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...

A Tasty Week

Things have been calm and lovely here in Israel. The weather is close to perfect, I prefer just a few degrees warmer. I have been catching up with friends, settling into school and finishing up final details with my internship. Hopefully it will begin soon and be a nice experience.

Last week I had a lovely and delicious dinner with my roommates at an amazing Italian restaurant in Jerusalem. We went out to celebrate 2 of our birthdays that were missed over the summer. We had a delicious cheese appetizer – stuffed with sautéed garlic. I had gnocchis but they were really made from semolina, they were delicious. Then for dessert I tired the chocolate gnocchis. There was chocolate in the dough, stuffed with chocolate and covered in a coffee, toffee sauce, it was like nothing I have ever eaten before.

The next night my friend Eric from my Ashdod program came from the north to see me.  We walked around the city and then at dinner at a Middle Eastern restaurant, tons of salads, majadara (rice and lentils), French fries and amazing kebabs. Delicious meal as well.
This weekend I went to a wedding with Idan in Ashdod, it was a very nice wedding- more appetizers than I have ever seen – always food before the wedding here, than short ceremony, than dancing and
more food – fish, chicken, salads, breads, desserts.

Friday I spent cooking with Idan and his mom. We made a chicken stuffed with rice, meat, raisins, parsley & nuts. It was a recipe he learned  in a cooking class he’s taking. We also made some beautiful challahs, one was even stuffed with cooked onions. Yumm…

This was a good week for food.

First Week of School

First week down.

Classes seem great. The professors seem lively, friendly and smart. I am very excited.

It seems a though this semester will be much more practical than theoretical which is great.

It was nice to be back and see all of my friends in my program, know where my classes are and how to sign in to all of the confusing Hebrew U websites. Yay to not being a "first year" anymore.

Last night we all hung out together, ate delicious desserts (I made chocolate chip challah buns) and played celebrity, what a game. Good times.

Today was my first shabbat back, it rained on and off all day so it was nice to stay inside, clean, go through emails and cook a bit. Friends from camp stopped by (Rebecca Brindza and Charolette Harkavy) they are both in Jerusalem for the year. Lots of fun to catch up with people, yet strange when they were your campers/staff and you know them from half way across the world.

Tonight I had dinner with my friends Leah and Jason, they love my challah so this weekend it was a double wammy. Afterwards we played games and hung out. Its amazing how time flies and its lovely having friends in walking distance on shabbat.

Looking forward to more relaxing weekends.

Happy Birthday CHERYL! Love you!

Shabbat Shalom.

Back In Jerusalem After A Long Summer

Towards the end of the year I became pretty lazy with my blog. There were a few Jewish holidays, end of the year parties, particularly one of the best was Bulabusta – in the Jerusalem shuk. Classes wrapped up and I wrote my papers. Right before I left a few of my cousins came on an organized trip. I met up with them a few times – took them out in Jerusalem and had a very lovely havdallah service with them overlooking the old city. After their program they extended their trip and traveled around. It was nice to have visitors and show them where I have been living. I even took them out in Tel Aviv – good times.

I went home for the summer, interned at the Federation, helped my mom and sister with wedding preparations. My sister’s wedding was wonderful, great weather, beautiful location, pretty flowers, delicious food, happy people. I could not have asked for anything more for them.

I took a quick visit to NYC to visit some friends. It was nice to have a chance to catch up with high school friends, college friends, camp friends and people random other parts of my life.

A short while later Idan came and visited me in the states. We packed in as much of the US as possible in about 5 weeks – Chicago, Washington DC, Rochester and the rest of upstate NY (Syracuse, Ithaca, Canandaigua, Niagara Falls) and Northern California. It was a great trip, sometimes Americans forget how beautiful our country really is. A few days of rest and we flew to Israel with a 12 hour visit to Warsaw.

(view of Half Dome, Yosemite National Park)

I am now back in Jerusalem, its weird but good. I went for a run in the park as usual and it felt so refreshing, people are still protest there (since the summer) regarding the expensive cost of living here and have seriously camped out there making it their home with couches and all. The park seemed cleaner today and I noticed more garbage cans. Not sure what happened to get that there but it made me happy. Caught up with a few friends and settling in. Classes start Wednesday for me. I am looking forward.

I will try to add a few more pictures.

I hope to write more and keep up with the blogging better, if you actually read this let me know and tell me to write more (:

Until next time…

PS - HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Memorial Days and Celebratory Days!

The past few weeks there have been several memorial days and celebratory days in my life and the life of the country. First it was Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Memorial Day. I went over to a friend's apartment to watch the ceremony that takes place at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem. It is a very powerful ceremony but only one part is translated into English. They light six large candles in honor of the six million Jews who were killed and each is lit by a survivor and their story is told. Since the stories are prerecorded there are english translations. Obviously mainly survival stories exist, and these stories are really incredible. No matter how much I learn about the Holocaust the stories never cease to amaze me. Another intersting thing about this day in Israel is that nearly all of the stores and restaurants close, the country basically shuts down. 

The next day there was a ceremony put together by my school. It was an international ceremony with readings in English, Russian, French, German, Spanish and I am sure a few others. It was a really nice ceremony with songs, poems and even a dance. The ceremony commenced after a nationwide siren went off to commorate those who fell. The entire country stops when this siren goes off, no matter what you are doing, where one is driving, or what else is going on around them.

About a week later was Yom HaZikaron, Israel's Memorial Day. We had off school for this so I spend/commemorated the holiday in Tel Aviv, last year I was actually in Jerusalem with my parents for this so I was exited to see something new. Just before the national siren went off at 8 I started walking through Tel Aviv towards Rabin Square where a ceremony\concert was about to begin. I got to the corner of busy intersection just as the siren rang. The streets were mainly empty because the country had basically shut down again, but the few cars on the road immediately pull off the road. People were only outside if they were walking to Rabin Square or else they were inside probably watching tv, nothing was open, there was no other reason to be outside. 

As we got to the square we bumped into a few friends here and there, everyone went. The front half before the stage was packed with chairs for elderly people and the rest of the square was filled with young people, thousands of young people. Every was quiet and rather somber as people waited for up to an hour for the ceremony to begin. Basically there were different famous artists singing songs related to Memorial Day and different peoples stories of loss and in between they cut to video clips telling the stories of fallen soldiers. It was a really powerful ceremony and I was proud that I could actually understand a good amount of the stories because the Hebrew subtitles really helps. It was incredible to be among such a large crowd, all there for the same reason, at the same time for their own reason. People in this country really respect these days. I have never seen anything like it in the states.

The actual day of Yom HaZikaron there are ceremonies all over the country, mainly at schools and cemetaries. I went to a elementary school in the neighborhood to watch their ceremony, it was an arts school so it was actually an impressive, artistic performance put on by the kids. Another 2 minute siren started this ceremony as well. Its amazing how still and respectful even the youngest were. 

Most people do work this day but people do take the time to remember those who they have lost, because everyone in this country has lost someone. You really feel the heavy mood of the country. The interesting thing is that Israel has decided to put Yom HaAtzmaut (Independence Day) immediately following Memorial Day. There is a huge ceremony on Mount Hertzl (Biggest Military Cemetary in Jerusalem) in the evening and it immediately transforms into a Independence Day ceremony. The mood switches literally at the flip of a switch from the saddest day of the year to the happiest. Its really an amazing transformation to be a part of. People really are happy and celebrating.

I was inside at about 8 pm and all of a sudden I could hear fireworks going off. I immediately got dressed for the night and Idan and I went to stroll the streets. Its just what you do. Not many cars were out and even on the way to Rabin Square the road were closed because they are flooded with people. Everyone goes out to celebrate, young and old. The streets were filled with babies, parents, teenagers, everyone. There was dancing and singing at Rabin Square where just 24 hours earlier was the Memorial Day ceremony. There was so much going on that I just wanted to sit down and take it all in. As I sat on the curb what did I notice? I had gotten sprayed on my legs by one of the kids. They run around with this shaving cream type stuff spraying eachother, making a mess and having a good time. What a sight.

As we started to leave the fireworks went off again. I have seen alot of fire works in my life and these were pretty good!

We spent the rest of the night hopping around the city. First we went to a friend of Idans who lives on the top floor of a building off a main drag with a roof. We hung out there for a while and just watched people in the streets and people across the way celebrating and bar-b-quing. Then we stopped in a bar that had some great music, everyone was dancing, than we stopped by a burger joint for a bit to eat, pretty delicous! What a crazy night!

On the actual day of Independence Day everyone bar-b-ques. Everyone. Idan's army group has a bar-b-que on one of their friends moshavs every year so we went. Normally it would have been maybe a 45 minute drive but because everyone was headed somewhere it took almost 2 hours. Not fun and some of the good meats were gone before we got there but it was still a fun experience. Its interesting to see how people really keep in touch over the years with their army friends, it really replaces college friends that we have in the states and it is taken to the next level. Everything in this country turns into a cultural experience for me and its always fun to see how different people do things. 

That's all for the holiday update until next month!

Passover Break 2011.

A bit of an update:

A few weeks ago I visited a Modern Art/Architecture Museum in Holon, just outside of Israel. The main exhibit was all modern art that was made to look like objects from prehistoric time. Some of the pieces were pretty amazing looking.

The first weekend of Passover I spent in Jerusalem. I met some girl friends from school at the shuk and we bought a bunch of groceries and all came back to my place to cook for shabbat. It was a wonderful evening, nice to spend time with friends outside of school, delicious food and great conversation. I hope to do it again before the end of the year. 

The next day I drove to the Dead Sea with Idan. The ride is only about an hour from Jerusalem and it's a nice ride. Starting off in the hills of Jerusalem and before you know it you are in the dessert. The views are beautiful. We went to a nice beach, floated around a bit and relaxed in the sun before we headed back. It's always nice to escape the city.

 

 I spend Passover in Tel Aviv. In Israel there is only 1 seder and the holiday is only 7 days long. I went with Idan to his aunts house for the seder, there was about 22 people who came. Lots of delicious food, salads, appetizers, soup, big main course and desserts. The seder was not too long and pretty easy to follow. A few things were different than what I am used to and surprised me but it's always nice to see how other people do things. (Joy, they didn't do the pinky dip for the 10 plagues, I thought of you). After dinner we all went outside, ate dessert and sang a few songs, there was a really nice feeling among the group.

The next day we went back to the same house for a big lunch. Food was good and everyone just hung out and relaxed most of the afternoon. It took me a little while to figure out why we don't have a passover lunch in the states and then I realize, we all go to work and school the next day! It's nice when the Jewish holidays are national holidays. That night I went to a concert of the band "Hayihudum" - it was an intimate theater and we had good seats, it was great to be so close to the performers.

I took an elective class during 4 days of the holiday on Social Protection - pretty interesting stuff, look it up. So the next few days I spent relaxing, doing research for the class and meeting up with friends. My roommate Polina came to Tel Aviv and we had a nice lunch together and walked around the city. It's always nice doing new things with people. Also amazing how many places and people do not keep passover in this country. At the same time, when I was desperately wanted some pizza it was amazing to pass by a koshers for passover pizza place, and it wasn't half bad!

I was going to go camping the weekend during the holiday but there was a rainy forecast so that was postponed. At the end of the holiday I went to another dinner, in Israel its another "holy\religious day" for everyone the last full day of Passover so people meet up for a big dinner. Delicious food once again. 

The next few days I spent in Jerusalem going to my class and working on my paper. I chose to write about South Africa and their HIV/AIDS problem among the female population. Interesting yet depressing. Thank god almost getting somewhere with this paper.

This weekend we tried the camping trip again. Me, Idan and his best friend Nati. We left Friday afternoon and headed South. We saw a beautiful sunset as we approached our campsite. There was a car of young people where we were staying whose car was broken down and they were waiting for help. They had started to build a fire so we help and hung out with them until their car was fixed. It always amazes me how friendly Israelis are. 

When they left we made pasta for dinner and did the gaffen over the wine, it was shabbat after all. We wrapped up some plain potatoes in tinfoil and let them sit in the fire for a few hours, I wasn't sure that they would be that good but when we finally dug in the potato was pretty soft and tasty. I brought ingredients for banana boats (chocolate and bananas) and we made them in the fire. They were pleasantly surprised with my American treat. We played the guitar and hung out for a while before we went to bed. 

There was a bit of rain in the middle of the night and unfortunately we forgot our rain fly for the tent so in the middle of the night we jumped into one tent. Always an adventure in nature. 

The next morning we organized our breakfast food and went for a hike into the area. We found a great place to rest and laid out all of our stuff. Made breakfast and hung out for almost 5 hours. There were these amazing birds in the area and the place was so quiet. I took a nap, played games, ate. Truly relaxing and beautiful. 

Just as we were heading back to the car it started to rain again. Now this may sound normal but in the end of April in the desert it is not supposed to rain, let alone 2 times. By the time we got to the car we were soaked but it stopped just a few minutes later. We decided to go for a drive to and overlook before heading home. It was an amazing view of the crater in Israel and strangely enough there was crazy wind. The weather was so off, it was bizarre. Afterwards we headed back to Tel Aviv. I always love going on adventures.

Today is my last day of break and I am hoping to finish up my paper so I can move forward. Surprisingly is May 1 and school ends in just over a month. Next week we have 2 days off for Memorial Day and Independence Day and time is flying by. I am hoping to start and finish my final papers in a timely fashion so I can enjoy some free time in Israel before I head home mid July.

More updates to come! Hope you all had a nice Passover\Easter!