The Bomb Squad

So I get home at 17:00 and put my bag up in my room. I step out of my room to say hi to people on my program and people start screaming about how the bomb squad is on its way. Being the naive American that I am, I run to my porch to see what's going on right outside my building and because I wanted to see the robot. Our director said we could go to our porch and observe, but once my roommates and I got up there, the police had told our director, Yossi, that we could not be on the porch so he waved us back inside. Many of us naive Americans and Canadians were trying to come up with clever ways to see what was going on. We tried a porch that's hard to see from. We couldn't see anything, so we tried the library in the old building right under my porch. Well the police saw us, but didn't say anything. Unfortunately, we still couldn't see anything. We then found out the suspicious package was inside the synagogue in the gates of base. We discussed if we'd actually be safe or not should a bomb go off. One person said yes, others said no. The streets were completely blocked off however. By 18:00, the bomb squad finished their job, the police opened the streets back up and now the hustle and bustle that is Jerusalem rush hour has started up again. As it turns out, the suspicious package was just a bag of books. It's a bit of an adrenaline rush to get to see (well not really see as much as have the experience of) this. If it were to happen again, I don't think we would be quite as excited as we were tonight.

First Week

Well I survived the first week of school. I finalized my classes. In case you were interested, my schedule is as follows:

SUNDAY
no classes
MONDAY
8:30-10:15 Hebrew.
12:30-14:15 Israeli Literature
14:30-16:15 Jewish Jesus to Christianity
TUESDAY
8:30-12:15 Hebrew
WEDNESDAY
12:30-14:15 Israeli Literature
14:30-16:15 Jewish Jesus to Christianity
THURSDAY
8:30-10:15 Hebrew
12:30-16:15 Evolutionary Psychology

This is not a bad schedule in my opinion. I'm very happy with it. The first rehearsal for Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat went well last night. Michael, the director, told me I'm choreographing "Close Every Door to Me",  "Those Canaan Days", and " a section of "Go Go Joseph"

I'm pretty excited for all of this

First day of school! First day of school!

You get a prize if you can figure out the reference for the title!

Today was the first day of school. I only have one class on Sundays, and that is Art History.  My class doesn't start until 2:30 so I had the morning to myself. I spent it with some people who don't have class on Sundays and some people that do. For lunch, a group of us spent 73 NIS on a pizza for the 6 of us. At 1:30, Jennie, Yedidyah and I got on the bus to Hebrew University. Along the way, Jennie kept freaking out about how much time we had left until class began. (These are Israeli drivers, what they drive is more important than the other vehicles on the road, including bus drivers). We got there in time. Art History was a good class. Tomorrow I have Israeli Literature and Jewish Jesus through Christianity. I will most likely have to drop Jewish Jesus because I can't take 4 classes. Thursdays I have Evolutionary Psychology. Thursday, I'll post my official schedule (including rehearsals for the show)

Simchat Torah, Assassins, Sculptures, Sushi, Crosswords and more

SIMCHAT TORAH
Simchat Torah was a lot of fun. I didn't go to shul erev Simchat Torah, but in the morning I went to an Egalitarian Orthodox shul called Yedidyah. When we girls were in the women's section, we met a girl a few years older than us who happened to have been on Nativ 24. She told us "if you guys get fat on Nativ, you will lose it by the end of the program." We found that to be very random. Also at shul, we ran into Chaiim. It was so much fun to see him again and again and again (too bad he's going to Australia now).

ASSASSINS
We have just begun the game of assassins where we all receive a clothespin with someone's name on it and the goal is to grab the clothespin without anyone seeing you take it. If you take it, you killed someone and go after their target and so on...
I was killed and I've been helping those that are alive and joking around with my friends still in the game about how they can see dead people

SCULPTURES
There is a sculpture in Liberty Bell Park of an alligator. Last time I was here, the task was to look at the entire sculpture from the tail. ( it's quite amusing and I encourage you all to come to Israel not just to see the sculpture but to see how fantastic it is)

SUSHI
Girls night out was originally to a sushi bar called Japanika. Because there were 6 of us on a Saturday night, they didn't have the room for us and were taking people before us even though we were on the list. So we ditched Japanika and walked down the road to another sushi bar called Tsunami. It was delicious. So many combinations. The edemamme bowl was enormous. It was superb.

CROSSWORDS
In the lobby of the old building (my building) there is the largest crossword puzzle in the world. The challenge is to have the most words in your track, so they separate each track by color. It's quite the challenge when there are 5 people all looking to solve the clues in the book and there are only 3 colors.

MORE...
I finished my finals for the minimester. I am getting my cartilege pierced today. There are bed bugs at Beit Nativ (no mattresses right now). I bought stickers. and finally...
I MADE IT INTO THE ISRAELI LITERATURE CLASS!!!!
Let me explain. This class is limited to up to 25 students. All the students who signed up for this class were wait listed. Because the semester starts on Sunday, they had the lottery of all the students last night. Today they sent out emails to those who for sure got it. I am one of the lucky 25. It's like getting the Golden Ticket only 5 times better...[haha joke 5 times better because 5 X 5 = 25 and there's 25 in the class]
I love my humor sometimes

Worst Shabbat Ever...But I Survived the Desert

WORST SHABBAT EVER...
For Shabbat, Wendy and I were being hosted at a friend of one of the Madricha's house. It was in a city/town called Elkana (east of Tel-Aviv).  What should have taken one hour, took 3. We had to take 2 different buses. The first took an hour. We waited another hour for the second bus. The third bus came, we told the driver where we wanted to get off, but apparently he didn't understand us because he completely passed our stop and kept going. Then at the last stop (in Ariel), he told us to get off the bus because it was the last stop. So Wendy calls the host family informing them that we are stuck and we don't know where we are. Our madricha's friend said she'd meet us 15 minutes later. It was a good 30-45 minutes before anyone came to get us. Once we were in the car, she informed us she was speeding not because it's Israel (and that's what they do there) but because it was Shabbat. We made it before Shabbat with about 2 minutes to spare. It was a very awkward situation for us because the family barely spoke any English and they barely spoke to us at all. When they did it was very impersonal. Except for the one time (which was a very funny event)
-They have 4 children: 3 boys and 1 girl. The 2 oldest boys are married. Oldest has 2 kids, second oldest has none. The 3rd child (the youngest boy) is unmarried and 22. So he says he wants the 2 girls next to him. They notice Wendy's necklace (which is half a heart; her best friend has the other half). They ask our age (18) and if we have a boyfriend. We both feel awkward so we say yes and mention 2 different guys on our program as our significant other. That was the highlight of our night.
Because the family had made plans for lunch and informed our madricha of these plans, so she arranged for us to go to a different family's house for lunch. That was strange because not only because we were in a place nowhere near where we were used to, but we didn't know this family or the family where we were having lunch that day. It was slightly less awkward for us because they knew a little bit more English than our host family. We had to walk back to our host's house. We walked too far at first, but we got back. We took a nice long Shabbas nap until 6:10 (when Shabbat officially ended.) We knew we needed to head back to Jerusalem because we had to pack for the Tiyul aka Desert Survival. They hadn't done Havdallah yet, so it was holding us back even more. After Havdallah, the daughter drove us to a bus stop to get on a bus which would go straight to Jerusalem. Right as she pulled up, so did the bus. Our trip back to Jerusalem was an
hour. A big improvement as opposed to the way there.

BUT I SURVIVED THE DESERT
Early Sunday morning (about 6:00 am), all 93 of us Nativers were getting onto the buses to take us to where our desert survival was to begin. Originally, the plan was for two of the 3 groups to hike one way and the other to hike the opposite way. This, as it turned out, was not what had actually happened. We came to find out that our staff had to change the plans that morning. The Be'er Sheva and the Kibbutz tracks began at Ein Gedi (a beautiful nature preserve). We then got on the buses to a nature preserve for: what was supposed to be a hike turned into a 10 minute walk..with all 3 tracks in the same place. Yerucham and half of Be'er Sheva got on the jeeps to Ein Ekev (another gorgeous nature preserve). Our director, Yossi, told Yerucham to eat and the first half of Be'er Sheva to follow him. He led us on a path straight to...a natural spring/pool. None of us knew to bring our swim suits, so a few of us jumped in the water. It was quite refreshing. Oliver and Elana saved a kid from drowning in the water (go them). After we got out and dried ourselves out in the sun a bit, we went to the small little rock area where Yerucham had been eating and we were about to eat. Our half of the group began setting up lunch and waited for the other half to arrive (they had the rest of the food). We ate and the first half of Be'er Sheva got on the jeeps and headed towards the buses. We waited for everyone else (which meant we got a nice nap while it was quiet). When everyone was on their appropriate bus, we rode to the campsite. It was getting dark, and we were told to quickly set up our tents. We had a hot soup, davened Ma'ariv. Then ate dinner. After dinner, each track went on a night hike in the desert. [I will add in that I now know the true meaning of surviving in the desert. Go find a cliff, use the restroom, and burn the toilet paper (there is a story to this understanding)]. Once all the groups were back, we had a bonfire and then went to bed, knowing it would be an early morning (4 a.m.) By 4:30, we were up and dressed and beginning Shacharit. We got to witness the sunrise and it was breathtaking. After breakfast, Yossi gave each group a task. My group was literally given the shit job. We had to go to the cliff areas that people were using as a restroom and pick up the toilet paper that people had not burned. After we finished cleaning up the campsite, we began our hike. It was a good 1.5-2 hours. I felt more accomplished today than I had the day before. We hiked up a mountain (which was not a fun experience due to my fear of heights.) This resulted in a slight panic attack. Once on the mountain, it was a beautiful view (which I saw by sitting down in the middle and looking out) our guide had a surprise for us...Bubbles! Then came the hard part, getting down from the mountain (actually it was Machtesh Ramon...a crater but not really) Ariel was holding my hand as I was tearing up from fear. She and Allie were distracting me from thinking about the fear (which worked). We got on the buses and went somewhere for brunch. Each group sat in a circle. Our guide had a piece of candy. With the candy, we had 2 things to say. The candy part [the great part of the Tiyul] and the wrapper [the bad part of the Tiyul]. After brunch, we went to the mall for lunch. Once we got back to base, it was a race to the showers.
Now we are all clean and happy.

There's a Fly in My Soup

For the first night of Sukkot, I was hosted with 3 other people for dinner. 2 of the 4 had originally planned to go. The other 2 claimed they were sick  (actually they were just hungover) so I and one other person took their spot. Yesterday morning, I and 4 people went to the Shuk [like a farmer's market] and we bought a few things. When we got back to base, we learned we had missed lunch so we went off to get Moshiko's [Falafel Fast Food] and eat it in the park. After, we realized stores would be closing down soon and we needed to get a bottle of wine for our host family. My group brought Moscato. Once we got to our host family's extended family's house, we sat down in the Sukkah and began talking with 2 of the 7 children and 1 guest. Apparently the guest we were talking to knew a couple of the people on our trip, including my roommate. When the soup was brought out, i found a fly in it. The meal was so delicious. The rule was: my side of the table started with the food then passed it down to the other end of the table. What a process. Last night, a few of us decided to fufill the mitzvah of sleeping in the sukkah. It was so much fun.We all went to sleep by 4:30, woke up at 7 (because people were coming down to eat breakfast) and I went back to my room to sleep some more.

I'm a little nervous for desert survival (hopefully I'll get through it)

Squat and Thrust

Today was the audition for Joseph and the Technicolor Dream Coat. I didn't actually plan to audition, I just wanted to choreograph because I was told they needed a choreographer. Well at 4:00, I went to the audition and found out that even the people who were doing tech work also had to audition...Well of course I didn't have a song prepared, so what did I pull out of my pocket? Strangely, not Avenue Q. But "Popular" from Wicked. At one point, the director stopped me, made me sing "Happy Birthday". Then, he made me seduce a chair (probably to see if I had a shot at being Potaphar's wife). So I seduce the chair (which I was told afterwards was very well dong...slightly scary thought). Because I was the only dancer present at today's audition, he asked me to do a jete. I thought this was the most simple task. I was right, it was, even while wearing jeans. So the director might actually let me choreograph. He asked us to come to tomorrow's audition so it would be easier to figure out parts. I'm excited to see how the people do tomorrow. I'm bringing more than the 2 people minimum he wanted us to bring for tomorrow's audition.
I can't wait for that