Happy Thanksgiving!

I can't believe Thanksgiving is a couple of days away. The weather here is still like August or September back home. It kind of feels like the summer that never ends!  But, because it still feels like summer, it definitely doesn't seem like the holiday season.  And because it doesn't feel like the holiday season, I don't really feel like I am missing out on anything. If I don't really pay attention to the calender, which I really have no reason to do, I think I could easily just skip right over Thanksgiving day without even noticing.  It's kind of weird.  But, enjoy the food and each other and have a little extra for me.

Happy Thanksgiving!

This weekend 5 of us from the ulpan went camping. We went to Achziv, which is very far north on the coast. There is a lot of history there...you can read about it if you want.

By the letter "A"...Don't freak out about how far north it is.

The camping there was a lot different from any camping I've done at home. It was not like in the wild. It was in and around some ruins. So it was like half built walls and then some grassy areas.  You have to bring a grill because you can't make an open fire. It was really beautiful though because we were set up on a cliff looking right out over the Mediterranean.

 

Our camp site

We had a great time. It was my first night sleeping away from the ulpan and it was really nice.  Especially without a fire, it got dark early so we started drinking and eating early, so we went to sleep early too.  We could see some military ships patrolling the border, shinning their spot light on small boats in the area. At home you need to keep food away because of the bears. Here, like everywhere in Israel, there were cats. They are much less dangerous but very annoying.

Between going to sleep early and the sun rise we were up early. It was relaxing. We got up, fell back asleep, the boys went in the water. By lunch time we had been up for so long that we decided to pack it in and head home.

It was nice to get out, to be away a little bit, to have some quiet, to see a different place. Hopefully we can go somewhere else soon.

Balagon!

Balagon is a Hebrew word that means disorder or mess, according to the dictionary. But it really means so much more than that. Like if everyone is loud and talking in the classroom--balagon. If your room is a mess--balagon. If there is a lot of drama going on and no one knows what is happening--balagon.  It's a great word and we use it a lot because it can be used perfectly for so many situations. At this point, I am not even sure how we used to explain or describe these situations in English.

Golan Heights

We took a trip Tuesday to the Golan Height. (They call it Ramat HaGolan here.)  It was an interesting trip because they wanted to make really specific points so that took us to certain spots that would help make that point.

So first we went on a short hike through a river. It was cool. We just kind of strolled through the water for a bit. Some places it barely covered your feet and other places it was like mid thigh. This was supposed to make us feel the water and think about how important it is here because there is so little.

Next we went to a place were we could look out over the Sea of Galilee (the Kinneret) and we talked more about the water problems, took some pictures.

Then we drove to some other places and talked about the different wars.  It really showed how important it is that Israel keeps this area.  There is nothing here really. Some small towns, some kibbutzim but there is a lot of nothing. But the whole area is a plateau, and on top of the plateau there are hills and mountains. You can see far into Israel and Syria from here and who ever controls this area definitely has an advantage over the other in case of an attack.

View of the Kinneret

BBQ

It's raining here right now.  It rained some last night too. This is a very big deal around here.  Even though it doesn't look like a desert where I live, it's still really really dry. The entire state of Israel has serious water shortage problems.  The only naturally fresh water is a few some rivers, which are more like streams, and the sea of galilee, all of which are drying up.  So, great! It's raining!

We had that barbecue last week that I mentioned in the last post.  It was a lot of fun. There was the usual big fire, a grill, food, but then we also has some planned activities/entertainment.  (I think that this whole event was planned to be most entertaining for the staff.) All the boys were given a girl that they either don't always get along with or don't know very well and vise-versa for the girls.  We were told to prepare something to read to them in front of everyone. Something about them, something nice, whatever you wanted really.  Some people's were letters, some poems, some song lyrics, a rap, an original song. Some were funny, some were serious.  So then we also had little group performances. The Brazilian boys, plus one American guy, sang Brazilian songs. A group of boys did a dance and a group of girls did a dance. The dances were very funny.  I posted some videos I took on youtube: Ulpan BBQ Videos

But the most impressive thing, I thought, was that everyone took it seriously. Everyone played along, wrote something or sang and danced.  No one was too cool to just be a little goofy and have fun. It was nice.

(I don't have any pictures without people in them to post with this)

Learning and Doing New Things

Just as I am saying there that new things aren't happening here...I try something new.

Last night we had a barbecue (different post about that) so at work in the morning we had to prepare the food for later.  I was told we would have to "clean up" the chicken wings. I assumed that meant cut off the pieces of extra fat or little extra pieces, rinse them off a little. Oh no! "Clean up" the chicken means pull out all the extra feathers that still in  the skin.  You only need to worry about the big ones, the ones that look like feathers. The little ones are alright to leave, because they will just burn off in the fire. It's a pretty tedious job when you are making wings for 40 people.  Needless to say, plucking feathers out of chicken wings was an exciting new experience for me.

I feel like I am neglecting the blog but I don't have a lot to report lately.  We are pretty much set into our schedule of work and school. Hang out after that. Eat dinner. Hang out. Sleep. But it's great. I love it. I don't that I would be able to maintain this lifestyle forever but for right now...it's amazing. No pressure, no stress, no hurrying.  It's slow and uneventful, but it's light and easy.