On the First Night of Chanukah

My sister, Cheryl, and my mother planned to come visit me in Israel this winter so we have spent the past few weeks planning this vacation.

Now that they have finally come its time to enjoy the fruits of our labor. We spend the last few days in Tel Aviv exploring and relaxing and took a day trip up north but I will get back to that later. For now I just want to discuss the first night of Chanukah.

 (Dead Sea Factory)

We drove to the Dead Sea area today and picked the perfect day to do so, they weather was amazing, 80 degrees and sunny. Stopped at the Ahava center and of course we were sucked into buying some lotions. Then we drove most of the way down the Dead Sea to picnic on the beach. The weather was absolutely perfect but the water was a bit cold so we just went in a bit past our knees. Afterwards we drove to our Kibbutz hotel in Ein Gedi. This place is perfect. It has lovely, clean rooms which give you the kibbutz feel, it has beautiful landscaping with gorgeous trees, it is surrounded by views of the Dead Sea and surrounding mountains, it is not overly packed with tourist and tonight the weather was just perfect to sit outside with a long-sleeved t-shirt and scarf and be perfectly pleasant. 

 

(chanukiah made out of coffee beans)

My mom, sister and I went to light Chanukah candles in the lobby this evening and there were other people gathering to do the same, the hotel was passing out sufganiot (donuts) and everyone seemed excited for the holiday to begin. Afterwards I went back to my room to do a bit of work. Although I was working on an article for my internship and not feeling completely free as though I was on vacation, I felt like it was the first time in a long time that I felt relaxed. What a huge contrast from Tel Aviv, where I was just a night ago. It was quiet all around me, it seemed as though the world had slowed down for the first time in a long time. I am not someone who usually enjoys alone time and silence but whatever was here tonight was perfect and I needed it. 

My cousins stayed here when they came and visited last year, Matt highly recommended it, I understand why, this is a perfect place for him.

 '
(Huge Tree on the Kibbutz)

I am looking forward to the next few relaxing days ahead of me and for 7 more tasty, bright, fun days Chanukah.

New Places and New Things the Past Few Weekends

A few weekends ago Idan's mom planned a nice horseback riding adventure. We drove up North of Tel Aviv to Hof Dor (Dor Beach) where there was a small community built on the water where you could horseback ride. The beach was absolutely beautiful. There were even a handful of people there and a few were even swimming. We hung out on the beach for a while then went riding. I was a bit nervous because as good as my hebrew is, I have never learned the vocab for horseback riding. The guy who helped me on my horse quickly figured that out so he helped me in English but the other instructors didn't realize. I think I may have missed the memo on how to get them to speed up but not really sure. They named each of the horses and when they wanted to talk to you they called the horses name, I was Albert for the afternoon.

We walked for a while in an area with brush and then came to the beach and walked along it for a while. It was the perfect day to ride along the water and the perfect time of day with the sun pretty low in the sky. Afterwards we went back to the beach to have a nice picnic. Idan's mom is a great cook so it was a lovely picnic with lovely company and a lovely view.

Two weekends ago I explored another new type of transportation in Israel. The community bikes in Tel Aviv. They have this new system where  you can rent bikes at different stations around the city. You pay a few dollars to take it but if you return it within the next 30 minutes you have no additional charges. It sounds simple and convienent but they still have some kinks to work out. First, if you do not have a year membership there are only some stations where you can take from - pretty inconvienent, or what if there are not any bikes when you want to rent. Well this weekend Idan and I had some nice and no so nice adventures on the bikes.

Friday we went to 3 stations before we found a place that rented fo daily use and had bikes available. Then we rode to the South end of Tel Aviv and at lunch at this fun tapas restaurant in a new, updated area of Tel Aviv. Its an old train station which they have redone and put lots of fancy shops and restaurants in. Nice place to explore. Luckily we docked the bikes there before 30 minutes so we werent charged extra and when we wanted to continue our adventure there were bikes available. After we rode down the beach to meet one of my Israeli friends who just returned from her South American travels. We sat and had coffee and heard all about her adventures. We had a beautiful view of the sea and the sun looked perfect in the sky. After we grabbed another set of bikes and rode most of the way up the shore then back around to Idans.

 

The smells that you pass in this city\country on Friday's are truely delicious. There is smells of the tastiest food coming from everyone's windows and in Tel Aviv the restaurants are hopping on Fridays, the combination made for a delicious smelling bike ride.

That night his whole family (cousins and all) were getting together for Shabbat dinner at his aunts. Lots of good food, company and hebrew. I am surprised how well I can keep up with the conversation but by the end of the night man am I tired.

Saturday we decided to go on another biking adventure with his cousins and friend. This time the Tel Aviv bikes took a bit more planning. He and I were going to rent at a station near Tel Aviv's "central" park. But at that station you couldnt do daily memberships so we walked to a station near Idan, got our daily membership tickets then drove to the park. But no, its not that easy, there were 10 bikes there and only 1 was working. We took that one bike and walked over a mile looking for another station. Finally I just sat down with our stuff and Idan went riding looking for the next station. A little while later he came back with 2 bikes. Good thing he did not send me to get us bikes. So we were off to find our new adventure partners in the park.

It was a beautiful day and the park was packed. Kids, adults, walkers, bikers, dogs...you name it, they were everywhere. Its the same park my sister Elyse and I ran a 10K in while she was visiting, much busier this time. We drove through the park and made it all the way to the beach. We decided to go North for a while and we spotted a bike station. We thought to return them and take another pair so we could start our time over and be charged less. When we went back to use our tickets to get 2 ne bikes, the ticket scanner was broken. There we were, outside the city, on the beach, on shabbat with no way to get our bikes back. A technician came to work on some of the bikes but he wasn't able to help us, and after calling the company and no help being provided we decided that I would run back to the port with Idan's cousin and we would there find another station. After that run I was temped to jump in - why not complete the triathalon? Lucky we finally found two working bikes and made it back to Idans car before we needed to move it at 4.

This past weekend I spend in Jerusalem. I was supposed to go to a Football game with some friends but the weather was horrible. Football you may ask, yes. There is a American football league here with Israelis and Americans playing. So instead of tailgating we just bbqed at my friends, Israeli bbq is always delicious. 

Friday I went to the shuk with idan and a friend from camp, we strolled around and had delicious kubbe. If you have never had kubbe before, look it up and find it or make it. Its kind of like Iraqi dumplings for your soup or you can eat them fried. 

 

My roomates and I are never all in Jerusalem on the same weekend so we decided to have non-traditional shabbat dinner together. We went out to the Jerusalem Cinemeteque and ate a tasty dinner and watched the movie 50/50. To no one's surprise was it that I fell asleep.

My cousins were in israel at the end of last year on a Federation sponsored partnership program with professionals in Modiin. My cousins parter in the program invited Idan and I over for shabbat lunch. I had never seen Modiin and always enjoy the experience to celebrate shabbat with new people so I was thrilled to join. We drove over midday and had a lovely dinner with 3 of the Modiin participants and their families - all lovely people. Modiin is such an interesting community. First, they are up on a hill so they have nice views all around the city and the city itself is only 14 or so years old. Everything is new and everyone is young and the real estate prices are going up. This could bring a lot of interesting issues to the city in the future. 

Now a week full of work before my mom and sister CK come to visit!! Yay!!

Academic Update

Here is an "academic" update on the last few weeks.

School has been going well. I had put together a presentation with a friend of mine on Non Profit Boards for the class and our professor really enjoyed our simulation. Whohoo.

I have been keeping busy with my internship at Hadassah. They are celebrating their 100th Year in the fall and they are building a new building for the hospital. Inside the hospital there will be a heritage center/interactive museum so I have spent the last few weeks doing research on Hadassah's history and some of their biggest projects over the year. I am actually interning for the head of PR for Hadassah so this week I will be doing interview with participants currently on Hadassah the internship program and I will write them up and hopefully they will be published in the local papers back where the participants are from, we will see where it goes.

Last year we were in a project class, I worked on the group trying to better acclimate young immigrants into Jerusalem. This year I switched groups to work with a team whose aim is to make Jerusalem greener. This week we are headed to a gree conference in Jerusalem to see who we can partner with and what assistance we can bring to help Jerusalem.

Midterms are starting to begin so I have a few interviews/mini projects a head of me which should be interesting...