magical mangoes; somebody shut up the shofar

Life for the past few days has included weeding, transplanting vegetables into hostile soil, and hanging strawberry gutters. I call them strawberry gutters because that's what they are, rain gutters that have been repurposed for planting hanging strawberry gardens. Kinda cool, yes. Trying to do this in gale-force winds, no.

Other events of note:

• I think this is stemming from my recent LOST marathon, but I have been dreaming about mangoes. Like, craaaaaaaving them. There has also not been ANY fruit around the house as of late, which is mildly annoying. Anyway, today, out of nowhere, this man shows up in a giant truck full of produce. Aliza and I both thought this was super random and kind of sketchy but apparently he comes every week and Lilach buys what she wants for vegetables and fruit. Well, then he just starts pulling out various items "for our house" and giving them to us, for free. We got grapes, a cantaloupe, bananas, pears, and some Druze coffee that he produced out of the front (the sketchyness continues), and then is like, "oh, do you have these in America?" AND HE PULLS OUT TWO MANGOES. I kinda flipped out. Thank you, sketchy produce man, for making my dreams come true.

• Someone on this mountain has been randomly tooting his shofar (or what sounds like a shofar, we're not really sure) at odd hours of the day and night for the last several days and its starting to get irritating. Its Israel, we know already, we get the point. PIPE DOWN.

• Yesterday we started making stews that will be reheated for the guests during the busy season (which, I should mention, starts right as I leave the country....brilliant timing!). Things that go into each of these "stews": pan fried beef (aka, Aliza getting splattered with hot oil repeatedly for hours on end), potatoes and carrots (Jane peeling everything in sight for hours on end), onions (both of us crying our eyes out for the entire process), garlic (which my hands STILL smell like), flaming brandy, and an entire bottle of the house wine (what?!). Sadly, I doubt I will ever get to taste the fruits of my labor.

• This morning I met Lilach's friend Gersham, who is our neighbor. He is also, incidentally, the commanding IDF general for the military colleges here and a good friend of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the (probably about to be former) US commanding general in Afganistan. Talking to him, as with everyone else I have met here, has only made me more set on the fact that (a) I want/need to travel more in this region, and (b) any American who wants to tout their "expert" opinion on happenings in the Middle East needs to get their butt over here and learn about it on the ground first.

• As soon as Shabbat is over tonight, I will be taking the bus to Nazareth, where I will start on the Jesus Trail in the morning. If you're not familiar, this is a four day hike from Nazareth down to Capernaum and Tiberias that goes through various holy sites and locations of Jesus' early ministry. I thought about going to Jerusalem first, but decided to save that for next week seeing as I'd rather go where he lived then to where he died rather than vice versa. I'll be back Wednesday night, so that will probably be my next update.

• The camera situation has been resolved, at least temporarily. We didn't have time to go to Kiryat Shmona yesterday to look for a new one, and apparently everything they had in Masadeh (the Druze village) was over $1000 shekels - to which I said HELL NO. I was getting really stressed about it, because I don't want to travel without a camera, but then Lilach was like, "Why don't you just use ours?" Brilliant!
  

That's all for this lovely Shabbat.

tossing felines

Happy summer, everyone. Yes, I know I'm a day late. I have pretty much completely lost track of the date, someone please remind me when its July 13.

Yesterday was basically another Shabbat for me. I woke up and went downstairs at my usual time and NOBODY was home. There was nothing for me to do. I went back upstairs and went back to sleep.

The rest of the day was a nice montage of eating, sleeping, reading, watching LOST, and laying out by the pool. I finished the first of the three books I brought, The Hopeful Skeptic, a very good read if anyone is interested in a very nontraditional look at Christian theology, and am trying to decide which of the remaining two to read next. I will probably read these two faster than I read the last one, seeing as I am on the final episode of Season 3 and I have no desire to rewatch that pathetic 13-episode excuse for a fourth season. Sidenote: I also only took 3 books last year when I went to Alaska. Guess which ones they were and you win a prize. Guess the other two I have this year and you win another one. And no, I am not counting the Bible.

Two other things of particular interest occurred yesterday. One, my new roommate arrived. Her name is Aliza and she is from Brooklyn and has been working at a lodge in the desert down south for the last two weeks. She's pretty chill and its nice to have some company after being alone for a week and a half. Two, LILACH BOUGHT GROCERIES. Ok, let me back up and give you some context here: We have been out of like, everything, since before Shabbat. Milk, bread, eggs, cheese, meat, you name it, I have been scrounging around and stretching out the remains of my travel food for the last few days since I got back. So anyway, she comes back from town with a carful of bags, and it was like Christmas (or Hanukkah, since this is Israel). Ahhh, so much glorious food! I have been dining very well for the last day and a half.

Other food things to mention, I have been getting more creative and independent with my cooking recently and some of it has worked and some of it hasn't. Let me explain: I don't have a stove. I do, however, have a closet full of old appliances, including about 9 hot plates, most of which do not work. The other night i decided to make pasta. Obviously, I need one hot plate to make the sauce (a lovely mix of tomatoes, a mystery cheese, zatar, and cayenne pepper.......don't ask me, I was making it up as I went along), and one hot plate to cook the noodles. Well, I found one hot plate that really worked, and a second one that maybe sort of worked. I started cooking the sauce on the one that really worked, and kept waiting and waiting and waiting for the water to boil on the other one. It wasn't happening. Finally I said, screw this, I'm cooking the noodles in my hot water pot. This was definitely successful, but my next cup of tea may or may not have tasted slightly of spaghetti. Tonight I attempted to make an omelet, which was another semi-failure since I didn't have a spatula or a flat frying pan......much less a nonstick frying pan. So, I had scrambled eggs for dinner. I have, however, been having much more luck with sandwiches and have made two excellent tuna melts recently.

Today we went to weed in the hanging gardens for the morning, which wasn't too bad. It was nice to have someone to talk to (instead of myself) while I worked, and it was somewhat cooler and breezier today. Sidenote: It is suddenly really cool here, and Guy says it is going to be colder during the day tomorrow. Whaaaaat? Perhaps I will actually need my sweatshirt for once. In the afternoon Lilach and Guy went to Akko for Tomer's end of the year party and left me in charge. Oh, crap. Ok, well, it wasn't that bad. I did manage to get four rooms ready and get the right people to the right rooms. I just couldn't answer any of the 9 billion questions they all asked me. By the time Lilach and Guy got back I was in desperate need of some Jane time, so I disappeared upstairs for a shower. And this is where the damn cat comes in.

There are a lot of very cute stray cats everywhere here. The great cat lady, Meghan Ewing Phleiderer, would be beside herself if she visited, because Israel is basically a poster child for having animals spayed or neutered. Anyway, there was this cat that was loitering around outside and nuzzling up to Aliza looking for food, and it was super skinny so she decided to feed it. She gave it a piece of cheese. Then it moved onto our porch. I felt bad so I gave it the empty tuna can from lunch for it to get the leftovers from. Neither of these were good ideas. Now the cat thinks it belongs in our house, and worse any door that opens (including those of guest cabins). I left the door open for a minute this afternoon and it walked right in, and I had to lure it outside using another tuna can. I didn't really want to pick it up because I thought it might scratch me, but I later gave up on this plan. Then tonight, I was coming back and I didn't even see the cat on the porch, opened the door for half a second to walk inside, and the cat was in the house before I was. It ran all over everything, the beds, the staircase, the table, the counter, and after trying very unsuccessfully to lure it outside with the trashcan and a cucumber (don't ask, it was what I had on hand), I finally picked the thing up and literally tossed it out the door. Ok, this was kind of mean, but I was getting really annoyed and its not even my house to begin with, so I couldn't really give it the idea that it was ok to come inside and chill with us. It ran in again when Aliza came in and she tossed it back out, and it has been periodically meowing and rubbing itself against the door ever since. Sigh.

In other news, I realized that by the time I return to the States I will have been gone exactly 40 days. I think this is kind of cool given why I came here in the first place and the fact that I didn't plan it at all.

one foot in front of the other

Time for an update on my recent excursions!

So, Wednesday I rode in to Akko with Tomer and his driver (he goes to a private school there). Akko is about an hour and a half from here, on the coast, and about a half hour north of Haifa. It is apparently the oldest port city in the world. I figured it was a good place to start since it was relatively close, and I could hitch a ride and not have to figure out bus schedules using Egged's website. Egged, the bus company here, is apparently super well organized and extensive and used by everyone. However, their website is a large load of crap. I tried to use it to figure out getting around Tel Aviv and just gave up, so now I'm putting it off as long as possible by using the trains and other various modes of transportation.

So I got to Akko around 9 and went to the hostel first to drop my stuff. The woman there, Zipi, was extremely helpful in navigating the city and gave me this awesome map that basically saved my life. Ok, it would have been a little more awesome had it been in english instead of french, but I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. She pointed out some things to check out around the city, and I struck out on foot.

The first place I went was the Baha'i shrine and gardens, which I had heard were beautiful. Northern Israel, Haifa actually, is the world capital for the Baha'i faith (if you don't know what it is, go wikipedia it). I thought that the gardens in Akko were like, THE gardens, but actually there are also gardens in Haifa. I apparently went to the less outstanding of the two. They were nice, but (a) most of them are blocked off, so you only get to walk around for about 20 minutes (b) I forgot about the whole modesty rule in holy sites and was given a very thick sweater to wear over my tank top (which would not have been an issue had it not been about 90 degrees....or whatever the Celsius equivalent is) , (c) the tour I was tagging along behind was given entirely in Hebrew, and (d) I walked roughly 45 minutes there and back and it was totally not worth it. Oh well....

I then went to explore the Old City, which was a long walk but nice. I checked out this citadel that is a continuing archaeological site which was kind of cool, but then I went down the wrong alley and ended up getting a bit lost in an Arab neighborhood. Found my way out of that eventually and walked to the beach, where I spent a couple hours. Then walked to the promenade along the sea which was nice, and back in to a different part of the old city. I was looking to see some old churches but didn't have much luck there, apparently they must not want you to come to church because the doors are impossible to find. Apparently the old city is also a popular spot to get married, I thought I had seen the same bride and groom in about six different places until I realized there were actually two couples and the girls just happened to be wearing the same dress. It would seem there is a shortage of atrocious TLC wedding shows on this side of the globe.

By the time I made it back to the hostel I was exhausted, so I took a shower and got in bed around 6pm. I also had a horrible blister on my toe from my flip flops, the first blister I have ever gotten from my tevas, and greatly regretted deciding not to bring tennis shoes OR the first aid kit with me. So I had to tough it out and make do with wrapping a piece of toilet paper around my toe until I could find a place to buy bandaids.

The next day I got up and walked to the train station, where I took the train to Haifa. I did manage to get off at the right stop and found my way to the next hostel. They were also very helpful about where to go and how to get there, but unfortunately did not give you free wifi, which made me extremely unhappy since the internet hadn't worked the night before either. Spent the rest of the day exploring the city/lying on the beach, which I have to say is the nicest beach I have ever been to. I am loving the Mediterranean. I also rode the Carmelit, which is Israel's only subway, and if you can believe it is even more useless than Miami's Metrorail. It was built in the 1960's and despite being renovated in the 80's it is still pretty retro. It has two trains and six stops and that's about it. However, it did prevent me from walking up and down Mt. Carmel, which was nice. The major detriment of the day was the fact that on my last bus ride of the evening, my camera fell out of my pocket. Sigh. I really do have the worst luck when it comes to cameras. Despite making an early morning trek to the central bus station the next day to see if they had it, I still have not managed to recover the camera. I am currently working on a solution, aka finding a new one here. Anyway, other than the internet situation, the hostel was very nice. I met a slew of Christian motorcyclists who were riding from Finland to Jerusalem, and a variety of American jews around my age who invited me out to join them in that night's revelry. I declined, but did hear the results of "All you can drink for 8 shekels after 2am" in the bathroom on the other side of my wall three separate times in the early hours of the morning. Not sure if that was one person throwing up three times or three different people, but sounds like they had a pretty epic night.

Took the train back to Akko in the morning to catch a ride back to Nimrod with Tomer and his driver. Ended up getting on the wrong train and arrived way early, so I got to look super sketchy sitting on my backpack outside the train station for an hour.

Traveling was fun but it takes a lot out of you doing it on your own, so it's nice to be back for a few days. You'll be happy to know I cleaned up the house and a weeks worth of dirty dishes in preparation for my new roomies coming tomorrow.

Also, a very happy Father's Day to all you fathers out there. They don't have Father's Day here; apparently they used to have Mother's Day but changed it to Family Day to make it more fair. Sonny Lemmons, I hope for your sake your kid doesn't celebrate today like he did Mother's Day.

bags, bruises, and bovine

So the last two days have been spent with Gilad and the tutzim. This isn't so bad, the work is easy and I have plenty of time to think, which is always nice. The strawberry plant total is now over 4,000....kind of insane. Thats like, two tons of actual strawberries. Eat your heart out, boys.

Nothing of real significance has happened of late, so time for a few randoms.

• I keep forgetting to mention it, but for all you Pearsonians, Lilach SERIOUSLY reminds me of Jan Nijman. Personality and wisdom for one thing, and looks for another. Fo real, this woman could pass for his sister. Then it was REALLY funny to me when she said people told her she looked Dutch and not Israeli.....I was like, well, I only know two Dutch people, but you look EXTREMELY like one of them.

• Have you ever seen milk sold in a BAG? I was very confused when Lilach first pulled one out of the fridge, but apparently that is normal here. You cut off a little corner, then stick the whole thing in a pitcher and pour away. The problem, my friends, is that I really suck at the whole cutting off the corner thing. I have yet to find scissors in this house, and when trying to accomplish this task with a steak knife, I have on more than one occasion ripped open half the bag. This is really terrible, because inevitably I seem to always the one who gets stuck with the empty milk bag. Sigh.

• Another weird Israel thing (or maybe just international thing): two different flush buttons on the toilet. Whaaaaaaaat?! Half flush for pee, full flush for poop. Both if your name is Laura Searcy and you just had your daily elimination.
  

• Today when putting on my shoes, I somehow managed to slip, and slammed the side of my elbow into the staircase. I almost cried, it hurt so bad. Now I have a lovely bruise there to match the ones on my fingers from the damn tutz scissors and the one on my head from standing up into the ceiling of the loft. Apparently I am a disaster waiting to happen. Thanks, Israel, for trying to make me match your flag.

• There is a herd of cows that roams outside the greenhouse where I've been planting, and they are very, very loud. They are not, as Giselle would say, wild cattle, like the ones we have seen meandering along the road here and they want you to know it. Sometimes when Gilad talks to me I can't hear him over the cattle. I could, however, hear the angry farmer who shares the greenhouse when he came in today while Gilad was out and was yelling at me in Hebrew for apparently planting strawberries on the blueberry side of the greenhouse. Let's chill out, people, its not that serious.
  

• I am taking a few days off and going to Haifa tomorrow to explore/go to the beach. This is provided that my Israel cell phone arrives today. Oh, in case you want to spend an atrocious amount and call me without using Skype, the number is 011972503175855 (from the US). I realize it's a lot of effort to dial that many digits, but whatever floats your boat.....it's free on my end :)

• I realized last night that I have a George Foreman grill in my little kitchen, and it is AWESOME. I made a very non-kosher panini for dinner and it was excellent. Time to hit up Asia Davis for some very-illegal-in-my-dorm-room-but-who-really-cares College Cooker recipes!! (see www.thecollegecooker.com)
  

• Roommate update: Catherine is apparently in Scotland now, trying to find her runaway schizophrenic brother (I swear I'm not making this up) but is coming back in two weeks, according to Lilach. Another american named Melissa is arriving on Monday, and someone named Stephen is coming the same time as Catherine. Looks like it'll be a full house soon!

All for now, more for later.

dreaming of green plants

So yesterday I felt the most useful that I have since I got here, which was nice. Not that I haven't been useful per se, but this was the first time I had something to do that was unique to my skill set. I wrote a grant proposal!! Quick background: A more recent project of Lilach & Guy is Tomer's Farm, an eco-resort that will be staffed by local disabled individuals, offering them educational as well as employment opportunities since in Israel, they have no support (governmental or NGO) post-age 21. (I may or may not have mentioned this earlier, but all of the profits from Chalet Nimrod Castle go to fund better education programs for autistic people in the Golan). Construction will hopefully begin next June, but right now they are fundraising and getting final approvals and all that. So anyway, when applying for grants from US based foundations, there's a lot of specific lingo and things that need to be included, plus its difficult to write anyway if english isn't your first language. So, I'm working on stuff like that and trying to figure out what the Israeli version of 501(c)3 status is and how to apply for it. Once again, Simon's POL 524 proves to be the most useful class I've ever taken :). I'm also going through UNEP's Sustainable Tourism criteria to (a)put them in more understandable language for Lilach, (b)see which ones they already meet, and (c)come up with ways to meet the ones they don't. So this is all very good, and I feel very useful. I'm also answering Lilach's english emails for her, since she claims her grammar sucks and she doesn't get the american way of being polite....lol.

I spent the afternoon reading and sunning myself (it was actually HOT for the first time) and watching LOST. I am currently rewatching the second season, and having the strange desire to create a parody leadership series based on these characters (Jack vs. Locke vs. Ana Lucia vs. Ben vs. Jacob, etc). ANYWAY....I watched like, five episodes yesterday. This is what happens when I don't have roommates. I need to get out more.

Today I went to work with Gilad to do strawberry transplanting, which turned out to not be so bad. I didn't end up having to go to the field at all, which meant NO bending or squatting for hours on end, so Gilad would go and get the cuttings, then bring them to me to be trimmed/separated, then we would plant them all in the greenhouse. It was actually quite therapeutic No joke, I planted the beginnings over over 1000 strawberry plants today. Gilad says the green plants are going to haunt my dreams. Maybe, but I'm more haunted by the use of child scissors for hours at a time today....its insane how bruised my thumb and first two fingers are.

Picked up Rez and Ziv from preschool and ran some errands in town. Met a guy who Lilach described as "the Crocodile Dundee of Israel". Came back, and have been watching more LOST.....I seriously need to stop.

In other news, a year ago today I left for Alaska. Well, I guess that's old news. Those of you that know everything else that means will recognize how blessed I am to be where I am, how I am, and with whom I am a year later. Hence the phoenix; God is good.

Shabba tov l'at, v'at v'at v'at

Let's see. Where to begin?

Yesterday I did a lot of random things, including but not limited to: serving breakfast, transplanting various plants, making jam, and helping build these giant arches for a new construction project. So I guess I should begin by telling you about breakfast.

First of all, HOLY COW, Israeli breakfast (or at least in this lodge) is HUGE. Let me see if I can list everything these people get to eat:
-fresh baked bread
-4 or 5 kinds of cheese
-jam
-omelets
-quiche
-bruskas
-stuffed eggplant rolls
-two different vegetable salads
-tuna salad
-juice
-unidentified veggie dish

it is mildly ridiculous, but surprisingly appetizing to one who doesn't normally like breakfast such as myself. Anyway, Lila prepares all of this every morning, which I think is insane. And woe is me, I am there at 7 am with her. Sigh. Today I had the job of prepping the cheeses and making the salads, which, be as it may, required a lot of chopping onions. I was not happy. This was also not my only onion encounter of the day, but more on that later.

We then prepped like, several hundred strawberries for the jam. My hands are now so stained, it looks I killed someone.

Part of the transplanting went fine, as we were just putting them into window boxes full of nice, happy soil. But then Lila wanted us to plant some on this ridge by the road, with not quite so happy soil. Not trying to be a pessimist, but I am pretty sure that those plants are going to die.

Making the arches is kindof an interesting process, and requires an obscene amount of glue and staples. We worked on this with Guy and Daniel, who works here. Daniel's pretty nice and is very tolerant of me, given that I'm afraid of staple guns and I may or may not have gotten glue in his hair.

Today Giselle left for Eilat, where she will be spending the rest of her time in Israel. This means that I now have the house to myself, since the mysterious Katherine still has yet to appear. We secretly think that she is not coming back, but Lila keeps saying "eh, probably tomorrow" when I ask her about it.

After breakfast, some more jam making, and watering of plants, Lila invited me to go hiking with her and Rez and Ziv through the ruins of Nimrod Fortress, which is this fortification dating back to the Crusades. This was interesting experience with a 3 and a 5 year old, as it involved a lot of steep rock steps, but it was fun and had a lot of nice views of the Golan, the Galilee,and Lebanon. About five minutes into it Rez and Ziv decided they'd had enough and wanted to go back for ice cream ("IIIIIMMMAAAA! RATZITI GLIDA!") but they surprisingly managed to make it through most of it.

Afterward we went to McDonalds, which I found hysterical. Can you imagine a kosher McDonalds? Apparently they exist! I did make the mistake of trying to order a cheeseburger, and the woman at the window looked at me like I had grown a third head. So I ordered a plain hamburger with ketchup, and then guess what was on it? LOTS AND LOTS OF ONIONS. How does that even happen?! I would like to point out, however, that their hamburgers were like, three times the diameter of a McDonald's hamburger in the US. I thought we were the supersized ones! I proceeded to eat about half of it, and then on the very, very windy drive back I threw it all up. Lovely. Golan Heights: 1, Jane: 0

I have also concluded that I am never going to adjust to this time zone, because of my inherent weakness for napping. Remember that time I hated napping? Like, until I lived with Marissa Zerbo? I have been sleeping, on average, three hours during the daytime and six at night. Right amount of sleep yes, timing, no. Le sigh.

I also apparently need to eat more for dinner, because last night I went to bed hungry and dreamt I was pigging out on junk food. So weird.

Tut sadeh, not tut etz

First of all, I need to stop being such a narcoleptic. I took a nap yesterday intending to sleep for an hour and ended up going catatonic for four. Last night I slept for six hours. Hopefully, since I only slept for about two today, I will sleep the full night tonight. But I've been having ridiculous nap dreams, so when I sort of wake up I just want to go back to sleep to pick up the rest of the dream. This is not helping my jet lag case, but oh well.

Yesterday the only real work we did was picking cherries, which was obviously pretty easy aside from the fact that the wind was basically blowing us out of the trees. I won't lie, I probably ate more good ones than I collected, but that's life, eh? (Sidenote: Giselle says "eh" all the time and I find it hilarious. Wooo Canadians!)The afternoon held my insane nap, and in the evening several of their friends visited and we barbecued these amazing chicken wings. I don't know what they were seasoned with, but I want some of it. Incidentally, I also met the apparently infamous son of their former prime minister Ariel Sharon, which is kind of interesting. I also met all of the kids, who are fun. There is their daughter Amit, who is 16 and speaks english almost fluently, their son Tomer, who is 13 and autistic and doesn't speak much to us at all, and their daughters Rez, 5, and Ziv, 3, who like to speak to us A LOT but in very, very fast hebrew and I think I understand about 5% of everything they say. Rez has a little tude when it comes to helping me with the language (which her ima told her to do), but she's so cute she makes up for it.

Today we got up early and went to work with their partner, Gilad, who lives about 20 minutes away. We picked strawberries for like, four hours. My knees and back were dying, and so was my stomach since I ate so many of them. But we had some good conversations, and I'm quickly learning how much of a conundrum I am to people in the fact that (a) I am in israel, (b) I know some hebrew, but (c) I am not jewish. I also learned that the word for strawberry is "tut", but it refers to two fruits. One, "tut sadeh" or strawberry of the field, is what we picked, and the other is "tut etz" or strawberry of the tree. I still don't know what this refers to, since nobody seems to know the english word for it. Afterward, we had lunch and stopped in Masadeh, which is a Druze village in the valley below us. I still don't understand exactly what the Druze are, except that they aren't Jews and they aren't Muslims and some of them think they still live in Syria. More on that later. Anyway, we stopped to buy some zatar, which is basically the best spice ever, and also ended up buying pickles. Which, I might add, came in a plastic coke bottle. I found this mildly amusing.

Came back and folded and ironed about 9 zillion sheets and towels while watching Bob the Builder and Thomas the Tank Engine.......in hebrew. Now that, that is a weird experience.

Israelis are amazing! ...and other revelations

So, after my last post, I was skyping with Jon when my laptop charger suddenly started shooting out sparks. I was like, ok, not good. Part of the adapter cord was melted and the wires were frayed, and of course my battery was near dead. Sigh. After having a minor freakout about having NO connection with the world outside Israel, I went to sleep.

Well, sort of. Tel Aviv apparently doesn't stop moving til around 4 am, and I could hear every minute of it...including many, many hebrew pop songs and one very loud blaring of "I Gotta Feeling". Owing to this, the heat, and the fact that I was still on EST, I think I woke up about every hour and finally around 6 I just gave up and got out of bed. Packed up, wandered downstairs and gave my sheets to the hostel guy. Paid 5 shekels to use the computer so that I could send a 'help, my charger is fried' email to the padre, and then asked the guy if he knew of a place nearby where I could find a new adapter. He was like.....hmm, let me see that. So I give him the charger and he proceeds to dissect (yes, dissect) the adapter and reconnect the wiring. Anyway, long story short, through the use of pliers, a razor blade, and a lot of electrical tape, he fixed it!!! I am forever indebted to the men of Mugraby Hostel.

Afterward I headed outside to try and catch the bus, and ended up taking a sherut, which is sort of a cross between a taxi and a bus. the basic meaning is "shared taxi", but it operates like a bus and runs the same routes. Arrived at the bus station about an hour early for my meeting with the group, so I wandered around a little. First of all, the Tel Aviv Central Bus Station is HUGE. It is like an airport, only with buses, slightly less security (fyi....their security hates backpackers. just be aware), and more soldiers. Apparently it the largest bus station in the world, and it has seven levels and basically a mall inside. I tried to find a phone rental place, but still no luck. Sigh. Met Jonathan and Jenny from GoEco for orientation, as well as Giselle, who is from Toronto (and a korean jew, go figure) and is also working at Chalet Nimrod Castle. Another girl, Katherine, is from Scotland and has been here for a week but is traveling at the moment. We got on the bus and headed for Kiriat Shmona, which is (i think) the northernmost point the bus serves.

So i know everybody who visits here says it, and I've heard it, but it really is true: the IDF is EVERYWHERE. I think 75% of the people I have seen so far in this country have been in uniform. Its interesting, because everyone goes into the military at 18, all of the soldiers I've seen are my age or younger, but anyway, they all ride the same buses as the general public. Legit, I have never ridden on a bus with so many guns.

The bus ride was long and I sort of slept, almost threw up twice, and got in trouble with the bus driver for attempting to curl up in two seats to nap (my bad). Got picked up at the bus stop by Lila, who is one of the owners of the eco lodge. She is super chill and really interesting. Basically she and her husband, Guy, had the life in Tel Aviv, she did PR for the prime minister and all sorts of stuff, and then ten years ago they decided they wanted to do something more, something significant with their life so they moved to the Golan and started building this place. And its beautiful, but more on that later. Its also like, less than a mile from the Syria and Lebanon borders and very close to the demilitarized zone that lies between. No joke, I drove by old minefields on the way here.

By the time we got to the lodge itself i was so tired I was about to fall over, so we took a brief tour and then slept for about four hours. Best nap i've ever had, fo real. Unpacked, had a little dinner, and later went to bed. Got about six hours of sleep before I woke up again, but hopefully now I'm closer to being on the right time zone.

the phoenix has landed!

yep, that's right. After 20 hours in transit, 7000 miles, and three mysterious airplane meals, Jane has made it to Israel!

The flight was excruciatingly long, but I did manage to sleep quite a bit. I also watched Valentine's Day on my little screen, which sadly turned out to be pretty disappointing. Listened to all the PAs in hebrew, didn't understand much. Played a game with myself which involved guessing how many of the people around me were Jewish. Took a phenagrin to help me sleep/not throw up, and woke up with a crick in my neck and a terrible taste in my mouth.

We landed about a half an hour early in Tel Aviv, which was nice and made everything transpire with a bit less stress for me. However, I still do not have a phone. Yes, Jane/Jon plan FAIL. Apparently there are only two places in the airport involve phone rentals, and only one of them actually rents phones (the other, sim cards.....CURSE YOU VERIZON!). Pelaphone, as this is called, was going to charge me upwards of $150 to rent for the summer.....to which I said HELL NO. so, I'm working on non-airport phone rentals and we'll see how that pans out. For now, i'll be using skype to make calls. So Skype me! I think this is pretty much the coolest thing ever invented, but more on that later.

I decided to take a taxi to the hostel, which was way more expensive than taking the bus (about 120 NIS vs like, 30) but it was still cheap by US standards and I was pretty much exhausted and SO not in the mood to figure out buses. The hostel is your basic hostel, but nice because its like a block and a half from the beach. After dumping my stuff and calling dad and Jon, I went for a wander.

Stuck my toes in the Mediterranean. Met a random man named Gabi who guessed that I was from Germany. Um, wrong. Overheard some teenagers arguing about whether or not to take the bus because of the cost (I actually understood this one) Walked in a market and bought some food for dinner. Took a picture of sign that said MIAMI HOTEL in orange and green hebrew. Figured out what bus I need to take in the boker (morning).

Came back and ate, took a shower, and am now about to sleep the night away - hopefully afixing myself to my new time zone.

Which, FYI, is 7 hours ahead of EST and 8 hours ahead of CDT.

Skype me @ jpryjmak!