December 2011
1 post
July 2011
1 post
May 2010
3 posts
Packing
Almost packed. definitely exceeded weight limits with both of my bags. cleaned the bedroom floor, took out a lot of trash. 1 night in the apartment, 1 night in the airport, 1 night in Poughkeepsie. whirlwind.
Shavuot
Yesterday, Wednesday, was Shavuot, celebrating the Jews receiving the Torah on Mount Sinai. Tuesday dinner was spent at a Hadassah women’s home. She and her husband had both been in Young Judaea for at least 50 years, as the husband did the 2nd ever Year Course.
Tuesday night, I was wide awake as we all awaited the walk to the Kotel at 4 am. About 45 min - 1 hour, the streets were...
India
Where to begin. hot, stinky, and a lot of unfortunate bowel movements. spices I wasn’t used to, and homeless people grabbing at hands every opportunity they had. 110 degrees weather with humidity, streets lined with impoverished families, and animals roaming the streets. I saw a snake charmer, a cow stopping traffic, and a police vehicle escorting our bus the entire trip. i had an...
April 2010
5 posts
my 100th post
off to India, be back in a week!
Har Herzl/Yom Ha'atsmaut
This morning I volunteered at Har Herzl, where all of the soldiers and top politicians are buried. We were there from 9-11, and were told that over 200,000 people come through the gates in just those two opening hours for Israel’s memorial day. 11 am was when the siren sounded, commencing the massive ceremony. we did not even try to enter the ceremony due to how many people had an actual...
Yom HaZikaron
Starting tonight and continuing through tomorrow is Yom HaZikaron, memorial day. it is taken very seriously in Israel. Many people have stories of family or friends killed in the army or in terrorists attacks. we had a BIG ceremony tonight with all of the programs like ours, with people giving personal stories as well as performances.
tomorrow, we are going to Har Herzl, the equivalent of...
YC Tiyul
Thursday/Friday we had an all year course overnight. We went to a Bedouin hospitality site outside of Sde Boker. Boarded the bus at 6 am, started the hike at 9:45. 1:30 pm, get us the bus to go to the Bedouin site. Camel rides and interesting food were ahead. Ori and I named our camel Shellsauce. Dinner consisted of kebabs, rice, and the delicious Bedouin bread, among other little...
March 2010
7 posts
family vacation
my parents and sister were here for the beginning of passover. we went up north through the golan heights, and explored jerusalem. we saw a lot of family that my parents haven’t seen in almost 3 years. i enjoyed having them and will see them in two months!
Segwayz
I took a segway tour in Jerusalem on wednesday. we started close to our apartments and made our way into east jerusalem, an area we typically are not allowed to go into. the company that lead us was called “segwayz”. not only are we not allowed in east jeru, but it was the day after the riots occured. on the tour we could see all of east jerusalem, the old city from an angle I have...
Har Herzl
The day started by going to Har Herzl, the “Arlington National Cemetary” of Israel. Politicians and soldiers are abled to be buried there. The most moving part of the day was when we went to the area of the more recent soldiers. My madrich (counselor), Or, knew 3 out of the 27 people buried in the section we went to. A classmate, friend from basic training, and best friend.
Later...
first shabbat in jerusalem
the first time in israel where we are directly effected by terrorism. our plans, as an entire section, was to walk to the kotel at 4 before our shabbat dinner. those plans changed when 17 police were injured due to rocks being thrown from above the western wall. we had gaurds with guns escort us to the Great Synagogue of Jerusalem instead.
February 2010
7 posts
Purim
purim in israel is like halloween, but EVERYONE dresses up. there is no age where people stop buying costumes and walk the streets in their festive garb. i have never seen so many adults in costume before. the whole weekend. it was a lot of fun. we celebrated purim and two of my friends birthdays. over half of year course was together on saturday night. guy ori and i just bought mustaches, and...
arad, jerusalem, sde boker, tel aviv
i traveled a lot today. at 8 i left for jerusalem. we looked at some of our volunteer/intern options as well has had lunch at this delicious bagel place on Emek Refayim called Tal’s Bagels.
leaving around 12:30 and back in arad by 2:30, we left for sde boker to watch our friends graduate from the marva program. they participated in 2 month intensive army training all around the country.
...
chicken fried rice
tonight guy and i made chicken fried rice. it was delicious.
we took a bunch of rice, frozen chicken, frozen vegetables, eggs, soy sauce, seseme oil, vegetable oil, teriyaki sauce, and sweet chili sauce.
it took about an hour to prepare but it was worth it. and we have a lot of leftovers.
Mitzpe Ramon pt. 2
my weekend in Mitzpe Ramon was amazing. we started (Friday 9:30 am) traveling from arad, to be’er sheva, to mitzpe ramon, to this bedouin hospitality site called the Be’erot Campsite. We had no idea it was going to be a bedouin site, but it was nicer than we thought it’d be. we hung out friday night, had some pasta for dinner, and prepared for our hike saturday hike.
Saturday...
mitzpe ramon
this weekend I am going to mitzpe ramon for a night of camping and a long hike. it was my favorite place while on machon two summers ago, so I hope it is as exciting as I am expecting.
army base
today we went to an army base about 10 minutes outside of arad, and then the air force museum.
at the army base, we toured all of the facilities, and used this gun simulator which was a lot of fun. old m16’s shooting at a big screen. we went into the tents and got to try on the vests and helmets with all of these night vision gadgets. i took an m16 round i found on floor of the tent.
at...
South Africa
we have not been staying in many places with internet so I have not gotten to write as frequently as I would have liked. the past week has been unbelievable. it started going up north near the zimbambwe border to meet a “lost jewish tribe” called the lemba. they claim to have the same dna as the israelites from back in the day and they try to practice the religion. we stayed in...
January 2010
14 posts
first day in SA
the flight wasnt that bad, even though we took off almost 2 hours late. only 8 and half hour flight.
off the bat we went to golden reef city. an amusement park/museum. went down 250 meters in the gold mines, saw how gold was made, then went to the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. learned about it’s part in africa, then headed to an annex of the Isaeli Embassy where they deal with trade and...
South Africa
we just met with the first mayor of arad. he is the founder of the city, as well as a 6 year Minister of Finance in the knesset, half time under yitzhak rabin and the other half under ehud barak.
in an hour we leave for the airport. from there we have 3 hours until we take off for south africa.
stock exchange and american embassy tomorrow. cannot wait for kruger national park.
muza
I just watched the entire jets game at muza. rough second half. at least i got to watch a conerence championship game and actually have a team to root for. oz, pronnounced oze, one of the bartenders, was nice enough to put the game on.
Eilat
For my birthday weekend I spent time in Eilat. We had a siyur to kibbutz ketura then the sand dunes, then eilat. 23 of us stayed down there for two night as well as some othe rkids who joined us later.
My birthday being friday January 22, we celebrated all weekend. friday night we had a 23-person dinner at CafeCafe, which was a lot of fun. we spent some time on the beach earlier that day,...
roaches
i opened a top cabinet in our kitchen to throw some stuff in for storage and little roaches fell out. not many. maybe 4? i dont want to clean that up at all.
jerusalem + bat yam + arad
i spent thursday night in jerusalem for south africa orientation, friday night in bat yam with the scouts and our friends, and saturday night in arad in my apartment with my roommates who were home or their first free weekend from their army program, marva. i had a real israeli experience on the bus from jerusalem ot bat yam… it was so full i had to sit in the aisle of the bus for 1 hour a...
masada
this morning we hiked masada (the Roman Path, the shorter one) in time for sunrise. After that and a tour of the mountain top where over a thousand jews lived to escape the romans, I cam home and am currently packing for my south africa orientation in Jerusalem. Up at 4:30 am, will not be asleep until after 12:00 midnight. Long day, but worth it.
the kinneret
i finally got to one of my favorite places in israel, the kinneret. the fresh water sea that sits in the northeastern part of the country. i stayed with my friend nitzan after his ashbah, the ceremoney at the kotel, then spent last night at my friend idan levy’s place. idan’s uncle took us out on his boat and i got to go wakeboarding. idan’s uncle and his friends were all...
last night i went to my friend Nitzan’s paratrooper army ceremony at the kotel. I wish i had taken a picture of thise. 500 sildoers, thousands of people. it is the night they receive a bible and officially their gun, even though they have had them for a few months already. it was hard to imagine that the majority of these soldiers were my age, yet we have extremely different roles in our...
karma!
today i went shopping with two of my roommates. we needed a full re-stocking after we were all away for break. after shopping, while sitting outside waiting to get picked up to get taken back to the apartment, we realized we needed paper towel. i ran in, picked up paper towel and toilet paper, and headed to the resigster. the people did not understand that i was simply trying to buy these two...
real jet lag
i closed my eyes but could not fall asleep all night. left the apartment at 6:25 am to say bye to my friends leaving for a 2 month army program. came back to my friends apartment by 7 am. watched two episodes of curb, then slept from 8:30am-5pm. what to do now??
back in arad... finally!
I am back in arad after an amazing time at home. once shiva ended, I got to see friends and do a lot of things which i missed while in israel. now that i’m back, 3 of my roommates just left for a 2 months army program, and the other 2 roommates get back tomorrow. i left my keys in america. stayed at friends last night, will do again tonight.
its nice to be back, especially with the...
back in arad finally!
I am back in arad after an amazing time at home. once shiva ended, I got to see friends and do a lot of things which i missed while in israel. now that i’m back, 3 of my roommates just left for a 2 months army program, and the other 2 roommates get back tomorrow. i left my keys in america. stayed at friends last night, will do again tonight.
its nice to be back, especially with the...
December 2009
10 posts
i am going to be taking a break from tumblr while i am home. unless something outrageous happens beforehand, I’ll be back beginning of january.
thank you.
today was tough. im glad its over. he’ll be missed.
homeward bound
i am currently sitting in the airport waiting ot board my flight to JFK. Gate D8. I take off at 1 am israel time, landing 1 pm israel time. that is 6 am u.s. time. I was not planning on going home during my 9 months in israel, but my grandpa passed away yesterday. the funeral is at 2 p.m in poughkeepsie. I will be home for 2-3 weeks.
The Israel Business Conference
On Sunday and Monday, I will be attending The Israel Business Conference. It is at an amazing hotel in Tel Aviv, where I will get to see former UN ambassadors, CEOs of the top israeli banks, el al airlines, insurance companies, university presidents, hi-tech companies, and knesset members. The highlight will be the closing ceremony, monday night, when I will get to see Prime Minister Benjamin...
Arad
We have spent 4 nights in arad so far. The weather is suprising, I didn’t think it got this cold in the desert. I rode my bike to pick up some pita from one of the two local bakeries in the town center. Yesterday, I walked almost two miles with my friend Ori to this lookout point. There is a massive sculpture built in ‘68 that sits at the top of a cliff right behind an abandoned...
last night in bat yam
we got back from the kibbutz and cleaned a little in the apartment. i then went to mikes place with my friends crompton and max. after that, we went to moses where almost our whole section was for our last dinner. the weekend on the kibbutz was a lot of fun, and now we are gearing up for the desert.
it’s been good in bat yam.
i’ll miss the scouts.
November 2009
14 posts
sick
i have been sick for the past couple of days. i had a high fever last night, but the tylenol is helping. my friends made me soup and tea last night and made sure i was getting better. hopefully in a few days i’ll be back to normal.
today a small arabic boy spit on me and my friend andrew as he was getting off the bus.
my roommate josh was beat up last night on the beach but is ok now. he has some bruises on his face. good thing we are leaving bat yam soon.