Hey Everybody,
I checked in last Tuesday reporting a fairly low key week. This week wasn't that exciting, but this post still isn't going to be especially short as I have some cool things to talk about.
Before I start talking about those events, I'm just going to mention what this time of year is like in Israel. It's the last day of November and it's currently about 75 degrees outside. While I'm enjoying the sunshine, this constitutes a disaster for Israel, a country in the desert that is supposedly two months into its rainy/snowy season. Because of the weather, the chief rabbi in Israel declared yesterday a fast day in order to pray for rain. Though I didn't fast, I found the whole idea pretty entertaining. It is a classic "only in Israel" kind of situation. Furthermore, while in the United States, this time of year is the beginning to Christmas carols on the radio, Christmas lights everywhere, Merry Christmas themed everything and the ultimate feeling of not-belonging for anyone who doesn't celebrate Christmas. In Israel it's a little bit different. Street lights have Chanukiah shaped lights hanging off of them, and at night, the streets are lit up partially by them. On street corners and various roads all over, large chanukiot are sitting just waiting for tomorrow night to come to start the holiday. They don't blast Chanukah songs in the street, but to say the least, it feels like the Holiday season.
Now I'll talk about me.
Tuesday night, the girls of the Kibbutz group had an activity where we went to a gym to do Zumba with women from all over Jerusalem. I have seen few things in my life as entertaining as roughly 200 women ranging from ages 12 - 50 doing Latin dance moves in a gymnasium.
Wednesday was an anticlimactic day on almost every level in a way that I really enjoyed, but about half way through the day I realized that I was sick and would need to go to the doctor on Thanksgiving morning. Thursday morning, I woke up to go to the doctor expecting him to tell me to rest for a few hours and wave a magic wand to make it easy for me to breathe. Instead, he told me that I had incredibly contagious strep throat and gave me a prescription for antibiotics.
Nativ made a big deal out of Thanksgiving. On Thursday afternoon, a large group of people played football. I sat in my bed. On Thursday evening, roughly 150 alumni showed up to enjoy a night of videos, (semi-good) food, and fun. I sat in bed. After dinner, a large group of people spent nearly 4 hours watching every Friends Thanksgiving episode, and I slept. It was a BIG buzz kill.
I planned to go to Hoda Sh'aron with a friend this weekend to stay with her cousin, but because I was sick, I decided that it would be better to stay in Jerusalem. I expected to get better a lot faster than I did, so I wound up sick in bed on Friday night and much of Saturday morning. By Saturday afternoon, however, I decided I was feeling good enough to enjoy a shabbat afternoon of board games and funny conversations with the people who were in Jerusalem.
After school on Sunday, a friend and I went to the Old City and wandered around for a while, having a good time walking through areas of the city that are not the most tourist friendly. The most interesting thing we saw were bottles of hair dye with the models' faces scratched out. My friend and I assumed that it had something to do with either lack of modesty or anti-western sentiment.
On Monday, my Holocaust class took a field trip to Ya'd v'Shem, the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem. The museum itself is fascinating, and if you haven't yet been, I recommend STRONGLY that you go the next time you are in Israel. It focuses on the victims and attempts to put a face on the traumatic story that tends to be boiled down just to numbers. We also had a chance to hear from a survivor who spent the war hiding in homes of non-Jews in Holland. She was among the most upbeat 87-year-old women I've ever seen, and as wrong as it sounds, we all thoroughly enjoyed hearing her story.
After winning our football game Monday night (with a whopping score of 7-6), I came back to base and joined about 25 people in the room next door to mine in order to throw a surprise 18th birthday party for one of the girls in that room. It was a lot of fun, but it meant that I spent all of today exhausted. My roommates birthday is tomorrow, so I don't imagine I'll be getting much more sleep tonight.
Until next time, Happy Hannukah,
Becca
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