What's Up Life!

I'm back! I didn't have any time to update my blog while I was travelling because everything was happening so fast and the few periods of time we had for internet was used to check e-mail. But I journaled throughout the trip, so I will transpose what I wrote to this blog!

Pre-Trip:
I'm going to Israel in about 12 hours! I am very ready for this. I'm so stoked! Traveling with friends, seeing some kickass awesome places. I expect nothing less than an experience of a lifetime!

I'm on the plane! It's been fun so far. A big sky full of clouds, saw snow capped mountains. With friends, talking, smiling, laughing, playing cards (bs), walkin around the isles, everyone going to the motherland. Reading eye of the I, Osho, and havin fun! Going w/ beautiful people to beautiful places! Everyones sleeping now. I got a little bit of sleep. Here I go again.

Day 1:
Arrived in Tel Aviv airport. Everything is written in Hebrew all over the place. The first thing we did after getting our Israeli phones was went to the ocean. The first step off the bus was a wave of heat. Everyone put on sunscreen and we went to a bridge over a river, the bridge into the next couple weeks of adventure. Everyone was excited to see a playground which ended up being a work out area, even more exciting. We walked around the boardwalk area, ate some fish and chips, and saw cats everywhere. We decided that Israel is the world cutest country because instead of rodents it has an abundance of stray cats, who were all friendly. We met our guide Eitan the Rabbi, played on the work-out set and checked out the small playground of mushroom and caterpillar statues. Very Alice in Wonderland-esque. We crossed the bridge again as kayakers sped down the river, and took the bus to Jaffa.
Jaffa had really cool architecture, alleyways and tunnels. Eitan talked to us about Israel's history and the "4-d chess game" meaning Israels struggle with other nations throughout time (time being the 4th dimension) and said that the newspapers will make it seem like Israel is in check, but we shouldn't trust it. He explained that the point of Birthright is to give us a personal invitation to connect with Israel, our homeland, and he told us that we as Jewish people carry a baggage whether we like it or not, but that baggage can have a lot of joy in it too.
We walked around some more, I payed a shekel to pee at the public restroom because Jordan called "Buffalo" on me, the game of the trip meaning I had to down my half full huge bottle of water because I was holding it in my right hand and he called "Buffalo." It's a stupid game but allowed for much laughter and fun and painfully drinking water too fast. We saw a statue representing Jacob's ladder and a replica of the entrance to an Egyptian tomb.
Everyone on the trip is super awesome and beautiful, great personalities, hearts, souls and intentions and aspirations. More writing to come.

Night 1:
Left the hotel in Ashkelan and went to the beach with the crew, younger kids smoking hookah, everyone had high energy, walked to the ocean, the Mediterranean was warm, peed in it with Daniel, we walked down the beach and found a concert on the beach. TH eband "Blue Elephand" was playing, it was a huge party, lots of Israeli people, met some Israeli girls, Dina Haha (that was her name apparently) wrote her name in lipstick on my arm and told me to facebook her (I haven't yet). Israel is awesome.

Day 2: Tel Aviv
Woke up, breakfast, bus to Tel Aviv. We went to the building where ISrael was declared a state, watched a video and heard a speech about the founding of the country as Israel. Everyone at the meeting was notified by mail approximately 40 hours before the meeting was held, and so many came all dressed in suits that the line went out the door and down the street. The chairs used were borrowed from nearby cafe's and stores. Last minute country! The Israeli national anthem is very dramatic as well, it figures.
Then we went to the Tel Aviv Market. The market was awesome. An endless alley of little stores, people, food and many things. Got an awesome falafel, went into a little tea shop with Dan, the lady who worked there came right up to me smiling and said that her store was a "point of light," and gave me some advice like "there's more to just what they tell you on this trip" and said to go to Sinai and that "danger is just in the head." She told me that I was filled with light. She was really cool. AFter that we went to the beach! The Tel Aviv beach was awesome! We swam to the rocks, the water was salty and waaarm, the beach was beautiful and filled with people. We played frisbee and did handstands and everyone got stung by Jellyfish. There were jellyfish everywhere!!!
Next we went to Jerusalem! The view was spectacular. We sat at a viewpoint for about five minutes in silence looking at Jerusalem, and then a spontaneous dance party broke out! Woo! We then went to the Shalom hotel, walked to the film school and watched two short films, most of us were falling asleep at that point, we went back to the hotel, tired, hung out, some in the group went to the Hassidic wedding which I missed out on, people were talking about it for the whole rest of the trip, I called home, showered, walked around, and then went to sleep.

Day 3: Jerusalem
I woke up with a beautiful view of Jerusalem, had breakfest, and then we went to the Holocaust Museum. Intense.
Then the Jerusalem market which was beautiful and awesome. Daniel and I walked through the alleyways and residential area which was extremely fun and amazing to see. Then we went back to the hotel, played Frisbee in the pool, had Shabat service on the roof with singing, had Shabat dinner, met the Stanford birhtirhgt group, and then partied all night!

Reflections:
The world is a beautiful place and people have beautiful minds. Everyone's different, and motivated by different causes for different reasons. I don't know why a lot of people do the things they do. I know a lot, but I don't know much. But I know that it feels right to live from the heart without letting anything hinder me or get in my way. Sometimes I feel like I can't take things in too well as they come, like my minds eye is out of focus, but I also feel that I still take things in more than a lot of people, at least from how I interpret them and compare them to myself, (the rest of the paper got ripped off)

Day 4: Saturday - Shabbat
Ran up the stairs with Sandor Matt and Daniel three times from floor 4 to 16, intense but really fun and good workout. Went to Yoga and led some stretches in my short Israel underwear, this one girl was staring at them the whole time with her jaw dropped, went to the pool, swam, we played chicken with some intense gnarly soldiers, they won, we jumped into the pool a bunch of times trying to catch a football, ate lunch, went to the pool again, then danced at bar night. I met a cute girl named Kayla, I was supposed to hang out with her in Tel Aviv after I extended but I lost my phone.

Day 5: Old Jerusalem
Old Jerusalem! After a speech in the morning we met our soldiers who are all awesome! We went to the western wall (aka the wailing wall aka the Kotel) and walked around the old city. THe markets were really cool. The shopkeepers were intimidating but fun to talk to. I bought a fez hat and a chess set(which I lowered from 350 shekels to 100 shekels), and rejected a pipe which the guy was so surprised because he lowered the price from 100 sheks to 20 sheks and I still didn't want it, and he dropped the pipe on the ground with his jaw dropped. Brendan Shani Noa and I all got really good chicken and rice. We met up with the group and I got a free coca cola for filling out a survey, we touched the wall, danced with the Hassids, one of them was a good friend of Rabbi Sholmie (the UCSC rabbi) and was really excited when he talked about him, the guys put on T'filin, we walked on the stones barefoot, and then went to the market area, ate pizza and ice cream, saw street musicians, got to know the soldiers really well, I learned how to hit on girls in Hebrew, ("At Mehamemet Kapara" means "you're gorgeous, cutie") and then went to the hotel, partied with the soldiers, and slept.

Day 6: Negev
Breakfast, an amazing speech from Avraham, the original director of birhtright, a south african athiest jewish socialist zionist, about Jewish identity, that "Judaism is not a religion," and talked about the 5 legged table of Judaism analogy. We packed our bags and left the hotel, went to the graveyard that Rabin and Hurzl are buried, went to the mall, and then to the desert! We rode camels and donkeys, played dusty soccer, and had a desert night walk where we all sat by ourselves out in the desert for a while. It made me think about a lot of things, the world we live in, who and where we are in the world, historically and geographically, a plane went overhead that was extremely loud in the emptiness of the desert, the sky was read over the horizon and black above, peaceful. We got back to the tents, walked around and talked to other groups, I met a group from New York, talked to an Israeli soldier about psychology, saw a Jackyl, then went to sleep in the Bedowin tents after talking to my American and Israeli friends. Moran took a picture of Daniel sleeping and started laughing hysterically with Gil, and I asked what was so funny and they showed me that in the picture there was someone sleeping near Daniel with a massive boner that was in the background of the picture.

Day 7: Masada and the Dead Sea
We hiked Masada and went to the Dead Sea. Amazing views, awesome hike. Giant mountains, loud echoes, friends and fun! The Dead Sea was cool, salty, hot, and stung. We covered ourselves in Dead Sea mud, floated easily on the water, Chris and I tried to swim to Jordan and realized it was way too far, we went to the pool which was fun, and I lost my sunglasses.
That night in Tiberias, the soldeirs had a "surprise" exercise with us simulating basic training. It was our last night with the soldiers so we partied, danced, I crowd surfed, and it was tons of fun. That night me and the fellas snuck out of the hotel and treked down to the Galilee sea! Skinny dipped and then payed some guys about 30 shekels to drive us back to the hotel. We squeezed into the car and the guy blasted techno all the way home.

Day 8: Said goodbye to the soldiers. Sad, inspirational, fun. We went to the Jordan river. SO MUCH FUN! Captain David, Gabe, Daniel, Jordan and I were the conquerers of the high seas! On our Broat we commondeered all ships that got in our way, threw everyone overboard, stole a boat, and laughed hysterically the whole time while saying Pirate-ey things like "arr" and "watch out for the spid-arrrs!" etc. So much fun. Then everyoen treked through the most amazing river walk in Jordan, our guide told us that Boars ejaculate for 15 minutes, we saw a waterfall and bathed in it, had dinner, dub side of the moon was playing, then we had a huge dance party.
Let me tell you, UCSC knows how to party. We instantly started raging and dancing hardcore once the music came on, and that got everyone else into it. Then when the song "It's raining men" came on, following Ilya's lead, a bunch of guys including myself jumped on the table shirtless and danced hardcore while everyone below was cheering! So much fun. Talked to Kayla again, she's really cute, I told her she was gorgeous in hebrew, she didn't understand so i translated to english.

Day 8:
Went to a really cool Eco farm, went to the pool, partied on the roof, went to the Gallilee to swim, I found sun glasses, Jesus apparantly walked on water on the Galilee, so I think Jesus gave me the sun glasses too, we went out at night, ate dinner, Eitan drank with us which was cool.

Day 9: Tzfat
No jounral entry. Shabat.

Last Day:
Today was the last day of Birthright! Right now I'm in an amazing little church of christ run by extremely kind people from Sri Lanka. We missed our bus from Tel Aviv to Eilat so we (Max, Sandor, Daniel, Justin, Alina and Lisa) walked down the street, almost slept in front of a Real Estate store, but Alina found this church, a "house of God" and they warmly welcomed us in, made us tea and gave us crackers and sweets. We are so happy! Goodnight. Laila tov!

What a beautiful mornig! Waking up at a Sri Lankan church, walking to the bus with seven friends in South Tel Aviv, woke up to roosters. Now I'm listening to "Let's get it on" by Marvin Gaye, going to sleep before we get to Eilat in about five hours. Passing crop fields, life is beautiful!
Yesterday I got barmitzvahd! I chose the name Isaiah because he said something about peace between the lion and the lamb and I thought it was cool becuase i like the idea of peace where the lion doens't have to become the lamb and tha lamb doesn't have to become the lion. And I commited to keeping Israel in my head and heart and as part of my identity. As we all said goodbye and gave each other personal statements, everyone seemed to be in a sort of mostly speechless, ineffable state. It was over, but all had yet to sink in. A lot of what we acquired as Moshe said, was under the surface. We grew ten feet in ten days. And still going. Sandor was so happy to meet the Sri Lankans! I was thrilled, also they had guitars which we played. It was fun to sleep there.
See you in Eilat!

At this point I stopped journaling, so I will just summarize the rest of what we did:

Stayed in Eilat for 4 days, slept in a hotel the first night, went scuba diving the next day and saw tons of tropical fish, rainbow fish, coral, slept in a Christian hostel the next to nights called the "Shelter," went to Petra in Jordan, amazing, really fun, expensive, slept in a park the next night, sprinklers came on and we moved to a dry spot, went to Tel Aviv and hung out with others from the group and the soldiers on "White Night" and slept on the roof at a hostel, next went to Jerusalem and slept on the roof of a hostel that overlooked Jerusalem and the Dome of the Rock, had Shabat dinner with a Jewish family after going to the wall, went to Ramala in Palestine the next day, everyone was friendly and talkative, a huge change in scene, went to Bethlehem the next day, back to Jerusalem, I left the group, sang Odjyatvosh, I took the bus to the train to the airport and went home.

Israel was an amazing, awesome incredible experience. Ask me and I'll tell you more about it! All the details. I'm glad I wrote it all here to refresh and fortify the memory in my head, although the whole thing was unforgettable. You should go some day! You'll love it.

What's Up Life!

Monday, June 14, 2010

Israel, looking back

Going to Israel!!!!

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Some things about ME

First!

Followers