Contrary to the title of this blog, some things did happen in my life this past week on Nativ, just not as much as usual, which, like my title points out, isn’t necessarily a bad thing. So even though this is a short entry, everything is still great on Nativ, no worries.
Like every Monday, I had a football game. We played against the team with the head of the league on it, so it was assumed that we’d lose. Even though we lost by around 40 points, we still got a touchdown. Plus the first 2 times I played defense I was doing a pretty bad job and was feeling awful, but my third and last time on the field, I made up for my bad game and never left the side of the person I was defending!
Tuesday was Erev Nativ, like always (I’m pretty sure you will all know my schedule pretty well after reading my blog a couple more times). In our meeting that night we had a speaker from AIPAC, which is The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, America’s pro-Israel lobby. It was pretty interesting, and I’m not even interested in politics and that kind of thing. Later that night I also joined google voice, which was very exciting!! Basically they assign you an American cell phone number which I can access from the internet. Now I can text friends and family in America and there are no extra fees. I stayed up late that night texting so many people that I hadn’t been able to reach in forever.
I was able to finally veer away from my weekly repetitive schedule Wednesday night. As I mentioned in my last blog entry, I celebrated my chevruta’s 1 year wedding anniversary, Saturday at Shabbat lunch and got invited to another party Wednesday in honor of Abby and Evan’s anniversary. It was actually funny, in a sad way, because Evan had to leave Yeshiva early that day because he got sick, and couldn’t even make it to the party that evening, but Abby was happy to see me! I went with three of my friends from Nativ that go to Yeshiva: Becca, Joel, and Tamar. We got there and it was a little bit awkward at first because we didn’t know many other people, but as the night went on we met the other guests and had a blast. Plus, at the very beginning when Abby started introducing me to people, one of those guests turned out to be Rachel Zakem! Rachel is a family friend from back home in Cincinnati, we go to the same shul, our families have been friends for a long time, and I’m friends with her younger sister Mimi. I didn’t even know Rachel was in Israel so it was such a cool surprise and as always, it’s nice to see a familiar face. The party was so fun, meeting new people and being with friends, and when we got back I saw my friend Aviva. I was sitting with her and a few other people when we realized it was past midnight, and she had just turned 18! To celebrate we ran to the convenience store so she could buy Ben and Jerry’s ice cream to celebrate. We sang happy birthday, but then it was time for bed.
 |
| Rachel and I! |
 |
| Celebrating with Abby, the famous "bride" |
 |
| Aviva the birthday girl! |
The next day, the only thing exciting was more celebrating Aviva’s birthday. Since they had a meeting for the people going on the Poland trip Thursday night, when the meeting got out, Aviva was able to get one of the staff members setup the movie Inception in the auditorium. It was like going to the movie theater for free. The movie was sooo good and intense. I left confused and wanting to see it again and again to understand it just a little bit more with each viewing.
Friday morning I was disappointed to wake up and not remember my dreams, after watching Inception the previous night. But I was excited that we would be leaving for a Shabaton (a trip to another place as a group to celebrate Shabbat). All three different tracks were going to different places so they could “bond” that Shabbat. My track, Be’er Sheva, was leaving after lunch to Ma’alot. Not only is it the town that Elkana, Nativ’s assistant-director, grew up, it’s also a small city in the very north of Israel, only 7 kilometers south of the Lebanon border. The bus ride was just over 2 hours, and it was nice to see that our group could be chill and quiet and not get on each other’s nerves. When we arrived, Elkana took us to a lookout point to see how beautiful Ma’alot is, and showed us Israel’s only manmade lake, which the governor decided to build to bring tourism, even though all it did was bring pollution into the lake. Ma’alot also has the second largest ice skating rink in Israel, so that does bring in some intense ice skating events. Because they wanted us to bond that weekend, we were housed with people our staff didn’t see us hang out with as much. I got housed with Rachel David, and we were put at one of the only two Israeli homes (the rest were all American or Canadian families that made Aliyah). Even though there was a bit of a language barrier, Rachel and I both learned Hebrew in day school, so we were able to make it work. The family was really sweet, and the whole town is an Orthodox Jewish community, so the family had 7 kids, though only one lived at home. They made a nice and simple Shabbat dinner, and that evening our entire track met back at the shul for a tish (a get together where we sang songs for Shabbat). We also heard Elkana’s father, Boaz, talk about the history of Ma’a lot which was very interesting, in fact he gets hired to be a speaker, even in America.
 |
| Elkana and I in front of beautiful Ma'alot |
 |
| Israel's only man made lake |
 |
| Rachel and I in our room |
Saturday morning, Rachel and I woke up to the bright sun, and got ready for shul. We came back to the house for lunch and the family had two of their married kids join us for lunch, which was fun because there were 5 grandkids to add some entertainment. After lunch Rachel and I enjoyed our Shabbas by reading and sleeping, I didn’t realize how tired I was till my head hit the pillow. Rachel woke meu up in time so that we could head over to Elkana’s father’s house to be together for Seudat Shlishit (3rd meal during Shabbat) and pray for Minchah and Maariv. After some more songs and Havdalah (the ceremony to end Shabbat) we went to our host homes to pack up and met at the bus. Because of traffic we didn’t make it back till 10 o clock, but since we never got a real dinner, Nativ still ordered us pizza, and after a fun weekend away, I was tired enough to just want to hang out with people on base before going to bed.
I also know this upcoming week will have a lot more exciting news but I hope this still had some interest and, as always, enjoy your week (and thanks to all the comments and followers, I really appreciate it).
No comments:
Post a Comment