Interent is for wimps.
Hello Blog land.
I actually don’t have Internet; this is why this is taking me forever to actually write something. The past week and a half has been crazy.
So here is an update:
Amsterdam was great. I actually took a tour and saw most of the sights. I didn’t have time to visit any of the museums, however, I was able to see everything else. I met some people on my tour and ended up spending the afternoon with one of the people from my group (funny enough, a guy named Ahmed from Cairo.) I will try and upload some pictures at some point. I want to go back and see the rest of the city; it’s defiantly a sight. One has to be careful of bicycles, as they are the dominant vehicles on the road there. One of the funniest things I saw was a man riding his bike while rolling something in his hand… Interesting country…. I have some other funny stories, but not for the blog : )
Landed in Israel at 2:30 in the morning. Took a cab to moshes where after a bit of catching up, passed out until 11 am the next morning. A friend of mine came over to visit as well which was really nice. Spent Shabbat with “the gang” at my cousins. My friends Jessica and Yonah added a baby boy to the family, so there was a nice celebration for that.
After a day of running around my group arrived on the Monday. So funny story. Did you know that you cannot take a bus directly from the central bus station in Jerusalem to the airport? Yup, it’s true you can’t. I learned the hard way. I totally missed my stop and had to bus back to where I had to go to take another one. Ooops. It was kind of funny, however, at the time I was concerned that I was going to be late in getting my group. In the end, their flight was delayed, so everything was ok.
We started off in Jerusalem where we stayed in a hotel. It was really bizarre staying in a hotel around the corner form my apartment, however, Gogie came over to keep me company and we watched English TV and used as much air conditioning as possible. While in Jerusalem, my group celebrated Shavuot (I did not stay up all night… I’m too old…) I went to my “old digs” for services where I bumped into something that helped me get to Israel the first time. This man started a fund at our old synagogue to help youth go to Israel. He was so happy to see me in Israel and was so glad to hear that I had made aliyah. It was also nice to see him as I had not seen him in years.
My group ended up observing 2 days of the holiday, so I took advantage of that to come out to the apartment to set up the house. However, there was a total fiasco of me renting a car. First, we got stopped at the entrance of the airport (something about having an Arab-Israeli cab driver) after searching our car, looking at our ID’s (oh, I was with gogie) and attempting to explain to security that we were room mates, not married they sent us on our way. We tried to get the car, but for some reason my Israeli credit card was acting up and wouldn’t let us have it. Not to make our evening a total waste, we went to McDonalds where we dined on burgers (and subsequently were totally sick after)
So no car, I decided to take the bus to rechovot, got lost on the way to my new “villa” which is in the middle of no place. Someone from here rented a car for me and can I tell you how wonderful it was to be driving! I drive like everyone else so it didn’t scare everyone. That made me happy. Anyways, the holiday ended and we moved to rechovot. I drove half of my group and the other half took a cab. My group, I decided we were going to go take the way to modiin as I wanted to show them some of the things that they hear about on campus all the times, the security fence, check points etc. They were amazed at what things really look like (yes, it is totally safe…) so continuing a family tradition, we brought muffins for the soldiers at the checkpoint. My participants really enjoyed doing that, so that was nice.
So, now I am in the middle of no place.
Shabbat was nice. We spent it with the Bnai Akiva kids eating in a bomb shelter with no air circulation. I was the oldest person there. Lol. I am old. Oh well. We stayed with the Hashomer HaTzair volunteers so they were really really nice. Then had lunch again with the Bnai Akiva. We got to meet many people from the community and they are really excited that we are here.
Otherwise things are going well. I am itching to get out of Rechovot, but buses are limited. So it’s strange being home without being home, however, mah’ la’ sot? I get to move back in less than a month AND GET MY ROOM BACK! (Sorry Gogie… hehehe )
Oh, naturally there is a bug infestation in the house. Now where would said infestation be? IN my bathroom in MY ROOM. One of my students was put in charge of getting rid of them. I am not a fan of this type of roach. (It all started because my toilet exploded, but that’s another story) So hopefully they will go away. The room has been sprayed and when we go away this weekend we are going to spray the WHOLE house. Kill ALL THOSE MO’FO’S! TAKE NO PRISONERS! Hehehe.
Alright, I have to meet another one of our Hillel groups tomorrow at the airport…. I am leaving the house at 545.. who’s excited? Um… yeah, about that. However, I will have Internet. Our house doesn’t. So I actually pre-wrote this blog in my Internet free villa and will be posting it while half asleep, drinking my “hafooch” and checking email.
Oh, so next weekend I will be up near the Kinneret (where Jesus walked ;) ) with the group, that should be nice. Also going to Tzfat before hand. That should be nice. However, I will be missing the brit of my friends Nahum and Elishe Binder’s baby boy. Mazal tov!
Please write me. Face book me, email me, leave posts here, I don’t care. Amuse me. I need contact with the outside world. Being in the middle of no place (albeit fun) is hard.
Ok, I am half asleep to begin with, so I need to go to sleep… well soon anyways, my cab will be here at 545.
Lilah tov
Nikki
Oh, and if you are reading this Rachel, dinner was: a turkey breast pita sandwhich, and a carob spread cracker cake thing for dessert. It was good. I like.
ps. I am now at the airport (I wrote the above last night at the internet-less apt...) When I got here, (there plane was delayed... naturally...) there was a guy that had two banners made saying "Yehudit, will you marry me?" (well, it was in Hebrew...) he had baloons, music, the whole deal. So in true fashion, everyone (all the airport workers.... the stores were empty....) waited and cheered him on... she said yes. Oh, and the cab over here, they played the "Shmea" on the radio, my secular driver sang along... only in Israel...
posted by Nikki @ 6:52 AM
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