9.2 I reached the height of my movie-watching while I dated John, because that’s what you do on dates. I don’t think I made it through one movie with him without leaving to pee. Often I would go right at the end, and miss something important. I really don’t see movies anymore, and I don’t miss it much. But I heard so much about Star Trek that I felt it was worth the schlep. The theater didn’t leave any floor lights on, subjecting the movie patrons to utter darkness a few times over the course of the showing. We could see the film being loaded into the projector. The best part of my first Israeli movie experience was the intermission. There was an intermission! Think of all the awkward stepping-over-lap situations I could have avoided if American theaters had intermissions. They also assign seats when you buy your ticket, which I think is weird—especially for a country where you KNOW everyone just does whatever the fuck they feel like.
9.3 Israel did a national mock terror-attack. A siren went off at 11, and everyone was supposed to go to their bomb shelters for 15 minutes. I happened to be at my internship at the time, in the bathroom. I would have missed it if there hadn’t been cake sitting out to distract me. I hoped to hide out with the cake, but the principal found me exiting the bathroom and ushered me out of the teachers’ lounge. Damn. Sixth graders in neon vests escorted other classes into the bomb shelter beneath the school. One of them gestured at me to cover my head as I went. I descended into the bowels of the school, into a basement full of crusty art supplies and over-sugared children. I spent a claustrophobic 15 minutes standing around awkwardly, wondering if there was some English-speaking intern corner I should be crouched in, and if Israelis pick their professions based on who they want to die with. Although Israel declined to comment on the accusation, it was clear that the drill was in preparation for a potential war with Iran. That is retarded. Only Israel and Iran are retarded enough to get into a war with each other.
9.4 One evening while I was at the Ba’al Shem Tov bar, I got a call from Anna. She’s ok! I was elated. She can talk on the phone and walk around and stay awake for more than ten minutes. Unfortunately, she decided to go back to NY to recover. She left on the same day as Maliya, who finished her school year here. I still have Sara and my other less-preferred friends on Career Israel. Well, at least I thought I did until Maliya off-handedly mentioned that she’ll be seeing Sara soon. She was unable to extend her ticket, so she’ll be leaving the next day. I am not happy about this, people! My three favorite people are gone!
9.5 The past two weeks included two fantastic trips. The first one I planned myself with Maliya and Sara. Since I missed being able to hike and photograph Ein Gedi when Career Israel went there on a Shabbat, I decided to return. We took a bus through the West Bank down to Ein Gedi and walked up a hill with our bags to the Field School. Our shared dorm room was only 99 NIS per person—much better than the $400 other hotels were asking. We found a giant tube of KY jelly in the room and a latex glove slung over the door handle. Awkward. We went to the Dead Sea in the evening. The hills of Jordan were reflecting red on the water. The water was cool on the surface and warm underneath. We all hurt in different places. I was mostly fine, but Maliya had a mysterious welt across her butt that stung like a bitch. The Dead Sea is the lowest point on Earth and also the saltiest body of water. I hiked along the shore to find the mud. It was nice. I brought some back for my friends. We left as night fell. It was still warm.
The next day we hiked in Ein Gedi, one of the most beautiful places in the world. We swam in pools and sat in waterfalls. I took hella pictures and enjoyed every minute. We waited an hour and a half at the bus stop with three JAPy New York seminary girls, and it was awful. As panic and heat stroke set in, Maliya decided to hitchhike. Two haredi boys had been trying for an hour, one with success. Maliya stepped to the curb in her blue summer dress and a man pulled over within one minute. We took the other haredi boy with us. Our driver was totally not sketchy, and he offered to drive us around Ma’ale Adumim, and giant settlement five minutes outside of Jerusalem. He drove us up a mountain so we could see the police station there and get a better view of the city. He also offered us a pit stop mid-way through the West Bank. He gave Sara his number, saying he would be happy to give her and some friends a lift up to Nazareth any time. We liked him. The haredi boy didn’t speak English, and I was still freaking out from having to listen to those JAPs for so long, so Sara really kept the conversation going. She’s great at that. He drove us right to our dorms.
9.6 A week after that, Career Israel took a trip to the North. On the first day we visited Pki’in, a mixed Druze, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim town. We saw the cave where Shimon Bar Yochai hid from the Romans (that’s the guy who is celebrated on Lag B’Omer.)
We saw the Rainbow Bridge, which was fantastic.
We rode not-that-horrifying trams down a cliff to see the grottoes of Rosh HaNikra, which were unbelievable. The color and clarity of the water, the variations in the rock, and the abundance of greenery made for a spectacular setting.
For dinner we ate at the home of a Druze family. I don’t know if it was kosher, but I ate it anyway. Most meat in Israel is kosher, and they’re open to Jewish tourists anyway. My bus got lost for an hour, and the other bus got hit by a car speeding away from the cops. The people on the bus were ok, but the people in the car were not wearing seatbelts. I hope they’re ok.
On the second day most people went on a 3-4 hour hike which involved swimming and climbing a ladder. I didn’t have the ko’ach to hike with 100 people, so I went on a non-swimming hike with 8 other people. We stopped at a river mid-way through the trek and refreshed ourselves. Despite wearing a hat and drinking two liters of water, I still got heat stroke. That was pretty lame, and it took an hour of sitting on the bus before I felt better. A madricha and a program participant both bought me cold drinks which made me feel better and helped reduce the swelling in my hands. We had a medic, but he just took my temperature and then left me locked on the bus for half an hour. He didn’t have an ice pack.
Because everyone was so exhausted and cranky, we only went to Tsfat for 45 minutes. There was tons of beautiful art. I wandered off to find a toilet and found the street where my birthright bus had dropped us off last summer. I also found a toilet. B”H. Because I drank so much, I nature peed three times that day, and paid 10 NIS to buy a drink to use a toilet in a bar. I feel like that part is worth mentioning.
The third day we went to Har Ben Tal on the border with Lebanon. We heard a speaker who told us that the houses we saw lacked windows, so that Hezbolla could more safely fire on Israeli homes. He was right wing, but we liked him because he had strong principles without being dogmatic, and had clearly “lived a life.” I’m not sure if everything he said was true, but he was fun to listen to. He paused in a sentence and I filled it with “he once fought a shark and a bear.” He heard me, made me repeat it, and said “how did you know?” After everyone laughed he said, “I have fought in four wars.” Holy Moses.
We went “kayaking” on the Jordan River, and I also peed in that. It was a lot more pleasant after people got tired of splashing each other. Since my two favorite Career Israel participants weren’t on the trip (Anna went home and the other stayed in Tel Aviv for Pride Parade), I was forced to sometimes talk to other people. For the most part people on my program are chill, and I even talked with people like the freakishly tan girl from New Jersey. Ok, no I didn’t. I just wanted to mention that there was a freakishly tan girl from New Jersey because she’s such a stereotype of herself. But I did talk to fake-blonde/mascara LA girl with pleasant results. After that we visited a helicopter crash site.
We spent Shabbat on Kibbutz Misgav Ha’am, and most of the women also spent some of that time deflecting sexual advances from one of our guards. Typical Israeli. It took 4.5 hours for the Jerusalem people to get home, and I had to direct the bus driver to our dorms. As on another bus trip down from the North, this driver didn’t know if we were going to Har Hotsvim or Har HaTsofim.
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