Wow, I haven't written in while! It's been a veryy long time. Sorry about that.
Nothing too exciting has happened in the last 11 days. Lets see....
I spent the last Shabbat on base with Seffi. His grandma and uncle were in town so I went to dinner with them. The next day, I just hung around base. I went to Shira Hadasha in the morning with some people. Standard services, nothing extra special. The Shabbat was pretty fun, and I can't really think right now of anything extra special that took place. I just chilled with a bunch of people that were on base.
The week was pretty standard. Classes were long, and the fact that finals week is looming has been on my mind frequently. I had my first final on Friday, in Ulpan. It was pretty easy, which scares me more because when something is easy it means i may have overlooked something. So hopefully I did well.
The Goldklang family (Mom's brother's family, so first cousins) finally arrived on Wednesday night. Their flight was cancelled and they arrived here 2 days late. Lame. We went out to dinner on Wednesday night at HaShamen, the best Shawarma place in all of Jerusalem (and probably the world.) to my family: sorry I didn't take you there when you were here. I didn't know about it yet :( They loved dinner, and after dinner they went back to the Mamilla hotel to crash. I went out for the normal Nativ Wednesday night hangouts. I wanted my cousin Matt, a sophomore in high school, to come with me to meet the Nativers, but Uncle Bob and Aunt Mia were being super mean and didn't let him go. It was probably a good decision in hinesight because I didn't get to sleep until very late (mostly because I went back to base early to catch up with my good friend Amy on skype) and because I woke up early to get to the Mamilla Hotel at 7:45 AM the next morning for breakfast.
Thursday, I joined a group of about 50 people from mostly the San Diego area to Masada for Ari Lew's Bar-Mitzvah. I know this family through the Goldklangs. It was super nice of them to let me join them on Thursday on the bus, touring Masada, etc. The service was a nice reform service. It reminded me a lot of Solel back home, actually. We were greeted immideately after getting off the bus (I slept on the ride literally the entire 2 hours) by two Rabbi Nachman guys. They had HUGE shofars slung over their backs and bongos tethered around their shoulders. They played a little tune for us on the Shofars before rockin' out on the bongos the entire way up the cable car ride and walking across Masada. (Masada is a super big, historical and important moutain/plateau. Look it up if you don't know about it. cool story.)
After Masada, we went to the Ein Gedi restaurant for lunch. It was no Frank Sinatra lunch from Hebrew U, but hey I can admit Frank has spoiled me a little bit. After lunch, at which all the kids (Matt, Cole, the Lew kids, and a bunch of other random kids) were scaring the 20 cats away from our table, we boarded the bus and went back to Jerusalem. I got back around 4. I hung out with the cousins a little bit more, and then headed back to base to get ready for the night. Thursday night was serious. Serious studying for Ulpan the next morning. Allrighttt.
The next day, I was with the cousins again. We were in Mitzpe Ramon, rappelling down the same cliff I did with the family only three weeks before. We also had a cool camel ride through a small part of the desert. We ended in Tel-Aviv. I took a sherut back to Jerusalem. This taxi driver was actually even cooler than the "I'll help you with studying for you ulpan midterm tomorrow" taxi driver. I spoke in Hebrew the entire ride, one full hour. I didn't even feel that constrained with my ability to speak and I understood basically everything he said. It was crazy. We talked about many things. First, about why I was in Tel-Aviv, what I'm doing in jerusalem. Then about Hebrew U, and Nativ, and Israel, and America. Then about Coldplay and The Who, then about his family, then about my day with Mada. He thought that was really cool. It was a very quick hour car ride, and he gave me his number so if I was ever going to do that ride again I could call him. Taxi drivers like to do that, i've learned. To an American, it may sound a little creepy. But here it feels completely normal. I really like the inherent trust between people that exists here.
OK, now sitting in Silicon reviewing for the test next week. It's gonna be SOOOOOO HARD. Wow, I think its over. its exactly 3pm. This class ends at 4. NEW RECORD!!
Miss all of you. Talk soon
Josh
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