Part 1 of the absurd list here.
-Another game we played was organized by Jacob. It went like this. Jacob would say to everyone 'If you know the game, or you think you know the game, please leave this room". Then some people would leave and come back in to guess who the person Jacob had picked was. It ended up that the first person who talked after Jacob said his speech was the person he always picked. I only figured this out on the last night.
-Rebecca wasn't feeling well one day. That night she had the funniest snore as she slept. I kept giggling but Talia was studying and said nothing. I stopped laughing after a while, and then after one of Rebecca's long snores Talia shut her book and said 'I'm going to punch her in the face."
-I was put in charge of designing the t-shirt. Ben and I had a great time figuring out what objects to represent everyone with on the t-shirt.
-For Purim, Marisa, Rebecca, and I dressed up with tiny hats in black, red, and gold. Marisa wore lady bug wings and Rebecca and I wore bumble bee wings. I had a red highlight in my clothes, and Rebecca a gold highlight.
-Rebecca one time climbed into bed with me to cuddle. She told me all about her glittery superman underwear. In my sleepy state I responded that I'd look at it tomorrow. She yelled 'no! this is happening now!' and proceeded to fling away the blanket and pull down her pants.
-Rebecca was also obsessed with the website Quizlet. She talked endlessly about reaching 100 note card sets so Marisa and I surprised her with her favorite apple pastry and a note from 'the Quizlet team' thanking her for her service to the website. She walked around the rest of the night saying 'Now I know I can do anything!'
-Often times we would go on little trips into Hod Hasharon to buy things at the grocery store. Sometimes I walked with Marisa for falafel, or with Rami during a complaining session. They were always little adventures.
-Another time on Ben Yehuda street Marisa and I were looking around a little handmade store. Rebecca burst in and immediately suggested we should buy finger puppets. 'Guys! We should be matching!' So we bought a spiderman, horse, and mouse finger puppet.
-Marisa and I learned various Australian phrases from Jacob. His Australian students used to call to him 'Oy Jacob yooou're massive! You could get a hundred girls ooooooooooooooooooooon THE BEACH!'
-Marisa and I also liked to look at each other and say 'ooh damn!' and call each other a 'babe and a half.' One time I walked in and Rebecca and Marisa had started laughing about the word binoculars.
-The family room often looked something like this: beanbags sprawled on the floor, popcorn kernels in random places and laptops on the couches.
-On one hike in the Golan Marisa and I got into a serious discussion and missed the fork in the road. After too long we realized no one was in front of us or in back of us and so we found the nearest marked trail. I stupidly assumed that the bus would be there when we go to the top. It was not and instead we were met by 'Danger! Minefield' signs. Eventually Jacob found us.
-The night before a big test Dikla came in with tim tams and tea. She taught us to bite the opposite corners of the tim tam and sip the tea through it like a straw. It was the most delicious tim tam experience ever.
-The night before the zionism seminar my group stayed up late preparing for it. I painted a giant Ahad Ha'Am poster. These douchey boys from a private school kept coming over to flirt with the girls. After a while I got so fed up that I took a broom and swept them off the porch.
-I bought this awesome clay in town from a company called 'Rony's Clayground'. Sometimes Marisa and I would sit in the dorms and have clay time.
-One time I walked into the dorms and Sheina and Isabelle were talking. Isabelle said to Sheina, 'and on the eighth day God created Sheina' and without missing a beat Sheina responded 'and God said, let there be swag'
-For a mishloach manot I received a soft blanket. It was the best gift I could have asked for and went perfectly in the empty bed in our room that I had rearranged into a couch.
-I loved Mordechai's class. We had a great group to have discussions with. I loved reading out loud. It was the best way to stay awake for those four hour long classes.
-Everyone would catch me falling asleep in random places. Whenever I did a chorus of 'Yael can't haaaang!' would fill the room.
-In the Negev we were hiking and saw tons of baby Yael goats. The mountain goats were the size of puppies and had more grace frolicking around the mountains than I ever will. I was totally captivated.
-We had classes in the craziest places: mountains, meadows, beaches, city alleyways, caves, farms, museums, archaeological sites, ruins, shuks, any place you can think of was our classroom.
-Masada was a long hike. It was a nice experience to encourage each other up the mountain and to see the sunrise there. We also came at a time when a basic training unit of the army was finishing a 15 hour hike at the peak of the mountain. It was a beautiful thing to witness the national pride.
-We drove out to the desert once for a meditation. I enjoyed the first few minutes of hearing the silence of the desert and thinking, until someone a distance away started playing Arabic techno music.
-The counselors arranged for us to see a HaDag Nachash concert. I love that band and I've been listening to them for years. It was so much fun. I borrowed Marisa's crop top and us girls had the best time getting dressed up for the event but, of course, the concert itself was even better.
-I always enjoyed talking with Grace and Rami. They were an interesting pair and never minded me third wheeling. Neither of them liked other people much, I was the exception and it felt special.
-At the HSI banquet Lily and I got up and performed a duet of 'I Want You To'. At the end I was looking away as Lily was holding up her hand for a high five. Everyone yelled 'Yael!' and I turned around and laughed at my mistake and high-fived her.
-The youth hostels were one of my favorite parts of the trip. The food was always great there and the beds more comfortable. We got rearranged to room with different people but by coincidence I always got paired with Marissa. I took this as a sign that we would share a hostel at some point in the future.
-At one hostel Marisa, Rebecca, Sydney and I sat on the balcony and made shadow puppets across the other balcony. It was a great night.
-In Tel Aviv was a place called the Factory di Pasta. Israel doesn't have too many pasta places and it was just the perfect timing for some. Eva, Marisa, Alyse and I all got to order a pasta shape, sauce, and topping. It was delicious.
-On the way back from an open shabbat in Jerusalem I took the 947 bus. I was kind of panicked about getting off at the right stop so as I got on the bus I told the driver I was headed to Hod HaSharon. At the right stop the driver got on the speaker and yelled 'Hod HaSharon! Mi Hayaldah? (Where's the girl?)'. I thought, that's me!, and ran off. It was at that point that I decided I loved it here.
-In Jerusalem Orna and Gusti took me around the Christian quarter. It was beautiful. My favorite moment, however, was drinking shoko and laughing with Gusti and Amir.
-I also stayed with Judith and Bernie one shabbat. They had a gorgeous soft puppy that I cuddled with all weekend. Judith took me to see flowers and to meet her friend, Shraga, a jewelry artist. He was the happiest man I've ever met and I couldn't blame him. His studio was beautiful. He even gave me free earrings.
-Judith also took me to Hod VeHadar synagogue for the megillah reading. Dov Vogel's grandson was in charge of holding up the green sign to boo Hamen and the red sign to stop booing. He was dressed as spider man and took his job very seriously. Susie Dvoskin was also there and she had me, Yael Tamar, take a photo with her grandson, Mika Tamar. She was dressed as Spongebob.
-The dorms had two cats always hanging around. Julia named them Poopy and Titty Kitty. One day Titty Kitty, with her little white and orange blob of fur, was sitting on the porch not moving, just staring. Julia walked by and said to her 'Tit, what are you doing here?' and continued on. I laughed so hard.
-I always liked staying up late talking with my roommates or talking with anyone else. We'd sit there for hours having discussions about our lives and I learned so much about everyone. I always cherished those moments.
-Sydney said and did some funny things. One time she got a massage from Ben and told him he should be a misogynist when she meant masseuse. During a study session for a test we were all busy asking questions to the teacher when Sydney flipped out her iPhone and started taking selfies in the background.
-The counselors put together a bonfire in the parking lot. I wore my snow hat and mario t-shirt. We all wrote down a personal secret anonymously, mixed them up, and read them aloud. I was amazed at how similar the secrets were. We are never that alone in our problems.
-One more great game from the Masoret was the dating game. I got assigned to be a bitter divorcee. I kept yelling about my 'goddamn ex husband'. It got a lot of laughs.
-After one tiyul we went to a spring pool. There were fish in the water that ate the dead skin off your toes. Everyone hated them except for Marisa and I. They tickled so much. I loved them.
-On the corner before the campus was a pizza place called Avganiah Pizza. It had this delicious flat crust pizza and an easily recognizable tomato on the front.
-We had an assignment to interview Israelis around Tel Aviv. Rebecca, Marisa and I found a cute little children's store with a very nice lady there. She was fascinating and I bought more stickers from her too.
-In a meeting room in the hostel the counselors arranged a little restaurant. At my table was Grace, Brian, and Jenna. We had such a great discussion that we met once a week thereafter for 'bubble talks'.
-Marisa had a very strange computer that was also a tablet. One night she announced to me 'and now im going to draw' and then she proceeded to take out her laptop and scribble all over it with a stylus. I laughed.
-Rebecca loved Israeli dancing and in an inexplicable state of enthusiasm she started dancing her strange little moves with lyrics about John Travolta on the plane ride home.
-On the last day of the trip Marisa and I were chanting another weird Australian phrase that we never understood, 'Life is only a dream, Life is only a dream'. Then we turned to each other and realized that this whole trip had been so amazing, like a dream. And that's when it all made sense.
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