight, when it became Bari's birthday and we were out at Club Dizingoff for Yair's birthday. So we celebrated then! And celebrated some more on the actual birthday-- Sunday night at Mandalimos with all of her friends. The next night, I took a train to Rehovot to celebrate my cousin, Dor's birthday. This was a lot more of a relaxed evening, in a bar that I would have chosen myself if that's where I was living! It's called Flora and they have a huge screen on the wall that plays the music video of whatever song they're playing at that moment. Dor has GREAT taste in music, so I loved this place! The dj played a lot of music that I like, he played Muse. sigh. love.

On to Tuesday-- well, really not too much happened. I went to the Shlomi Shaban concert mentioned in the concerts section. At midnight, which became my birthday, I was standing on the corner of Nordau and Dizengoff, alone, trying to decide if I wanted Olives pasta or Tony Vespa pizza for a very late dinner, when I received a very sweet phone call from Yuval, who was at a bachelor party at the time! My birthday day was pretty ordinary, although my laundry guy gave me a great deal on my wash for my birthday!, and then in the afternoon Sivan took me shopping!!! Yay!!! That night came the party at Yehoshua (it means Joshua) on Ben Yehuda. I chose this bar for the music. They play a lot of alternative/90s music. My cousins-- Rinat, Matan, Aviran, Shemi, and his girlfriend, Efrat all came! I finally got to see Rafael, a friend of mine since the 6th grade that lives in Israel. Honestly, this tiny bar was filled with people that I knew! I'm actually blown away by how many people I do know in this country. I didn't realize it until that night. Thursday night, amazingly, I went out again. Or rather, I dragged myself out, just for Aviva. At midnight for her birthday, we were at Club Octopus. The next night, we celebrated Jiri and Joanna's birthdays with a costume party. Parties definitely summed up that week. In the midst of all of these celebrations came a going away party. Our friend, Tammy, who is also part of Oranim, has gone back to South Africa.

Birthday parties to PURIM PARTIES!!! Purim is a holiday similar to Halloween, but I have to say, I think it might even be crazier. The parties started on Thursday night of that week, even though Purim wasn't until Saturday at sundown. Thursday also happened to be St. Patrick's Day, which is hardly celebrated here. That night, I went to a private Purim party at Stoopa in south Tel Aviv with Sivan dressed as any good Clevelander would be-- a person celebrating St. Patty's!!! It was a great party with an open bar and endless pizza with all different toppings. There was a pizza that looked absolutely disgusting, but was really fantastic. It was cream of mushroom pizza. Yum. The next day, the city of Tel Aviv held a street party for Purim from noon until 5pm. It was the craziest gathering I've seen. Honestly, I had been feeling kind of down about missing Cleveland's St. Patrick's Day parade, but not after this street party!!! There were people everywhere you looked! It also happened to be a black hole of cell phone use since so many people were there. I was supposed to meet 15 people down there, and I only ended up with one person that I knew! I dressed as Pocahontas. Saturday came along, which is the biggest Purim party night, since that's actually where the holiday fell this year. During the day, I had a big, huge meal at my second family's home-- Sivan's parents! Sooooooo good. Her mom feeds me really well! That night-- I didn't have much of a costume, just the ears and tail for a tiger, so I worked really hard on my face. I had a great time painting my face, along with some of my friends in my apartment building! I went to Reading 3, a club in the port, for the Purim party with Aviva, Sivan, and Galit. We met a lot of our friends down there. It was a great time! Purim in Israel is an unforgettable experience!!!

Jerusalem: On Wednesday, March 23, there was a bombing at a busy bus station in Jerusalem. I am at a loss of words on how you feel when something like this happens. But what I do know is that you keep living your life. You don't let them win by being afraid. You keep going. And so we did... Oranim chose to have our tour of Jerusalem continue on the very next day. It was a miserable day for a tour outside. The temperature dropped to the upper 50s, but it was raining... hard. Our shoes, socks, and bottom of our pants were all soaked. I had my winter coat on and was still freezing because of my feet. BUT, the tour itself was very interesting. We had a tour guide who really knew his stuff! I enjoyed being in the Church of the Holy Seplica. After we spent the whole day in the rain, we finally got to the Kotel, or Western Wall for a half an hour. During that half an hour, the sun came out. It was truly beautiful after such a crummy weather day. I always enjoy a trip to the Kotel. You can write a note to G-d and fold it up and stick it in the wall. Write your wishes or your thanks. As you walk towards the Wall, you can feel how special of a place you are in.

That's it for now! I will leave you with some of my favorite pictures.