A Traveling Terrapin

Hey Everyone, I’m back!!!

So, after taking a little (ok, a very long) hiatus from blogging I decided it’s about time I get back on my blogging game. The last time we spoke (well I spoke to you), I had just returned from a trip to Eilat. That was…nearly 5 months ago! Sorry about the lack of communication, but after a while I got a little tired of writing the same ol’ posts about what was going on in school and our monthly trips. I was waiting for something big to happen that I could blog about, and it did! Unfortunately, I just forgot (read: was slightly too lazy) to blog about it. 

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Hey Readers!

Sorry, I couldn’t resist. I had that title planned out for a while. 

Well, it’s really been a while since my last post. I hope you haven’t been holding your breath! Everything in Israel has been pretty normal. I’ve really settled into my school and the daily routine. Waking up early hasn’t been the easiest thing to get used to, so I actually started drinking coffee! For all of those who didn’t know, for 22 years however many months I never had had much coffee. Before I came to Israel I could probably count the times I’ve had an unflavored cup on one hand. Well, all that has changed here! The selection isn’t incredible like Starbucks, but I like the Turkish coffee (they call it בוץ here, it means mud). I suppose it was only a matter of time before I turned to the drink, but I finally took the plunge. 

School has been pretty great. I have a great group of 7th graders who love to play football (the ‘Murican kind), and next week I’ll hopefully start (again) with the 6th grade to teach them baseball. It’s been more of a challenge to teach baseball because there isn’t as much action. It’s a patient man’s game, and that is in short supply here in Israel. My newest project is pretty exciting (at least to me), I’m working with two 7th grade groups who are going to prepare a debate in English. I think the topic is going to be issues about free speech, but I want to make sure that whatever topic they choose it has relevance in Israel, and that there will be enough for them to write about. We’ll see how that all goes! My dream project at this point would be to do a unit on music with my strong 7th grade group. I asked a few of them what music they listen to from the states and all they said was Justin Beiber, he’s not even from the United States! I was very disappointed, so we’re going to have an American music appreciation class. 

EILAT TRIP!!!

The other week the Ramla groups, and everyone else from Oranim went down to Eilat for the weekend. It was eilat of fun (HA, see what I did there!). On the way down to Eilat we made a stop for a quick hike to the ridge along Mitzpeh Ramon. It was just as beautiful as I remember. Afterwards, we arrived in Eilat, had a quick kabbalat Shabbat and a nice Shabbat dinner. That night we all went out to enjoy the nightlife.

The next day Golomb apartment set out to Coral beach to do some snorkeling. it was a lot of fun, I think I’ve been to the same reef before, but still had a blast going back. The day was pretty relaxing, after snorkeling we crashed until dinner time, and for motzei shabbat we went out on the town again. 

Eilat is a great place, but it’s a little too isolated for me. The scenery is beautiful, and there are tons of places to go out at night, but there doesn’t seem to be much more than that, and everything is the same color…no greenery!

Sorry this post is coming so late! I’ve been busy with school, and nothing much else has been going on. As for more good news, it’s been raining a lot in Ramla. It’s tough to get excited as we were a few weeks ago, but it’s always good to see rain clouds in the sky. The next trip I have coming up is with Kiryat HaOmanim when I’m taking a day trip to Jerusalem with the 7th grade!

I hope everyone at home is doing well and that yall have a great Thanksgiving! 

ילה ביייייי

Hey Readers,

I finally have some time to update everyone on the 10k I recently ran in Tel Aviv. A month back a few of us found out about the run and have been training as much as possible. I’ve never run that far before, and I was pretty nervous if I could make it the entire distance. My first goal was to never stop, and just continue running the whole race (complete!). The second goal was to run the race in under a hour (complete too!!). 

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Hey Readers!

It’s been a minute since my last update, and there is much to fill yall in on! Last Wednesday we had a meeting with the president of Oranim (now Israel Way) Avraham Infeld. Thursday we had an Oranim/Israel Way trip up to Caesarea and then to the Carmel region. Saturday I went out to Tel Aviv and then came back to Ramla for our amazing Halloween party. Last, but certainly not least, Sunday we went to Jerusalem to see Idan Raichel perform live!!! It’s been a crazy couple days, and it’s not really slowing up any time soon.

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Hey Readers!

Well it’s finally begun, I’m teaching English in Israel! 

I’ll start chronologically…The first day (Sunday) I was beyond nervous, I had no clue what to expect, and I was starting to feel sick on the drive to my school. Once I arrived I was immediately met by my wonderful teacher, Lilach. She’s in charge of the English program at Kiryat HaOmanim, and I will be following her schedule to all my English classes. From the moment she met me at the door all my nervousness went away. Her English is excellent, as is the principals, which has made my first few days so much easier. We had a few hours to go over how the first day/week would go. This really put me at ease, and by the time we walked into the class room I could not wait to get started.

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Hey Readers!

Just got back from Greece yesterday after an amazing 5 night cruise to the islands of Rhodes and Samos. We left Sunday morning from Haifa and spent the first night/day at sea en route to Rhodes. Once we got there we had an amazing dinner on the roof top of a restaurant overlooking the port and our ship. In hind sight it probably wasn’t the best decision, since the wind was blowing like crazy and I was FREEZING! I had an amazing lamb gyro with UNBELIEVABLE tzatzhiki sauce. It was my first time having either and I gotta say I don’t think it will ever be topped. The restaurant was very nice and gave our table 3 bottles of some pretty decent Greek wine. As we were leaving the restaurant staff told us exactly which bar to go to, and it turned out to be great. It was a small place called Alexanders on “Bar Street” which is (to no one’s surprise) the night-life district of Rhodes. There was plenty of dancing, singing, and having a good ol’ wholesome night out on the town. 

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Hey Readers!

Just wanted to give a quick update post before I head out to Greece today! It’s 6:30AM here and we’re about to head up North to Haifa to get on our boat. Sorry about the non-posting, not much has been going on here. Quick recap: we had ulpan, and some more ulpan, and then finally it was Sukkot where I had the first night’s dinner at my Libyian host family’s home (henceforth known as Almog’s place). 

OK! Well I don’t want to miss my train, so I gotta get going. I hope everyone in Maryland had/is having a helluva day/night at Homecoming. Just checked the score, we lost but w/e it was #8 Clemson, there’s always next year (didn’t we say that last year too?). I hope everyone is having a great time eating in their Sukkah’s and their holiday is going wel (for those who do those kinda things). 

I’ll probably have hundreds of pictures and stories to post when I get back on the 21st, but until then…

I’M OUTTA HERE!

ילה ביייייייייי

Hey Readers!

Sorry there hasn’t been much to blog about in the past few days. We’ve been going to Ulpan, a couple trips to the beach in Tel Aviv, and that’s been about it. However, yesterday was Yom Kippur, and that alone was enough to fill up a few paragraphs. 

Friday night (Kol Neidre) I stayed in and had dinner instead of going out to services at the local synagogue. It was a combination of not knowing where the synagogues were, and that the service was going to be difficult to follow for most of us. So we (Julia, Lauren, and I) decided to have a big dinner before the fast, and then afterwards we walked around the streets of Ramla to see what was going on in the city. It turns out that in Israel on Yom Kippur there are also ZERO cars on the road. I think between Friday night and all of Saturday I might have seen 5 cars driving on the road, one was an ambulance, two taxis, a regular sedan, and an unmarked police car. While we were walking it became apparent that instead of cars on the road, thousands of children and their bicycles were taking over. I’m pretty sure every child in Ramla was out Friday night riding their bike, scooter, or skateboard. All the parents were out as well kibbitzing and shpatziring around the city.

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שנה טובה Readers!!

The past two/three days have been amazing. We started ulpan (and in away finished for me), had an amazing night in Tel Aviv, and had a great first night of Rosh HaShanah! 

Ulpan began Monday morning, bright and early at 8AM. We were divided up into our two groups—beginner and advanced—and began our lessons. From what I hear the beginner group is doing really well, and are learning very fast. My class…not so much. Right from the start we knew there would be some issues: Elan already speaks, reads, and writes fluently in Hebrew, Carmit can speak fluently but cannot read or write well, and then there is Geoff and I who can speak/read/write well, but need to improve our vocabulary and ease of talking. What a mess. We started off the first class by going over בנינים (shoot me now), but it was nice to learn some new verbs. Then after the day was over our teacher basically told Elan he didn’t need to be in Ulpan, and that Carmit should come for two hours in the morning and Geoff and I should come for two hours after her. 

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Hey Readers!

It’s been a great week here in Eretz Yisrael. We are finally 1 day away from finishing our classes at Seminar haKibbutzim. It’s been a long time coming, and I’m soo glad it’s finally here. Next week starts the holiday season, so we will have one class on Sunday, then we have two days of Ulpan on Monday and Tuesday, and after we’ll be on vacation for most of the next two-ish weeks. I can’t wait to celebrate the High Holidays in Israel. I’ve been in Israel for the Spring holidays like Pesach, Lag B’Omer, and Yom Ha’atzmeut/Zikaron, but I’ve always wanted to be in Israel for Rosh HaShanah, Yom Kippur, and Hanukkah. 

I’m also really glad Ulpan is getting underway. My Hebrew has been getting a lot better, but I could definitely use some formal instruction. At Shabbat dinner last Max S. and I went to Kevin’s host family’s home (with him) for an amazing meal. They were more than happy to talk to me in Hebrew, and I was really surprised at how comfortable I have become speaking the language. Of course I made mistakes, but they—and most Israelis—have been very polite about either ignoring them or correcting me. The family we visited last night were Libyan Jews, so the food was pretty spicy, but sooo delicious. They invited me back for the second night of Rosh Hashanah, and I’m definitely going to take them up on that offer.

I guess I’m going to back track through my week.

Thursday was Julia’s 25th birthday! So naturally, we all went out to to Tel Aviv to go celebrate. The club/lounge/bar we went to was a lot of fun, there was a lot of dancing the whole night, and we didn’t end up making it back to Ramla until 4:30AM. Might seem a little late for people in the States, but apparently this is all pretty normal in Israel. After we got back and walked the girls back to their apartments I got to video chat with some of my boys in CP (College Park). Parkes, Joe and Heller, it was awesome seeing yall! I also got to talk with Manzy (Ary), Finny (Josh), and ~ (Evan), it was a great end to an very fun night. I hope things in CP get better. I know things aren’t great at the moment, but I’m sure it’ll get a whole lot more fun.

I hope everyone in the States is doing well. I miss everyone a lot, and I hope everyone visits soon! Just a reminder to all those back in the States, the best number to reach me on is 678-500-8646. It’s a Skype line, and acts exactly as if you were calling any other phone number in the States. 

Here’s an unrelated lyric to end it:

“Smile like you’ve got nothing to prove.”

Ben Folds: There’s Always Someone Cooler than You