-On one long bus ride Ben and I sat together to watch a play called 'Twisted' on his iPod. I kept falling asleep and just before the end of the show I drifted off and Ben yelled 'Yael wake up!' and I gasped awake in disoriented shock. He laughed pretty hard at that.
-Tzfat was one of my favorite cities. It was beautiful and artistic, everything was painted blue. The synagogues had aged with grace and were so peaceful and cozy. It had the perfect little alleys to sit and discuss spirituality in.
-In Tzfat was a guy named Avraham, the kaballah artist. I love asking artists questions so I immediately started asking him all kinds of things. In kaballah is this idea that names have spiritual meaning. As he was answering my question he started to talk about names and he said 'let's say your name means mountain goat' and I said 'mine does!' Everyone in the room laughed.
-Marisa and Rebecca and I frequently had Dinner On The Streets together after long tiyul days. One of my favorite locations was the 'Fine' burger place we visited twice, where we had tut banana drinks. Marisa always stayed behind and sat with me, whether I wasn't feeling well or my food was slow to arrive.
-On Ben Yehuda street was an adorable waffle place. The deal was two waffles to split where both people can choose what toppings they want on their side. It had a mural with waffles and wings and bicycles. It also had a drawing contest with a theme of the month, which you could doodle a submission for while you waited for your waffle.
-Mordechai, our teacher, invited the class over for dinner one night. It was so nice to have a break from the cheder ochel. I ate so much of that home cooked food. Afterwards, with full happy bellies, we played rat-a-tat cat.
-On the first day of classes we pushed aside all the desks and took out maps of Israel. We marked all these roads and circled places. Every place we went we marked on the map.
-One shabbat we stayed at a Bedouin tent. We all got ready in white clothing. It was beautiful to stand in a circle in the desert singing shabbat songs all in white.
-That night in the tent was a big snuggle fest. I'm not one for too much physical contact so around 2 in the morning Marisa, Rebecca and I sat outside by the bonfire reading our books.
-In the desert that night Lily and I saw a light source peeking out over a mountain in the desert. We both wanted to hike up and find out what it was. When we got to the top of the mountain we saw the city skyline of Ber Sheva and the endless desert on either side. I turned to her and said 'well here we are on planet earth together'. The view was amazing.
-The Marissi (Short Marisa and Tall Marissa) and I cuddled on Lily's bed watching the movie Her for several nights. It was a strange film but nice to be there together.
-Sometimes I borrowed Rebecca's 3G capable phone and the two of us would FaceTime my boyfriend Ryan. It was always ridiculous.
-We volunteered for Leket Yisrael and picked radishes for a few hours. The dirt was so fresh and clean and we competed to pick the biggest radish. The weather was perfect and the time flew by. The next day in Tel Aviv I spied a basket of radishes with Leket Yisrael labeled on it. It felt great to see the work we had done sitting in front of a house ready to feed a needy family.
-That day in Tel Aviv we went on a graffiti hunt. The graffiti was detailed, subtle and in hidden places. It was basically a giant game of I-Spy.
-Outside an ice cream store a baby rattle fell out of the sky. When we looked up a little baby head was peeking from a window on the second story. She had slid the rattle out of a crack in the window. We all smiled and waved and the baby waved back.
-At Rabin square we had a heated debate in Mordechai's class. It got very passionate and had to be calmed down. It was fun to argue.
-On Purim day we all wore costumes and sat in the grass near the Tel Aviv boardwalk. It was nice to nap in the sun, wearing our wings.
-In the shuk Rebecca was dressed as Where's Waldo so we had an impromptu photo shoot, snapping pics of her blending into the busy market. Later, we bound the photos into books.
-Marisa loved pointing out pomegranates whenever we passed them. The town the campus was located in had a giant pomegranate sculpture at an intersection. We decided to take a photo there around Purim and several Israeli boys in costume came by yelling 'mesiba!' and jumped in the photo.
-On Erev Purim, around 8 AM we were sitting in biology class when a rave was going on at the Israeli high school. We watched with jealousy, barely paying attention to the lesson.
-One night I got very sick. The next day we walked to a nearby park on a shabbat afternoon and it was nice to relax with everyone after feeling so awful.
-Mount Gilboa was the first intense hike we climbed. Hiking was what stressed me out the most about going to study on this trip. It felt so accomplishing to finish the hike. And it was great comic relief when after two hours of steep hiking, Brian fell down on the flat ground. His knees were bleeding so he wrapped one with his shirt. When Jacob yelled from a hundred yards away for him to put his shirt back on, he whispered to himself 'you don't understand, i'm wounded'. Leora and I laughed like crazy.
-On an open weekend shabbat at the Treisters we watched Casablanca. In the behind the scenes we learned that the plane was a cut-out stage prop and that they hired midgets to stand around it during filming so that the plane looked size proportional. Rochelle is an amazing bead artist and she helped me start a bead weaving on that Friday afternoon.
-At the Dead Sea we floated in the water. It was the strangest sensation. I was determined to find Dead Sea mud. I was convinced that I had, but Marisa told me it was just watery sand.
-Marisa, Sydney, Alyse and I went to the mall in Ranana. I bought cute stickers and we split a crepe. Marisa and I debated for half an hour whether to buy tiny hats but decided not to. Three weeks later we went back and bought them anyway for Purim costumes. Us short, tiny people thought it normal to squeeze through a small crack in the book store door. Sydney laughed at us and pointed out that the door actually opened the other way.
-The Kaplan house was cozy and warm. We sat in the hot tub and ate good food. It was so relaxing. Then in the afternoon we went to Max Brenner's and ate amazing sweet potato ravioli and tons of fantastic chocolate.
-When the power went out during a science lab, we sat at the lab tables testing mentos flavors in the dark. Then I brought out the fondue set I bought at Max Brenner's and we had fondue and played cards with tea lights around us in the Moadon.
-Fondue moments continued in the quiet place of solitude, the area behind the office with the picnic table that Julia and Eva and I took breaks in, in-between classes.
-As we learned about the ancient water systems we crawled through actual water caves. So there were were, knee deep in a pitch black cave in hezekiah's water tunnel singing bohemian rhapsody.
-Leora helped me into one of the caves which I greatly appreciated. We stood in a circle having a quiet moment. Slowly Danny led us in singing Hene Ma Tovu and the relaxing scene became a yelling match of who could sing the loudest.
-One night the counselors arranged a night of events for all the Alexander Muss students, "The Show Muss Go On". Our HSI group had the most spirit.
-On the morning of the zionism seminar Jacob and Dikla prepared a huge breakfast with amazing attention to detail. The decorations were Israel themed with little chocolates and marshmallows and tiny flags. The bagels were delicious.
-Rebecca organized a game for one of the Masoret family meetings. It was called Honeymoon Night. Several people were sent outside and we all sat in the family room quietly. Each person came inside one by one to try and figure out the game, when really there was nothing to figure out. We just watched the person and laughed as someone recorded everything the person said. Then the record keeper read off everything they had said as if it had taken place on their honeymoon night: "I don't understand. What is this game? Is there anything I can't do? Why aren't you saying anything?" It was hysterical.
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