a little vacation and a couple bday's...

Hi all! Guess what?! I'm 23! I can't believe it, I feel so old. :(

So anyways, I had an amazing time on our Israeli Adventure this past week. It was great to finally get out and truly explore the country we have been living in now for almost 3 months! (yea...time flies.) We started our tour d'Israel last Sunday morning with a full on soccer-mom mini van and we drove south to Ein Gedi, where the Dead Sea is located. We also toured the nature reserve/park where there was beautiful waterfalls and springs. It was incredible.

The girls. Talia, Emily, Jackie and myself in the Ein Gedi Nature Reserve.

The Dead Sea. The mountains across the way are Jordin. This sea has its name because there is nothing living in it due to the fact that it is insanely salty. You can literally go in and lay on your back with a newspaper and float because of the salt. It's not fun when you have any open wounds though...

After exploring all that Ein Gedi and the Dead Sea had to offer we stayed the night in Bedouin tents. It was super cheap and kind of like a fun sleepover. We didn't arrive until after dark so we really were not aware of the beauty that surrounded us until after we woke up in the morning...

Emily and I with the most beautiful scenery right behind us. We totally got to sleep in the midst of this the night before. Incredible.

We continued our adventure in our rented mini van up to Jerusalem, the holiest city in the world. On our way we had to stop because we saw camels. Who wouldn't stop? So we all took turns riding them of course! I got the privelege of riding Charlie the camel. We became fast friends and got along swimmingly. This is us below...

hehe. I love Charlie.

We spent 3 nights in Jerusalem and it was amazing. We stayed at a hostel in the old city and thoroughly explored the area. During the time we were there we visited the Kotel (the Wailing Wall), Yad Vashem (the Israeli Holocaust Museum) and had our fair share of fun (including Emily's 24th bday!) It was seriously amazing and such a fun time. I had lots of fun people watching as well. I feel like I can walk away from Jerusalem and actually have a good sense of direction if I am to ever return.

Emily and me at the Kotel. This wall is the holiest place in the world for Jews. It's the last remaining wall of the second temple. There is a division line for males and females and so many people intensely praying. It is tradition to write a not to God and stick it in the wall as well.


This is the Dome of the Rock (The Golden Kippa) which is the holiest place for people of the Islamic faith. It is so interesting because as you can see, the Kotel is located right in front of it.

We headed to Tel Aviv on Thursday morning (my bday!) and had a fun day exploring the old city of Jaffa (where our hostel was) and heading closer to the heart of the city to meet up with other friends and go out for my bday!

This was on the wall at a pool bar we went to in Tel Aviv. I got way too excited and HAD to take a picture. As you may know, no one quite loves Ohio like I do...(even if the Franklin county is Columbus.)

Overall, I had a pretty cool bday in the great city of Tel Aviv. We went to a fun restaurant for dinner and then headed to a bar later on. There were 10 of us at dinner and it really did feel like birthday.

Me and the girls showing off our mustaches at the bar. Everyone even sang to me later on! hehe.

That will be all for now. Everything is still amazing and I cannot believe that this program is already half way over. I have to start thinking about what I'm going to do when I return home now...oy.

Happy Chanukah!!!!

Hooray! It's Chanukah! Anee ahohevit Chanukah! (I love Chanukah!) We have also had a fun couple of days. We had most of the week off from volunteering this week because there were other plans made for us here around the kibbutz and because there were special seminars going on at the high school that were put on by the 11th graders. I'm sure they would have been fun to watch and maybe interesting if we would have been able to understand them. So, that's why we didn't have to go. That does not mean that we were bored though. Our coordinators put us to work on the many things that had to be done for last night's kibbutz Chanukah program.

We also had a day trip on Thursday that was a lot of fun. We went to places all around the north. We started at the Rothchild Gardens. These were absolutely beautiful and even the tomb was massive and quite a site to see.

A view of the beautiful gardens.

Rothchild's enormous tomb. Which was in a huge crypt. Insane actually.

After the gardens, the bus took us to a place where we hiked for about 2 hours. The only problem was that it had rained a considerable amount the night before leaving the trails quite slippery and muddy. I managed to not fall at all due to my insane cautiousness that I luckily inherited from my wonderful mother. A few people wiped out but no one was hurt. We all ended up covered in mud though.

After the hike, we went to a nearby Druze village where we were given an hour to get something to eat and shop around a bit. A few of us went to a fun little local place where we ordered lebana (a yogurt like cheese) and zatar (a delicious spice used in many Arab dishes) on pita. So gooood.

After our short break, we drove to Haifa (I was there a few weeks ago) where we just stopped at the top of the Bahai gardens to get the best view ever. It was nice because the last time I was there a couple weeks ago we went in from the bottom and got a completely different view of the place. Haifa is such a beautiful and amazing city. So far, it's my favorite in Israel when it comes to beauty.

The view of the Bahai Gardens and of Haifa from the top.

Last night was a ton of fun here on Kibbutz Yehiam. We attended the Chanukah program/Birthday party of the kibbutz. Not only did we have a large part in helping to make the decorations and set up for this event, we also got to sing a Chanukah song (not willingly) in English in front of everyone during the program.

Mike, Jackie, Veronika, Alex, and Talia enjoying dinner (beef stew) and dessert (jelly dounuts) at the 1st night of Chanukah celebration!

This is me and one of my host sister's! Her name is Shachaff (it means Seagul in English and is a rather popular name for both girls and boys here) and she is 7 years old. Although we have a very hard time communicating with eachother we seem to make it work and she always goes out of her way to find me and give me a hug.

This is our masterpiece! This is what a couple others and myself spent hours and hours on to complete for this program. It is a HUGE TV (40 meters wide! I'm not sure how many feet that is, but it's a lot...) made out of cardboard that went on the stage. It is the TV that the Kibbutz members first received here way back in the day. Many of the older Kibbutz members really enjoyed it and the skits were based on TV prgrams so they were performed right in front of it.

So that'll do it for now. Oh and in case you were wonderfing, only 5 more days! Woot! Also, me and four others are leaving tomorrow morning for a trip around Israel. We are coming back on Friday afternoon and I am so excitied! We are renting a car and are starting out in Ein Gedi, where the Dead Sea is and then making our way to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Should be amazing and a great way to spend my 23rd bday!

Until next time...

Only 13 more days....

I think everyone who is reading this knows why I made the title of this post just that. I still am having a hard time just getting over the fact that it is now December. Not only has the second half of the year flown by, but it also feels nothing like December here in northern Israel. It is still in the low 60s most of the time but gets pretty chilly at night. We were given a space heater for each of our rooms but it is like the nightlight from hell. The thing lights up the entire room and is hard to sleep with it on. What a conondrom! To be warm or to have a dark room to sleep in?

I have been very happy keeping busy recently. Last week we made Thanksgiving here for our group and we also invited a couple of the local Israeli boys to join in for their first ever Thanksgiving. We spent all day slaving in the kitchen and it was an amazing group effort from most of us. Mommy, you would be so proud of your little girl! I cooked up a storm and only ended up with one band-aid by the end of the day. (I need to learn how to chop stuff better.) Here some pictures of the process and the finished product...

My amazing mashed potatoes!!!

Emily and me tasting a bit before we got started. We also added some Israeli salad (chopped cucumbers and tomatoes with lemon juice and oil) to the spread to give Thanksgiving a little flare...

Thumbs up to our amazing turkey!

Everyone eating/finishing up....

Besides getting a cold this past Monday and not being able to go to school, everything has been going well as always. Yesterday we took a day trip to the city of Acco. I was there about a month ago when I was able to go with the Partnership to visit the Arab High School and such. Yesterday was a completely different trip though. We were given a tour of the Old City and were able to walk around the open-air market as well. We also went with the group from our neighboring kibbutz of Ga'aton (they are dancers) so we also went to an Arab dance studio in a small Arab village and we went to a gymnasium where at risk Arab teens learn traditional Arab dances. This group of boys performed for us in traditional costumes and it was absoultely amazing.

The day was a long one but so much fun! We ended the night back at Yehiam and a fun night out at the Kibbutz Pub. Here are some pics from our day trip....

A beautiful fountain in the old city.

Emily and Elana!

Part of the Old City. This whole area was once beneath the city and was excavated. I knew it all looked familiar and it took me until they lead you through the gift shop at the end to realize that I was here before in 2005.

The Arab teenage dancers in traditional clothing.

So that's about all for now. Today is the weekend and I have every intention of lounging around, reading, and watching movies all day. Sounds pretty good to me.

Love.

Happy Thanksgiving!

hi all.

i just want to wish everyone a happy thanksgiving for tomorrow. this is the first time i will not be spending the holiday with family and it definitely makes me a little sad. as a group though, we will be making our own version of thanksgiving for friday. we're not exactly sure what traditional dishes we will even be able to make because we'll have to go with what's available to us in the stores. as long as i get some form of stuffing...i'll be a happy person.

so we lost 4 members of our group the other day and the mood has definitely changed a bit. these people were the ones that joined our group for about a month and a half after 3 and a half months of their program in Ramle. most of us got rather close with these people so it was definitely sad to see them leave. in addition to them leaving on monday, we got 2 new people from the eilat group to join our group yesterday. they seem nice...

in the past few weeks we have been pretty busy. we went to Haifa, a hike to the Klil, and to Tel-Aviv. although i have been to all these places before, it was like being there for the first time. Haifa was awesome and we got to explore a bit of the bottom of the Bahai Gardens. Prior to that, we all enjoyed a delicious lunch at a very fun restaurant. our group coordinator took us on a very fun hike where we learned a lot about the local surroundings. Yariv, (the coordinator) also took a few of us to lunch and off-roading in his SUV after the hike. so much fun! later in the day after the hike, we went to Tel-Aviv this past weekend and i had a ton of fun hanging out with everyone and enjoying dinner at an excellent burger place in which we celebrated one of the guy's birthdays.

everything is still going well. i still love school and what i'm doing here. at times, this place can get a bit boring but it's still great. it has been a lot colder than i thought it would be and i definitely didn't pack right for this but i'll most likely survive.

all for now. i'll try to update more frequently. i just get lazy and distracted. sorry. please enjoy the below pictures :)

This is the group of us that went to Haifa for the day. this pic is in the Bahai Gardens

This is at school during a break and my friend Alex and I took a lil nap. haha. I just thought it was a funny picture.

This is our coordinator Yariv on our off-roading adventure after our hike to Klil. We ran into a little road block and he had to take care of it...

LOVE.

ooops...

So once again, I must apologize for my long absence. The combination of being really busy, tired, and not wanted to wait for the website to upload photos has left me putting up updating this for quite awhile. But...everything is still wonderful and I am still having the most amazing time here in Northern Israel. Since I last posted we have had a very fun Halloween, been to Eilat (Southern Israel), and have continued to enjoy the volunteering at the high school.

For Halloween we showed the Israeli's on the Kibbutz how we do it in the States when it comes to our favorite holiday. It was fun because we improvised costumes and ended up having a great night as a group.

We went to Eilat last weekend where we met up with all the other Oranim groups for a weekend of fun in the sun. Eilat is the Southern most city in Israel and it is still very warm while we were there, probably in the mid 90's. We went a couple hikes in the middle of the desert, had Shabbot dinner at the hotel, went tubing on the Red Sea (that water is rather salty and doesn't feel good in the eyes), checked out the local bars, and met some cool new people. I also ran into a high school friend of mine who is a part of the group in Eilat. He seems to be loving it just as much as I am which is great. Definitely a fun, but extremely tiring weekend.

Alex, me, and Eddie enjoying a night at the hotel.

A beautiful view of the desert...

I also continue to visit my host family for their favorite meal of the day --"late lunch". This takes place at around 2:30 and still confuses me. They are so nice and I'm having an amazing time getting to know them. We even watched Bear Grills (with Hebrew subtitles) on the Discovery Channel for awhile after we ate.

I also definitely didn't pack right for this place. It has been way colder than I have ever expected in this part of the country and I have been wearing my OU hoodie to death. I may have to purchase a jacket very soon.

So I believe that'll do it for now. We are having Israeli food night in the common room tonight and I'm quite excited. I should to get a move on....

Love.

Once again, I feel as if I need to apologize for waiting so long to post again. I have definitely had a couple of very exciting days. This past Wedneday, I visited Youngstown's sister city called Akko. I was given a tour of some very cool attractions in the area by a woman named Heidi who is connected to the Jewish Federation in Youngstown. We visited a small Holocaust museam that was up north near where I'm staying, which was absolutely amazing. There was a seperate children's museum in which I was completely blown away with the design of the exhibits. I have never seen something so thought provoking and unique in my life. When I told the director of my program about this she told me she will take the whole group there soon so everyone will have a chance to see it.

We also went to many other fun and exciting places in which the Youngstown Jewish Federation is lucky to be a part of. We went to a small store in the old city of Akko in which people with disabilites work in order to help them learn their way around a business. (I may have made a few purchases here as well). Also, we went to an all Arab high school in which the coolest project ever is has been taking place for the past 5 years. This project is call the Tri-Wizard Project (this is after Harry Potter, in which excited me more than it should have). This involves a group of hand chosen Israeli Arab students, Israel Jewish students, and a group of students in the U.S. that are of all religions. These students meet (the American students do this over the internet) and they discuss what is going on in Israel between the Arabs and Jews and how although they have differences, the bottom line is that they are all human. We were able to speak with some of the students and they had such amazing things to say about the program and eachother.

We also were taken to a place where people with disabilites learn how to live on their own (called Wings), this is also affiliated with the store that I mentioned above. We then ended the tour with a place that is available to the youth in Akko as a place to come after school. This was an amazing building and furnished in a way that was so fun and colorful. I loved it.

All in all, this was an amazing day that I will not be forgetting while here in Israel.

This is me and a couple of Youngstowners as we pointed at the Youngstown Federation name on the plaque outside the youth center in Akko.

This sign was hung in the Children's section of the Holocaust museum and it tells about the Book Sharing Project that happened between Israeli and American students. Notice W.S. Guy...that would be my middle school!

This past weekend was also very fun too. We kept ourselves busy in the nearby city of Nahariya and at the local kibbtuz pub. A few friends and I went out to dinner on Saturday night to get out and enjoy some good food. We had plans to get Chinese food but since it was Shabbot, we completely forgot that most of the restaurants would not be open. We ended up at a place that was a bit pricey but very delicious that was open instead.

This is Dan and me. We make fun of Dan a lot because he looks quite a bit like Harry Potter. That's my second reference to Harry Potter in this post....probably not so good for an almost 23 year old. Oh well...

So last night after volunteering at the high school, a few of us got on a coach bus and went to Jerusalem for a MASA event concert. MASA is the Israeli program that provides the money for the programs here in Israel. Besides the fact that the bus ride each way was about 3 hours, the concert was quite enjoyable. It was an Israeli band that had a fusion of other languages too. It was definitely interesting because I had never heard the music before, let alone even begin to understand what was being sung. It was cool though because the concert hall that this took place in held over 3,000 people, and every single seat was filled. There were Jewish people my age there from all over the world. Pretty insane actually.

The group of us from Yehiam that went to Jerusalem!

So yea, that's pretty much it for now. I'm still loving evey bit of this experience and am still so in awe that I'm actually here. I promise I will try and update the blog more often.

Much love.

amazing...

Wow. So I don't have any new pictures to post or anything but I just wanted to report on my first really full day of volunteering. It was absolutely amazing...

I was in a different class for every period of the day with a different English teacher. The classes were at all different levels of English and I ended up in 8th, 9th, 11th, and 12th grades. I think my favorite was the 8th and 12th grades actually. The 8th grade students were an intermediate class of English and they were so intrigued with me and surrounded me with questions about myself and where I'm from. The 12th grade was more advanced level of English (obviously) where I was able to give more individual help to a couple students that I was sitting near. One actually spent this past summer working as a camp counselor at the Louisville JCC! The same exact job I worked just 5 summers ago! Oh and it was quite embarressing when the lesson was adverbs and I had trouble figuring a couple of them out....

So we took the school bus back home at 3 and now I'm going to take it easy after my long full day at high school...

and we finally started...

Sorry I haven't updated in so long! The internet in our rooms has been down and has left the 13 of us with one computer to use in the common room.

Actually, a lot has happened in the past few days. We have received 5 new additions to our group from another program. They will be staying with us on the kibbutz for a month. Also, I have met and spent a wonderful evening with my host family. They are absolutely amazing! It is a young couple, Eyal and Pnina, and they have 2 daughters, Shachah and Shir (meaning Eagle and Song) who are 7 and 4. They invited me over to dinner on Thursday night and I had the best time. They cooked dinner (a traditional Israeli meal, of course) and we also spent time talking and getting to know one another. The parents speak english very well but the two girls speak none whatsoever. I still had a great time with them while playing teacher and telling me the Hebrew word for just about everything in their apartment. I was surprised too when the 4 of them showed up at the common room the next night with a delicious meal for me. I hope I get to see lots of them on my stay here!

Thursday marked the last day of our long non-stop days of ulpan (hebrew lessons) for now. We will continue to have them, but only twice a week for a couple of hours from now on.

The tiny ulpan room (and Emily!)

Where's Waldo in Hebrew (Aifo Affie?)

Yesterday morning we woke up and were driven to the neighboring kibbutz to see a very intersting and eye catching dance performance. The kibbutz next door is actually a "dance" kibbtuz and there are a group of Americans who are staying there too but to dance, not to volunteer like we are.

Today was actually quite an exciting day as well. I have not had a dull moment yet....which is saying a lot actually. We had to be up and ready by 10 to 8 this morning to drive to the local high school. Here we were given a tour and then assigned to a certain classroom to give this new experience a try. Myself and another girl, Veronica, were assigned to a classroom of about 5 students that basically spoke no english. This was quite an interesting experience and I can be honest and say that I cannot wait to return tomorrow morning. And the coolest part by far...we get to take the school bus to and from. haha

Me in a maze...I think? hahah.

Veronica in front of a lovely peacock statue on the high school campus.

So I'm thinking that's about all for right now. We are currently doing an extensive cleaning of the common room because some people have quite the problem of cleaning up after themselves....great.

Until next time...

just for fun...

This is Pie. She has become the official dog of our group. No one knows who her owners are. She wanders in to our area just about everyday to say hi. She passed out next to my bed the other night and it made me smile. Here is the documentation.

Enjoy.

She also happens to remind me a ton of Juno. I miss Juno soooo much.

just lovin' this...

Shalom!

So we have had today and yesterday off from Hebrew lessons (Woot!). In Israel, the weekend is considered to be Friday and Saturday, because of Shabbot, and the work week begins again on Sunday. So overall, it has been a fantastic week with very fun days but I am so antsy to begin the volunteer work.

Yesterday, a group of us got a taxi to the nearby city to have a fun day on the town. Most of the stores close down pretty early because of Shabbot so we just kind of walked around for a bit and then went and checked out the beach for a while too. It was way fun and I was finally able to get an actual cup of coffee in this country at a fun coffee place called Aroma. Oh, it was so delicious.

Aroma!

Arron (the Brit), Jackie (my roomie), Emily, and Elana on the beach!

The girls on the beach.

We also went to the local pub last night as well and had a bit of fun...

Today was fun as well. We hit up Banana Beach again and had a good time soaking up the sun. It is so weird that we are well into October and it still feels like summer. The Israeli's keep telling us to just wait, it'll get cold. Their definition of cold and ours is quite different though. I did quite a bit of reading and listening to the iPod on the beach and also got way too excited for my own good when I spotted a family with a dog that looked way too much like Mandy. So of course, I had to go over and ask for a picture.

I'm pretty sure we will be having a meeting soon to discuss our options for the volunteer work that will be started the beginning of next week. I'm pretty sure I will probably be teaching English in the local high school and I also want to ask if I could help with event planning of some sort here on the Kibbutz. Since there is that giant fortress/castle here on the grounds, many weddings, bar/bat mitzvahs, and even parties take place right here. So that could definitly be fun...

That's all for now...I think. :)

it's all coming back to me now...

I have been on the Kibbutz a week tonight! I cannot believe it! Everything is still going well but I am really anxious about getting started on our volunteering work. This won't happen until the week after next, so we still have awhile. The downside of being on this Kibbutz is that we can't really leave it without a car, and the act of getting a car or a ride is very involved. So after awhile of hanging out in the meeting room or just with eachother we all begin to get a bit restless.

We have been having Hebrew lessons for the past 4 days and they are quite intense. They start at 9 and we go until about noon. We then get an hour and a half break for lunch and what not and then return to 3:30. I remember a lot from when I was younger but it's still so much to pack into one day, especially when we are all on different levels. I'm definitely excited to be able to have a conversation with someone in Hebrew soon that involves me saying more than, "I'm Sara and I'm from Ohio. What is your name?"

The Hebrew alphabet. It's pretty crazy, not gonna lie.

So in addition to the excitement that is long hours of Hebrew class, we have also been on a field trip to a street festival in the nearby city of Akko. This festival had some very eccentric street performers that even included a performance that took place in the water and some circus performances as well. The streets were filled with people and it was quite obvious that we looked like a large group of tourists. Still, it was way fun.

Yesterday, we got to visit the Kibbutz museum in which we learned about the start of the Kibbutz and how it has evolved over the years. It was so well put together. I definitely forgot the camera when we did that.

And today, there was actually a renassaince festival that took place at the fortress on the grounds here. There were people in costumes and stilts and lots of arts and crafts to enjoy. And of course, there was delicious pita and hummus to enjoy.

So that's all for now I guess. I'm sorry for the lack of pictures this time. There really is no excuse. I will now bring my camera everywhere from now on.

Here is a fun picture to leave you with. It was when some of us returned from the beach the other day and we toured the fortress while the sun was setting. Just beautiful.

out and about...

Hi all!

Everything has been going great. The group and myself have really been enjoying the Kibbutz and everything it has to offer. Yesterday was the holiday Sukkot and we were able to celebrate with the rest of the community here by being "forced" to sing a hebrew song. This song was performed with the young children children of the Kibbutz during the festivities last night. We had to go on stage and sing our hearts out while being complete embarressed and upstaged by a group of 6 year olds. We definitely had fun doing so though.

After the fun and exciting sukkot we celebrated, we were able to kick back and relax at the local Kibbutz bar. As you can tell...we had fun.

The Israeli beer Goldstar that I am now in love with.

Me with two new friends Emily and Elana!

The two boys in the middle are local Kibbutz boys and the rest are from the group.

Today was also a very fun day. After being able to sleep in as long as we wanted, a group of us decided to find a beach. We called a cab and we were soon our way to Banana Beach about 15 minutes away. The beach was absolutely beautiful and we ate a delicious meal at the beach cafe. We were there until about 5 in which the sun had already started to set and it was getting chilly.

The beautiful Banana Beach.

Enjoying some lunch at the cafe!

We start hebrew lessons tomorrow morning at 9am. I'm looking forward to this because it is getting a little annoying not understanding any of the language.

Until next time...

i'm in israel! finally...

Hooray! I arrived safely and soundly to my destination last night. And I am more than happy to say that it seems great so far. The accomidations are definitely not as nice as I had perhaps invisioned in my mind but oh well. The toilet is in the shower too...awkward but I suppose it will have to work.

I'm also loving the people. There are 12 of us, the oldest is 26 and there is an 18 year old too. This leaves me right in the middle where I am completely content to be. Honestly, everyone seems super nice and they are all here for the same reasons I am.

I basically passed out last night the minute my head hit the bed (I have yet to get a pillow). I'm still not feeling all that rested yet but I'm sure I will after I get more used to the time change. We got up this morning and met in the common area which is right next to our buildings. Here we discussed a few things and got to take a somewhat condensed tour of the kibbutz. It's pretty amazing here and there are fruit trees everywhere (pomegranite, passion, and pecan too!) So we just ate breakfast as we walked around.

This is the fortress/castle that is on the Kibbutz grounds.

Pomegranite trees everywhere!

We have had some free time this afternoon and we used it to shop at the market, make lunch, and we even managed to watch some Israeli children's programming (we couldn't understand it at all but it was funny still.)

We have a meeting later in the day and tonight we will be visiting the local bar! Sounds good to me. :)