Happy New Year

One year ago today I arrived in Israel for the first time.  Feels like that was a lifetime ago. If you had asked me on New Year's Eve 2009, I would never have thought I would be here again for New Year's Eve 2010.  I guess you really never know where the year is going to take you..

Happy 2011!

Gadna

This week the ulpan went to Gadna. It is a 5 day army training camp that is really meant for 16 year old kids to give them an idea of what they will be getting into in the army. For the people in our group joining the army, they also got to see what was coming, and for those not going, it let us take a small look into something that is a big part of the culture here (Everyone goes to the army when they are 18, boys for 3 years, girls for 2 years).

It was a really, really interesting experience. When you first get there you meet your mefakedet, commander, and get uniforms that you have to wear all week. As soon as you change out of your own clothes, line up and start answering, "ken hamefakedet", "yes commander," everything changes. Even though you know you will only be there for a week, you lose a little bit of your own attitude. I give in easily to any kind of authority but even for those people that don't normally, they (pretty much) fell right in line.

My tsevet, team, was all of the girls in the ulpan. That was challenge number one: be with each other all day and all night (literally) and not kill each other. As a group we learned about guns, talked about the army and Israel and what they mean, wars, urban warfare, power...we did a lot of touchy feely talking for the army. We also did some physical activities, had a day in the field were we learned different ways to crawl and walk quietly, had some tekas, ceremonies, like flag raising in the morning.

We did all these things in army style of course. In order to get places the mefakedet would show us a place 20 meters away and give us a certain amount of time to get there. You run there, make two lines, all while counting down in Hebrew and when you got to echad, one, stand at attention and shout, "hakshev hamefakedet!", "attention commander!"  Then we would move 20 more meters, until we got all the way to the place. It was hard sometimes to remember to answer with ken or lo hamefakedet or to say hakshev hamefakedet before speaking. Very quickly though you got used to standing at attention and found yourself doing it even when you were standing casually during breaks.  And of course, if you do something wrong they correct you and make you say it again or make you do push ups.

The last day of Gadna we all got to shoot guns. It was my first time even holding a real gun. I was really excited to try it but a little nervous too. I wasn't sure how it was going to feel about it, either really pumped up or kind of freaked out. Hearing the first shot around me and then pulling the trigger for the first time myself was really intense, but after a couple more it was fun.

Before we got on the bus, our mefakedet sat down with us and told us her name and stopped being our commander and became a normal person. She was 19! I knew she was younger than me but 19? I just ran around for and was nervous to get yelled at by this kid all week? It was really fun to see her laugh and smile and be a little nervous with us.

Like I said, it was an interesting experience. For me the army is a mystery and I have always been curious about what it's really like (not that this is exactly what it's like, but it's closer than I've gotten so far). Its fun to see how you will respond and behave in this kind of situation.

Tel Aviv Weekend

I really like being on the kibbutz. It's nice, quiet, there's trees, everything you need is right here, you can just throw on whatever clothes are comfortable or you don't need to think about where/what to eat, we can just go to the pub on Thurs and Friday night.

This weekend I went with a friend to Tel Aviv.  I forgot about all the things I like about cities. So much to do and look at and different kinds of people and things to eat and places to go.  We didn't do anything special. It was just really fun to dress up like a normal person and go to different bars on Friday night. Then Saturday we took a long walk all around the city. This is true of any city on a coast in a warm place but I love that you can be in the city and the beach all in the same place.  I have been to Tel Aviv a few times but never got the chance to really walk around and get the feeling of the it.

It was a great weekend and really nice to get out. Now we are heading to Gadna--4 days of "army training" to give us an taste of the army.

Trip to the Desert

We just came back from two days of seeing and doing a lot of cool things in the desert.
(I usually try not to have pictures with people in them on here but...it was too hard to find good ones this time.)

For the first stop we pretty much just pulled off the highway.  Looking out at it, it looked like nothing really but underneath there was a big network of tunnels and caves, Tel Goded. We all crawled down through this little doorway opening that went down under the ground into a tunnel that was even smaller and more narrow. The whole way was stretches of skinny tunnels connecting bigger open rooms. I was definitely a little nervous at first. Once you were in there, there was not a lot of room and the only way out was to go forward and hope that no one ahead of you got stuck.  There were a couple of time where you looked at the opening you had to go through and thought, "there is no way I'm fitting through there!"

Next we went to the desert for a hike at Sanafir Katan.  In Israel every hike I have taken is straight up hill, look at the view, then straight down. That's how this one was too.  We climbed pretty much straight up and then stopped at the top to enjoy the view and talk about the geological features at this site and then made our way down.

View from the top of the hike

From there we went to Holot Tzivonim, an area where the sand is all different colors. By different colors I don't mean just different shades of tan. There was  red, orange, yellow, white, deep purple...

From the top of the hike, you can kind of see the different color sands.

Then we drove to the Bedouin camp to stay for the night. Learned about them, had some dinner, made a fire.  When I was at the Bedouin camp on Birthright, there were so many stars out it was amazing so i was really excited to see them again this time.  After sitting at the fire for a bit I went out, away from the light, to try to see the stars. Unfortunately it was kind of cloudy and I wasn't able to see nearly as many as last time, but it was nice to sit out in the open at night and just enjoy the quiet. 

Our tent at the Bedouin camp

The next morning we had some breakfast and went for a camel ride before we left the Bedouins.  From there we went to Ein Gedi, an oasis in the Judean Desert right by the Dead Sea. We went on a hike, again straight up and then straight down.  It was really amazing to see the difference between the desert with no plants and very few animals to the waterfalls and rivers and green in Ein Gedi. We stopped during the hike to go in a small pool at the bottom of a waterfall along one of the streams, Nahal David. 

Ein Gedi

Final stop was the Dead Sea. This time, as opposed to when i went with Birthright, you were able to swim really far out from the shore, which is a little tricky when you float so high and you don't want water on our face. The picture I posted here is not the best for the  Dead Sea but it's pretty cool, I think.  The Dead Sea is the lowest place on earth.  If you look closely, there are four planes in the picture that are flying below sea level.

It was a great trip...I had a lot of fun. The desert is amazing...its so open and empty and quiet.  It's also nothing like anything we have at home, which always makes it seem cooler.

Happy Hanukah!