Pesach Vacation and more Yerucham stuff

Hey everyone-

Sorry I don't really write anymore. The problem is is that nothing really happens here that is really writing worthy. But I'll give an update anyway.

Two weeks ago, I went back to America (yea, I know, thats writing worthy) Long story short, I went to the CFJE Annual dinner which honored my dad. I made a speech there. It was fun.

Then I watched a lot of March Madness. My bracket is terrible.

Then I went to the AIPAC Policy conference in DC. It was very educational, saw some amazing speakers such as Hilary Clinton and Benjamin Netanyahu, and had a ton of fun.

Last week was Pesach break. The family came to the holy land, and we toured around the country for a bit. We started in Tel-Aviv, had seder in Holon (a northern suburb) with Tyler, Roee, Mor and Mor's sister+boyfriend, the chilled on the beach the next day while Daniel played in the water. We then traveled to Tiberous and then Jerusalem where we spent a lovely Shabbat and double Chag at the Citadel. Tyler and Shira joined us for Shabbat at the Citadel as well, which was a lot of fun.

OK, time for Ma'ariv. Sorry I'm a terrible blogger. I'll post something awesome soon, promise.

-Josh

Remember when I blogged???

Yea OK so I realized I didn't finish Italy, I have it written down its just really annoying to type it all out. I'll post it all soon.

So here's the reason why I havn't been blogging nearly as much as I did first semester: I'm not really doing much. Wanna know what I've been up to the last 3 weeks? Read on...

We arrive in Yerucham. I'm in an apartment with Joey and Tyler (roommates) and Eric, Kowler and Reuben (apartmentmates). We cook our own food: last week's dinners included chicken fried rice, baked mac and cheese, breakfast for dinner aka waffels, french toast and omelets, and schnitzel. We also make lunch for ourselves. I usually make some grilled cheese (or as tyler likes to call it, grilled chai. don't ask me why.) or some sandwich. pretty basic.

I volunteer at an elementary school 4 days a week, Sunday-Thursday excluding Tuesday (Yom Nativ.) Yom Nativ is similar to erev nativ but its all day instead of just at night. and "we plan it" which means the staff tells us we plan it but in reality they change anything they dont like. its really cool but that last part makes it kind of lame. Anyway, I work different times each day, but my work day roughly goes from around 8:30-1:30. I never work all the way through, no more than 4 classes/day and each class is 45 minutes long. Sunday, for example, I work from 11-1:30. OK, so then I come back home, Joey is usually back by then, and Tyler either doesnt have work cause he only works twice/week at the yeshiva and we hang out for a little bit. Joey goes on a run, and I go on a bike ride. He gets back before me, takes a shower, then I get back, take a shower (because we're both afternoon shower-ers now. Most people are either evening or morning, but were afternoon. because we can!) Then, we usually will go to the park with a blanket and meet up with some people or just sit. Joey reads and I either read/play guitar/write music. That goes until around 4:30. We go back home, and just do nothing til arund 5:30 when Tyler gets home and says "what are we doing for dinner????" well we always forget about dinner, so then we go to the supersol grocery store and buy dinner. from around 6-7:30 is making/eating dinner. 9 is Ma'ariv at the local shul, Akafim. it's optional, but its legitimately the only way that I see half the Nativers daily, and thats extremely generous. If people don't go to ma'ariv, and there more that don't than do, and I don't work with them, chances are good that I could no see them for days on end. After ma'ariv, the night officially starts. Wednesday nights are poker nights (where I won last week!), monday is usually everyone hangs out night because yom nativ is the next day, and other nights are just random whatever we feel like doing nights.

Everything closes in Yerucham around 8, with the supersol closing at 8:30. the town is quiet by 9:30. no joke.

so yea, thats my life the last 2 weeks. I'm currently on leadership seminar, its awesome so far. I'm back at Beit Nativ!!! but not in the Pirates Cove. :( sad face. I'll update more later.

With love,

Josh

Italy 2010: FLORENCE!!

After missing our train to Lecce, we were all pretty bummed about not being able to go to “the Florence of the south.” Gabe was especially upset because Lecce is where his dad was born. We boarded the train to Florence at 9:30, and arrived at 12:30. We got off the train, and I immediately called Debbie, in the girls group, to see which hostel they were staying at. Besides the obvious problem of wasting money on train reservations and buying new train tix, we didn’t have a hostel booked for that night either. they were staying at some hostel near the train station, and Debbie told me it was nice. I followed Rachel’s directions from the train station towards the hostel just long enough to get us completely lost. Adam took over, and after circling a few more times, we eventually made it to the train station. Luckily, they had rooms available. We split up three and four, with Seffi, Seth and I taking the three. The hostel was nice as the girls said, nothing super fancy but not bad. There was a computer in each room with super slow internet, which was nice. It also had free wi-fi throughout. We put our stuff down and went to find some lunch. Of course, we ended up at another pizza place! As expected, the pizza was very tasty and overpriced. After pizza and gelato for dessert, Adam and Gabe, still in chronic depression from missing Lecce, went back to the hostel to chill out. the five of us went for a walk.

We started at the Duomo. The duomo was beautiful and huge, but was closed due to mass. That was a familiar story. We then made our way to the David statue. The David was unbelievably breathtaking. After admiring the statue for a long time, and seeing the rest of the statues, Seth came over to me and said, “Josh, there’s a musical instrument section! Have you seen it?” I almost full-on sprinted to find it. I walked in and was greeted by a huge, 14^th, century harpsichord. ‘So THAT’S what a harpsichord looks like,’ I thought to myself. It was pretty small, but stil amazing. There were a few super old cellos, violas, violins, horns, trumpets, trombones, drums, clarinets, serpents, flutes and pianos on display as well. Also, there was a real Stradivarius violin on display! Mr. Brame, my band director from high school, talked all about these ultra-rare and expensive violins during music theory class. It was a fantastic experience at the museum.

After, we made our way back to the Duomo, a church that took 140 years to build! According to Ricky, it is the 3^rd largest church in the world! Next to the Duomo was a Ben and Jerry’s store. I freaked out a little bit when I saw it (I LOVE Ben and Jerry’s!!) anyway, the Duomo was still closed, either due to Mass or just because they’re mean. Whatever.

Next, we went searching for the Jewish Ghetto section of Florence. It took way longer than it should have, but we found it. The synagogue looked sooooo cool. Unfortunately, it too was closed. So I was only able to get some pictures from behind the gate. It was depressing that it was closed, but still cool that we saw it. Then, we followed Nadav back to the hostel. We were all pretty tired from waking up at 6AM. Adam, Nadav and I watched zombieland in the room. It was pretty gruesome, but really funny as well. Ban hour and a half of relaxing was alli needed to get my energy back. I needed it because that night was round 2 of fancy dinner night with Adam and Gabe.

The three of us left the hostel around 8. We walked down the street for about 15 minutes before finding a cool looking lace called Ciro and Sons. It was sooooo good, and the atmosphere was great too. We enjoyed another fantastic 4-course meal. Before we knew it, literally, it was 10:30 PM and we were sitting at dinner wondering where the night went. We made it back to the hostel by 10:50.

Gabe and I wanted to walk around the city, and Joey and Seth decided to join us in the excursion around Florence I really just wanted to see Florence at night. Unlike Rome that had a distinct main street, we didn’t know if there was a main street in Florence. We quickly discovered that Florence was not anything like Rome. It didn’t matter though, we wandered in and out of random convenient stores, candy shops and other random places. We even ended up back at the Duomo during the night. We walked back to the hostel and were asleep by 12:30.

Day 8:

Wake up at 9. We enjoyed a nice breakfast at the hostel with the girls group considering we were at the same hostel. We said good-bye to them and were out the door by 10. We said bye to the girls and made our way to the Leonardo Di Vince museum. At the door, Adam and Gabe split up from us to go see the David. Us five entered the museum. It was three rooms full of his inventions. As I walked in, I heard a familiar voice. I instantly recognized it, but refused to believe it. I turned the corner to see Asaf and Jesse looking at some display. The whole other guys group just happened to be at the same museum as us. We explored the small museum, played with the inventions together, and were the only people there the whole time. I really enjoyed hanging with them again;. Jesse and I caught up a little bit as well. After about an hour of messing around there, we said bye to the group and made our way back to the hostel to get our bags. We met up with Adam and Gabe at 11:45, and got to the train station by 12:05. We had already reserved seats for the train that morning. I grabbed some more Italian pizza and headed to the train where, as I’m writing this (not typing it, obviously), I am sitting next to Gabe. We’re rockin’ out to our own personal The Who marathon from my iPod (and, as I’m typing this, was more fun listening to them on the train then when they played at the superbowl…. Ouch!)

Tonight is Shabbat in Venice. Should be a good time. I’ll write more later!

-----Now in real time: HI!!! We finally arrived in Yerucham. I’ll write more later, btu I don’t wanna distrupt this flow of blog posts about Italy. We moved in to Yerucham two days ago, and since then have done…. Not much productive. We shopped 4 times, have soooooo much food, have cooked some pasta

Italy 2010: SORRENTO, NAPLES AND POMPEII

DAY FIVE:

We decided during one of our many pre-italy meetings not to go to Florence and to go to Sorrento instead. Sorrento is this cool coastal town in southeast Italy. We chose Sorrento because Florence was supposedly extremely expensive, and Adam thought Sorrento was going to be really cool. Also, it was on the way to our next destination: Lecce (located on the southern most tip of the boot of Italy).

We boarded a train from Rope at the Termini to Naples. We about a 20 minute layover in Naples, but we used that time to get our Naples pass, good for Naples and Pompeii. It is very similar to the Roma pass. The train took about 45 minutes to get to Pompeii. Once in Pompeii, we stored our bags at the train station and searched for some delicious Pompeian pizza. There were a bunch of pizza stands lined up, and after turning every owner down at least once, one guy told us that he would prove to us why his pizza is the best. He brought me down personally to the kitchen. He showed me how he makes the pizzas fresh and that makes them better. That bought him 7 pizzas from us.

After lunch, tour guide Adam (and Ricky Steves) lead us on a tour through the Pompeii. The tour took two hours. We saw basically a really old city, made completely of rocks, that Pompeians lived in thousands of years ago. I’ll post some pics of that as well. The end of the tour ended at a cool coliseum. There, we took a little ciesta. I was, of course, the first one to get bored, so instead of napping, I ran and jumped onto where the coliseum goes up. everyone else quickly realized what I was doing and wanted to join. Nadav was the first one to get up because he was really tall. Everyone else wondered how I made it up there. I used my “jumping over walls” skills I aquired at gadna to get up and over the wall. I had to teach the others how to do it properly. Eventually, we all made it up. it was pretty cool

We left the ruins and reboarded the train going the same direction as before. Pompeii is almost exactly halfway between Naples and Sorrento.

Once we arrived in Sorrento, we did the usual getting lost for some time before finally realizing where we were going. Eventually, we reached the “deluxe hostel.” Let me tell you, it was probably the nicest hostel in the entire world. it looked like a up-scale hotel, but was the same price as all the other hostels we had stayed at. We had our own rooms. I roomed with Seth, Seffi and Joey. WE had our own shower, beds (no bunkbeds which was nice), free wifi, and a big TV! We walked downstairs to find the hostel also connectied to what seemed like the community pool. We didn’t end up swimming, but we could have if we wanted to.

Gabe, Nadav and I left a little later to hit up the grocery store. I had the great idea to but some Italian cheese and crackers as a snack. What an idea it was. The Italian cheese was so delicious!

After our grocery store run, we went to find dinner. What did we have for dinner you ask? Of course, we had pizza! A bunch of us ended up getting pasta and the pizza place though. I got gnocci, sooooooo good.

After, we went back to the hostel and watched district 9 on Adam’s computer. We went to sleep after it ended, around midnight.

Day SIX:

We slept in a bit the next day, and ended up leaving around 10:40. We took a train at 11 to Naples where we saw the famous archeological museum. It was really cool, but very similar to the Rome national museum.

After, we heard from Rick that the best pizza place in all of Italy is in Naples. Well, we couldn’t pass that up for lunch! As we made our way over to the pizza place, I quickly learned that Naples is dirtyyyyyyyyyyyy, but very alive. It’s a very interesting city. I woudnl want to stay there overnight, so I’m glad we only took a day trip. Rick’s pizza place had a line out the door and onto the street Rick mentioned that in his book as well. He said that the best pizza place in Italy had a “rival pizza store.” We figured the rival had to be good if it was the rival, so we decided to go there. Still fantastic pizza, quite possibly the best pizza on the whole trip. After lunch, I basically had given up hope of going to My. Thesevious, an inactive volcano in Pompeii because no one else really wanted to go as basd as I did or pay for it (it required taxi’s, buses and an entrance fee.) that was really sad. I don’t wanna talk about it. it was already getting dark at that point, so we decided to go back to Sorrento. Before we went to the station, we stopped by the “best hot chocolate in the world,” Illy hot chocolate. It lived up to the hype for sure

Once in Sorrento, we went back to the same place as the previous evening. We were regulars there, basically. I got pasta again, and it was till amazing. We thanked the owner and chef for a second great meal and went to wander around Sorrento. We went through the main square, and this place that seemed like the Sorrento version of the shuk. We ended up at the beach, which was spectacular. It was getting late that this point, but we didn’t want to call it a day yet. We went to a karaoke bar where we sung a ton of The Beatles and Elton John. We expected the karaoke bar to be just some guy sitting with a karaoke machine and hoping the three people the bar will want to sing a song. We were pretty much right. There was a big screen displaying the words for us to read, and whever we stopped singing, he took over. After we were singing without mics for about 10 minutes, he brought one over to us. When he turned on Billy Joel, we all went nuts. He was basically a professional karaokeist. Funny we left around 12:30 and got back to the hostel after.

To Lecce (Florence):

DAY SEVEN:

We woke up at 6, and left the hostel by 7. We were at the strain staion by 7:15. We neded to be at the naples Train staion by 8:50 to catch our triain to Lecce. Every time we had taken the train in the past, it didn’t take more than an hour to get to Naples. We gave ourselves plento of time just in case the train was running a little late.

A little late is an understatement. It was 45 minutes longer than we expected. We got off the train at 8:53, and sprinted through the whole terminal to our train. I think I knocked down at least 3 people during the sprint with my huge ski bag. It was crazy and a little fun, but it ended in failure. We missed our train to Lecce by exactly 3 minutes, even when it left late. We decided to go to Florence instead.

Italy 2010: ROME

Departing Beit Nativ:

My Italy group consisted of Me, Joey, Seth, Seffi, Adam, Nadav, and Gabe. We had many, many meeting in the months leading to the trip.

We left Beit Nativ at 2:05 AM. The seven of us teamed up with the Judah Italy group of three (Judah, Adam and Ben) to take a shereut (taxi) together to the airport. We arrived in record time, walking into the airport at exactly 2:37 AM. We skipped some lines by saying we were a “group” and made it into the main terminal. I went to a cool little resturant and had some pasta at about 3:30 AM. We all hung out with all the groups. There are 5 groups in Italy right now. Throughout these series of blog posts, I'll be referring to groups by names so I don't need to say each person every time. So, future reference, there is us 7 (my group, or just "us"), the “other boys group” (Jesse, Jonny, Aaron, Max, Asaf and Brian), the “girls group” (Jordana, Ariella, Adina, Debbie and Rachel) the Judah group (Judah, Adam and Ben) and the "other girls group" (Stephanie, Becca, Rhyan, Ariel and Sara). We all hung out for a little while, and eventually made our way to the gate. I lied down on the floor at the gate, slept for about 15 minutes, and at 6 AM, boarded the plane to Italy. I sat next to Gabe, in front of Jesse and had a window seat. I don’t even remember take-off. After the flight attendant checked us in and sat down, I put my chair back, put my head against the window and was out. Italy had just begun.

DAY ONE: ROME

We got off the pane around 9 AM. 1/4 of Nativ was on this plane. We all went directly to the baggage claim. While we were waiting for our bags, Seffi broke up our 8th man for the next 2 weeks: Rick Steve's Guidebook to Italy 2007. We all crowded around him (the book) as we began to read through the book. We all collected our bags and read about this "Rome Pass" thing. We wandered the Rome International Airport after, searching for ATM's and a "tourist information" booth (because they spoke English and Rick Steves said to). the TI told us to buy a Roma pass to make things less expensive. The Roma pass only 18 Euro, gets us two free admissions to muesems, and unlimited free rides on the metra and beses throughout rome for 3 days. As we made this decision to buy the Roma pass, I looked over at the other boys group was also reading Rick, but their version was 2010. Grr...

After getting the Roma pass, we said goodbye to the other boys group because they knew where to go and we didn’t. we asked around, and eventually found out the best way to get to the Termini was by raild. We walked towards the Metra station when we were approached by a man who said, “eh, want to go to the termini? Only 8 Euros!” Well, the metra would have beenn 12, so obviously we took the bus. Who did we find already on the bus? The other boys group. It wasn’t long before the bus left, and I drifted into a good nap.

I woke up after about 10 minutes. There was beautiful Italian fields all aaorund me, the sky was blue, and most of our group was awake and talking. Next to me, seffi was reading Ricky Steves. We decided on a few things asa group on the bus. We needed to get toas many mesdems as we could because they were all discounted in Rome (due to the Roma pass) and Ricky says they are awesome. Second, we needed to see the Vatican, and third we needed a tentative plan of what to do in the upcoming 4 days of Rome.

We arrived at the Termini around noon. We bid farewell to the other guys group, and started the treck to find our first hostel, hostel “freestyle.” We had no idea wher it was, only that “it’s close to the termini.” FYI, the Termini is the central train station in Rome with a fancy name (and a cool one at that). Not more than 10 minutes after wandering though rome did gabe and I get separated from the group. I kid you not. We turned a corner, and they were all gone! Well, af first we were like “oh no this is so bad,” but eventually that turned into “wow this is so awesome!” Instead of staying put and hoping the group would retrace their steps to find us, we began to ask around for TI booth. They would tell us where our hostel is, and we could just meet the group there. I asked some police officers where the TI was. He mumbeled something in Italian, and pointed at a circular kiosk in the distance, 2 blocks away. We thanked him and headed that way. It was my first adventure of Rome. Gabe said to me, “man, we shoulda got lost sooner!”

After finding the TI, and the group along the way, we realized that they didn’t know where the hostel was anymore than we did. “Well,” Gabe said, “Josh and I know, becaue we got lost!” We used the TI’s info to find the hostel. We arrived at the hostel, and immediately went out to get our first Italian meal of the trip. The hostel owner told us there was a lot of cheap pizza near the termini. Perfect. We found this great pizza place that sold ¼ of a pie for only 3 euros. The food was amazing! After lunch, we set our sights on the first sight of the day: the Colosseum.

Nadav was our Navigator. He took out the map that Gabe and I took from the TI. He didn’t quite know how to read Italian maps, but pointed in the “general direction of it.” We figured the Colosseum couldn’t be hard to miss. I opted for the scenic route through the park.We were running all around, talking, taking pictures, and having a really good time. All of a sudden, Seth said, “guys, look there’s the Colosseum!” we all looked in awe at the collessel Roman Colosseum. We walked down and out of the park. There was a pretty big intersection in front of us. It was pretty crazy that the Coloesseum was in the middle of a major intersection and not a majestic field, or a crater, or a volcano, or something else glamorous. Joey said, “wow, people probably drive here everyday!” tha’s pretty strange to think about. We walked around the Colosseum, and say a bunch of people dressed up as Gladatiors. They wanted 30 Euros for one picture! Absurd (45 US dollars). The Colosseum was absolutely MASSIVE!!! It was one of the most spectacular things I’ve eery seen. I can’t really describe it in words, so I’ll post some pics of it when I get the cable in a few days.

After the Coloesseum, it was time to get ready for SHABBAS IN ROME! Seffi had ben talking with the Chabad Rabbi in Rome about being hosted for Shabbas dinner that night. The Rabbi said he only had room for 4 of us, and not all 7. Seffi, Joey, Nadav and I decided we would take the 4 spots. We all agreeded on it. We went ot the room, and after 5 minutes there, Judah’s group walks in! they had the room next to ours. Crazy., they also were being hosted for dinner. We all got changed, and the 7 of us (us 4 plus Judah, Adam and Ben) made our way to the synagogue.cNadav lead us there, and we arrived just as Mincha was ending. Perfect timing.

We sat down. I was so excited for an amazing Italian Kab Shab. The man who lead Mincha stepped down, and a boy, probably about 15, stepped up. Kah Shab started. We skipped the first 3 prayers, did L’cha Dodi (kind of), and went straight to Ma’ariv. Wow, all in about 7 minutes. I loked over at Joey. He was just as confused as I was. Ma’aric was very similar. The boy chanted, and everyone else listened. It was a Sfardi Shul, obviously, and they sang in a very Sfardic tone. 36 minutes after we arrived, it was over. Shortest Friday night service. Ever.

After it was over, we found the Rabbi and asked where to go for dinenr. He told us the host didn’t end up showing up to services and we need to find it alone. He gave us an address “Via , 7”and pointed down the street. “Shabbat shalom” he said. We left, confused, and hoping Nadav could navigate us there. As we wre leaving, another man approached us. “Via?” he asked. “I can tell you how to get there (but he said that in Hebrew)

(Here's the new part):

We responded (also in Hebrew) “OK, thanks.” He gave us detailed but confusing directions from the synagogue to the apartment. We thanked him and left.

We walked (the 4 of us now) onto via Natzionale street. It was a pretty major street with lots of people, stores, music, gelato stores, etc. it was the 3^rd major street (according to my previously mentioned criteria for a major street) that I had already seen in Rome. Rome was awesome. All the buildings were magnificent and old. we walked one direction for about 10 minutes, knowing that we needed to eventually needed to make a left. We didn’t see Via. I decided to ask someone for directions. I asked a random women. She didn’t know. I then asked a random man, and he also didn’t know. I asked a third random man, and he pointed in the opposite direction with his cigarette in hand. We thanked him and wandered that way for about 15 minutes before asking someone new. This man was selling nuts on the corner. He pointed down the adjacent side street. We looked, and in the distance we saw a parralel street to Natzionale. It was Via ! Of course, the one thing the guy forgot to include in his directions is that wasn’t off of the major street. We found number 17. It was an apartment building. The family was on the top floor. Great. We strated the trek, passing 3 hotels, the international American University in Rome, two banks and a retail on the way up. it wasn’t until the 7^th floor that we started to see residential names on doors.

We knocked on the door. A woman opened the door, smiled, and invited us in. the apartment was absolutely beautiful. There were a ton of huge (and probably really expensive) paintings, bookshelves, couches, flowers, and Judaic material. She invited us to sit on the couch (whispering) until her husband got back from shul. He was actually there. Awesome. While sitting on the couch for 45 minutes, we were actually just talking about the spectacular apartment (flat) that we were sitting in. eventually, the husband, Vito, arrived. He invited us in to the dining room they all spoke English well enough to hold a conversation, but the wife spoke the best. They were all very welcoming and nice. Vito also invited one of his friends to dinner, and they had a 16 year old son named David (pronounced the Hebrew way). We made Kiddush, washed, Motzei, and got ready for what looked like an amazing meal to come.

At first, it was a little awkward because of the obvious language barrier between us and them. Vito was a great conversationalist in Italian, but none of us knew any conversational Italian. Eventually, we just talked among ourselves (for the most part) and they talked among themselves. Dinner was fantastic, all 5 courses. Afterwards, we sang Zmiros (songs), during which Vito was obviously impressed that a bunch of Americans knew the same songs he did and sang them well. During dessert, the wife turned to us and said “so you’re coming back tomorrow at one, OK?” Seffi replied, “Is that ok, can we come back?” She said, “Why of course you’re coming back. Be here at one, and bring your other three friends. I don’t know why the Rabbi told you we could only have four, we could have had more.” I guess its expected to have dinner and lunch at the same place when you are hosted in Rome. Fine with me! the food was great and they were all fun to be with. Its also really convient that they live right in the middle of town, and only 15 mins from our hostel. Four hours after we arrived, it was time to go. The wife gave us good instructions on how to get back to the Termini. We thanked them for dinner and left. On the way home, we diverged from the route a little bit to see this cool, illuminated fountain in the distance. We made it back to the hostel, told the other 3 about our lunch plans, and got to sleep. It was a great day one in Rome.

DAY TWO:

We woke up at 8:30 for our free breakfast through the hostel.it was stale cornflakes, warm mild and hard bread. Yum. It got the job done. We got dressed into our Shabbas clothes, not to go back to shul, but to avoid needing to come back to the hostel before lunch. We grabbed our Roma passes and made our way to the Roman National Mueseum. It was about 10 mins away, towards the family’s house sort of. It was filled with a ton of statues, figures, coins, paintings and mosaics. It was super duper cool. That took about an hour. We then went to show the rest of the group our cool fountain that we found the night before. That brought us to about noon. Well, we needed to do something that would kill an hour. How do a bunch of teenagers in downtown Rome kill time? Well, we were wandering down Natzionale street when we found this clothing store. We spent about 35 minutes there playing dress up, and having Adam and Seth take picutes. I tried on many fancy jackets, hats and scarves. I’ll post some pics; they’re pretty funny. Afterwards, we walked down Natzionale street toward the family. We ended up timing it perfectly, knocking on the door at exactly one.

We were greeted by the women, but instead of whispereing to us and inviting us to the couch, she invited us directly to the dining room. We put our jackets down on the couch in the foyar. I saw a bunch of other jackets already on the couch. They all looked oddly familiar for som reason. I quickly received my answer when I heard a “aww… no way!” from the dining room. The other guys group was already sitting at the table. Well, that was an extremely pleasant surprise. We were all in disbelief. The family seemed very surprised that we knew each toerh. We explained that we wer on the same program back in Jeruslame. Imagine those odds: we just so happened to be hoseted bu the same family on Shabbas a fternoon in Rome. It was crazy.

The lunch was a lot of fun. I loved every minute of the two hours we spent having lunch. Aaron explained to us that they weren’t invited back as we were, so they went to shul that morning. After the service, they asked the Rabbi to get hosted. He said no, but the guys were approached by the dad after and invited over. Small world right? After lunch we sang zmiros again, only this time, people out on Natzionale street probably heard us singing. We were so loud. Vito would start a song, and we would instandyly take over. After Y’did Nefesh, a song that we sang particularly loudly and with ruach, there was a great silence in the room. Vito said something in Italian to his friend, and the turned to us. “that was amazing,” he said. “you all deserve some of my whiskey for that! Please!” we all looked around in amazement. That’s like a big deal, especially in Europe, having the host give 13 guests some of his 21 year old, super expensive whiskey. It was imported all the way from somewhere f ar a way that I don’t remember. It would be rude to say no. Vito made it clear the previous night and during lunch that he loves fancy alcohol. It was a huge honor.

During lunch, Vito treated Brian, a Cohen, like a king for that reason. He had brian make the 2^nd Kiddush and lead the Birkat Hamazon. Jealous. After lunch, Vito said, “we have a minyan, how about Minche?” we davened Minche and then just wandered around his huge apartment for about 45 minutes. We ended up leaving around 4.

After lunch, we walked with the other group to an Irish pub to see if they would play the Vikings game the next night. they said they would, and we agreed to meet up then went straight to the Pantheon, a big circular church in the middle of Rome. It was closed for mass. Near there, Ricky said there was the best gelato store in all of Rome. We checked it out, and it looked awesome. We wount back to the hostel after to get ready for the night. At 7:30, we had some great dinner prepared by the hostel. It was authentiuc pasta in tomato vodka sauce. Mmmm.

After dinner, we left for the Spanish steps to meet up with the girls group. We hung with them for a bit and admired the veiew before ewalking to the largest McDonalds in the world. we met up with the other guys group there too. We made sure to get back early that night, around midnight, to rest up in preparation for a big next day. It was a great 2^nd day in Rome.

DAY THREE:

We transferred hostels by then, and now we were in the Mosasic hostel. This hostel was a little nicer than the freestyle. We left at 10 and headed to another museum. It was cool. After, we decided to go to the Jewish Ghetto to get some kosher food. It took about an hour to walk there. On the way we walked through a different park and near a couple of other huge, majestic buildings. When we were close to the Jewish Ghetto, we noticed a ton of police officers, barriers and newsvans.s we asked one of the police officers what was goingon. He said the Pope was speaking at the great synagogue of Rome that night. we wandered downt the street with all the Kosher resturants, loking for a deli. Eventually we found one. It was decent, not quite worth the hour walk but worth the story and the expericnce. After, we made our way back downt o the Pantheon. It was open this time. the Pantheon is very cool. After, Adam and Gabe left to go back to the hostel. We all met up at the Irish pub and watched the game. We were joined by the other guys group and the girls group. After the game, some of us walked to the Trevi fountain and enjoyed some Gelato. The rest of us walked around, seeing the Trevi fountain and the 4 rivers fountain. Around 11:30, we boarded the metra and went home. Day three: very successful.

DAY FOUR:

We left early from the hostel. We boarded the metra and took it 6 stops to the edge of Roman City limits. We left Rome and entered Vatican City. Seth, Adam and Gabe wanted to go through quicker than us four, so they broke off and headed off in another directions. Us four walked around the Vatican, seeing the Sisteen Chapel and St. Peters Cathedrial, the biggest church in the world. it was MASSIVEE!!!! I’ll post pics for sure. We then made it into this huge square, and Adam couldn’t find us. He got frustrated and left with Seth and Gabe. Us four just wanted to explore, so we lef the Vatican and started to wander around the outskirts of Rome. We had a map but didn’t use it. after about an hour of wandering, we realized that it was time to actually figure out where to go. We traveled the absolute wrong direction. We reached this cool lookout point overlooking the entire city of Rome. We saw Titus’s arch and the Forum. That was near our hostel (kind of), and far off in the distance, we saw the Termini. We decided to just go in that general direction. The only problem is that between us and the city was this forest. We wandered into it. we eventually made it to a fence.

Was this fence going to stop us from getting home? Not a chance. Nadav was the first one over, Seffi and Joey quickly followed suit, and so did I. we found an older couple walking along a path. We asked them how to get out of this place. They told us this was the Rome Botanical Gardens, and they laughed when they figured out we unintentionally broke in there. They pointed us in the right direction. We snuck out the front gate. It was great. We found some random pizza place for lunch, where they actually spoke zero English. We somehow made due, and enjoyed some fantastic pizza.

After leaving, it wasn’t long before we figured out where we were. We were near the Pantheon, and therefore near Gelato de las Palmas. We had to get some Gelato from there, obviously. We did, then hopped a bus back to the Termini.

That night, we went out to the girls part of town. It took a metra and two buses to get there. Geez. We fmet up with them, went to a cool bakery, and eventually ended up going back home and went to sleep. It was a fantastic day, and capped a great first four days in Italy.

Gadna and ITALIA 2010

Hey everyone,

As you've probably noticed, I havn't blogged in a very veryyyy long time. 3 weeks ago, I went through Gadna (army training) in Mitzpe Ramon. There was no computer access there. From there, I almost directly went to Ben-Gurion Airport in Tel-Aviv and started the most amazing 2 weeks of my life in Italy. There was internet access, but it was limited to the point where I couldn't blog while I was there. I didn't really think this one through, because I left my computer at home for break. But HAVE NO FEAR! I wrote down my blog posts on paper (yea, I know, talk about the 1600's) while in Italy in this journal I bought there. So, in the following couple of days, I'll write what I wrote while there. If I start talking in present tense, such as "Wow, the mountains are so cool!" or something like that, I'm not actually in Italy while typing that, but I was while writing it. Just to clarify.

Also, when they open storage on Wednesday, I'll get the cord to connect my camera to my computer to upload pics.

SO! Stay tuned for Days 1-4, Jan 15-18: ROME

I'll write about Gadna after I finish Italy, don't worry.

-Josh

HI

OOOK so I just got back from Italy, and before that I was at Gadna for a week, so I'm sorry for not blogging for basically the whole month of January. But posts will come soon! Have no fear.

Josh