Birthdays, Bed bugs, Beaches… and BABIES!

Shavua Tov everyone, I know I’m still getting this blog together, in fact, even though my last entry says I finally figured it out, I didn’t really figure it out till Friday at 6 in the morning when I couldn’t sleep. Thank goodness for a having a brother-in-law who is so good at computers and was awake at the same time I was, even with different time zones. With Matthew’s help my blog is now completely in English so I know how to use it and NOW I can upload photosJ.

Other than that excitement, this week has been pretty routine with some fun along the way. It was Alex Freedman’s birthday on Saturday, so Sunday we got to celebrate with some yummy milkshakes. It was very yummy and a nice treat to go out and spend time together. Monday was unfortunately our last Jerusalem class. I’ve loved it so much and I’m going to miss all of the non-typical tourist sites. Plus JayJay our tour guide is so cool and was close with Tamar when she was on Nativ, so we always talked a lot on the tours(he even said I could invite myself to a Shabbas dinner at his house sometime). On this trip we got to go to sites that related to the establishment of Israel and the Independence war. Even though it’s the end of Jerusalem class now, that also means the end of mini-mester! This doesn’t really affect me; it just means all the Hebrew University students start their real classes so the routine of the trip basically starts now. Tuesday night all of Nativ met and had a meeting where we learned about all the daily activities that will start this week. Sunday nights I’m going to be taking a Jewish Educator’s training session with Mark Lazar, it will be every Sunday night for eight weeks, and I’ll leave with so much more ideas for teaching and lessons. I also can’t wait for Monday and Thursday nights, I’m joining the Nativ Powderpuff team (girl’s flag football). It’s in a real league and we’ll be playing against teams around Jerusalem from seminaries and Young Judea Year course. Even though I’ve never been good at football, I’m going to embrace my clumsiness and have fun. Tuesday nights we have to have mandatory meetings with Nativ, but most of them are just with our own tracks, which should be cool. There are also cool activities like Israeli movie nights. At our meeting we learned about our food stipend, since now we won’t be given all of our meals on base. We will have to buy our lunch twice a week and dinner three times a week. We don’t get much money for the meals, but I think it will be fun, like a game, trying to stay under the amount allotted to us.

Thursday was crazy! Apparently lots of people have been getting a lot of bites but there are not many mosquitoes in Jerusalem right now, sooo… I walk to lunch from yeshiva to face a courtyard full of mattresses getting sprayed for… BED BUGS. While everyone was in class that morning the staff ransacked (not really) all of our rooms and took out our mattresses to be sprayed. They never had a chance to warn us because they wanted to nip (what they think was bed bugs) in the bud, and if they waited till we were back from classes they wouldn’t have dried. It was a mad rush when we were then allowed to pick up our mattresses again. There was an unspoken competition of getting the comfiest mattress (ultimately the comfiest is all up to opinion and preference so most people were happy with what they got). We also had to change all of our sheets and today at the end of shabbas they handed out laundry bags for free so we could wash our clothes that might be infested with bedbugs, and I never say no to free laundryJ.

Finally, the most exciting part of this week was Shabbat. Friday morning I woke up and rushed around, showering and packing so I could leave for NETANYA! My friend Carmi worried me that I’d be late for the bus if I didn’t leave that minute, even though I had wanted to take the bus with my friend Tali, whose bus to Haifa was the same as mine. Even though I got to the bus station on time, It was quite overwhelming and the public bus driver didn’t even tell me which stop to get off at like I asked, so it was a scary experience. I then decided to wait for Tali and go on the bus 20 minutes later so I could have a friend with me, it was a very good choice. Not to mention it was raining, IN ISRAEL, during our bus ride. The reason I went to Netanya is because it’s Cincinnati’s sister city so each year we get 2 “Chaverim M’Israel”, who are teenagers taking the year off before the army to volunteer and educate around the whole city. I got close to this year’s chaverim because they were so close to my age and even though one of them has already started the army and wasn’t there, I was able to stay with my friend Tomer at his family’s home. They were so hospitable and encouraged me to speak Hebrew. The Shabbat dinner was sooo amazingly delicious. They’re originally Moroccan so the food had great spices and I FINALLY had fish! That night, we hung out with a bunch of his friends and they weren’t very good at English, so I forced myself to speak almost only in Hebrew. I surprised everyone, even myself. By the end of the night it was becoming easier and easier, I woke up the next morning thinking in Hebrew! Today, after a relaxing Shabbas morning of sleeping in and having another delicious Shabbas meal, I finally got to go the beach… after being in Israel for 5 weeks!!! The Netanya beach is absolutely gorgeous. It’s coming to the end of the sunny beach season so I was lucky I came now or else I’d have to wait till mid-April. It wasn’t extremely hot outside but it was comfortable and the water was warm, not to mention the waves were sooooo strong and intense. They kept knocking me over, good thing I didn’t go in far. I was also able to meet up with one of the chaverim from two years ago, Shir. It was so amazing seeing her; we talked forever while Tomer surfed. It was so relaxing and when we went back to Tomer’s, I was so tired so all we did was nap and eat dinner before my bus ride back. Even though I was sad to leave, Tali and I had coordinated our schedules so I’d be able to ride the same bus as her. It was perfect to be with a friend after such an amazing weekend, I would have been so lonely and sad after all that fun if I had been alone. Although my adventurous weekend had come to an end, I was hit with more happiness while riding the public bus back to base. I got a call from my cousin, Chana Pentelnik, who is studying at seminary this year, telling me that our other cousin, Bat Sheva Hurvitz,(Bat Sheva also lives in Israel) had had her baby that day on Shabbas! I came back to base so happy from the whole weekend and a new second cousin, I just couldn’t contain myself.

So tomorrow Tali will teach me how to post photos on the blog but for now I hope my Israel adventures are good enough.