Sad Panda for the end of break

So lets see here, what have I done since Tuesday? Oh, Tuesday night me and Rachel horn (no relation) decided to be adventurous and head down to the bowling alley in Talpiyot. We had trouble figuring out which bus to take but eventually we got it. While on our way to a bus stop we ran into my parents walking down the street, it was a funny horn meeting horn moment. Then when we got to Talpiyot, we had to watch down a sketchy street to get t the bowling alley and there were all these arsim (Israeli for guido) guys everywhere and we decided that we had entered Israel's own personal New Jersey. The bowling alley was ironically enough filled with very cute yeshiva boys. Rachel and I tried really hard to get there attention but it didn't happen. Then we got ice cream and headed back towards center city, where we met up with two more friends and had some kosher for pesach wine at a bar. We sat around Ben Yehuda for a while just chilling and then headed home. The next day, I went to the mall with Lindsay, we were mostly unsuccessful in buying anything but I did get a cute dress. We had yummy lunch at like 4 in the afternoon and then came home. After catching up with my parents, I met with two of my friends and we bought two bottles of wine and sat on a bench and drank in the nice spring air, it was very funny! Thursday I sat around most of the day doing nothing and then went to look at apartments, they were awful, but after that I went out to great dinner at Caffit with the parents and then met up with some friends to go to this cool light and video show on the sides of the wall of the Jaffa Gate, it was all about the 40 years of the reunification of Jerusalem. It was so cool and it was all in Hebrew and I think I understood most of it. Friday, I took my parents up to Tel Aviv to Nachlat Benyamin where they proceeded to buy lots of jewelery and art not only for themselves but for me too, everything we got was so pretty! Then we came back to Jerusalem and I went to a salon right by my parents apartment and got my haircut.(It was a great haircut even though its shorter than I wanted) After that I took my parents to Kol Haneshama the reform congregation here, where they ran into some people they knew and I saw tons of people I knew. Then we went out for some AMAZING seafood! I got it all over my dress!
Saturday was another sit at home all day and relax day because that night I got together with some friends and we celebrated the end of passover with pizza and beer (although I didn't drink the beer because I don't drink beer) But it was fun nonetheless. The next day was Sunday, back to class, but before class I went for waffles and coffee, a good way to once again celebrate the ability to eat bread again. So thats all for now, just getting back into the swing of things for one more month of school.

XOXO,
Adra

Greece ---> Dead Sea ---> Tel Aviv ---> J'lem

Finally, the last leg of my ridiculously busy break.
After my beautiful vacation, I knew I needed some time to relax and fortunately for me, my parents had decided to surprise me with a two day vacation at a Dead Sea spa. So at after having 4 hours of sleep from arriving home from the airport my parents picked me up in their rental car and we headed down south. The drive was pretty and my parents told me all about their week trip in the north of Israel and I told them about Greece, we stopped at a Ahava outlet and I bought some stuff, and then we arrived at our hotel. Because they are so wonderful, my parents had booked reservation at a really really nice hotel. But when we got there they could not find our reservation and we eventually found out that the reservation line had made us wrong reservation at a different hotel. Then I had to go around from hotel to hotel with my mom trying to find us a hotel room, eventually the first really nice place gave us a room for the price my parents had originally reserved and all was well. The funniest thing about this hotel was the nice bell boy, named Roni, who outwardly flirted and hit on me in front of my parents, it was ridiculous. My parents mocked me about it the rest of the vacation. Also, because the airport had lost my bags, I needed to buy some clothes (mostly a bathing suit and underwear) in order to enjoy this vacation, so we went to the little strip mall and i bought a bathing suit with then proceed to completely fall apart within the two days we were there. Finally, we made it out to the pool but the sun was already setting so we got dressed and went out for dinner. After dinner, I got the most delicious ice cream and we walked along the beach, there were tons of people in tents all along the beach, setting up to camp out for the pesach holiday. The next morning, the number of tents had tripled and the beach was stuffed full of people. We spent the entire next day sitting by the pool, we also ventured into the actual dead sea, which surprisingly enough did not burn at all, also my parents got a massage while i was treated to both a manicure and pedicure, my parents are so nice to me sometimes. Then we had shabbat dinner at the hotel, which had already switched over to kosher for passover but the food wasn't half bad. That night I taught my parents how to play Dutch Blitz and they weren't even too bad at it. The next day, Saturday, we laid by the pool so more before pile into the car again to head up north to Tel Aviv for the Passover Seder that night at the Shenkers. The seder was very secular and we skipped around sang a few songs and then started dinner. After we had desert I was so exhausted that I fell asleep in my clothes. The next day the Shenkers took us on a driving tour of the area where they grew up. They are both sabras, born in Israel, and I learned a lot about life in Israel before its independence. and finally, we drove back home to Jerusalem. I put my 3 loads of laundry in and settled down for a quiet and uneventful night at home. However, I had no food and furthermore, any of the food I did have was not kosher for passover. So around dinner time I headed over to my parents apartment to have dinner with them and their 4 next door neighbors. The neighbors are 4 widowed women from Florida who were also renting for a month. They were very funny. After dinner, my parents and I got a kosher for passover cheesecake and it was yummy. I slept over at their apartment and the next day we went to return their rental car and to see the old city. The Jewish quarter was hopping, with music and performances going on everywhere. That afternoon I headed to the shuk with my friend emily, the shuk was great, half the shops were closed and there was almost no one there shopping so we got what we needed quickly. Today, I went to Yad Vshem with my parents, it was actually a nice experience to do that with them.

Now you have it all caught up to date,

Love love,
A

Hey - where is my bag??

Athens - after 5 hours of ferry riding, we made it back to our same hostel from our first night in Athens and decided to head off to see the National Garden and the changing of the guard at the Parliament. The changing of the guard was funny for a few reasons, first, we were there on the day when they were training the new guys, so they had an army commander there watching and then even correcting the new guards. Also, standing next to us was two boys dressed in full on yeshiva dress (white button up with black pants, black yarmilke and tzitzit) they were speaking in english too. And the guard themselves and this whole crazy traditional movement was so funny. They had one funny outfits, with tights and skirts and also they had shoes with huge puff balls on them. Then they would move by lifting one leg, kicking it out in front of them and then shuffling behind them and then stomping their foot, they looked like tap dancers. Then, after watching this most ridiculous dance, we headed to go out to dinner with Deanna and Brett in Plaka, the cosmopolitan area of Athens. After our dinner we got great gelato. The next day we woke up and headed straight for the Acropolis, we bought a student pass which gives you entrance tickets to 8 different sites around Athens.**GROSS STORY alert - so that morning I had woken up and my nose stud was missing and I could not find it, now nose piercings are much different than ear piercings and at any time will close up within 24 if there is no stud in. So I was in big trouble here if I did not find a new nose stud, luckily the Athens flea market sold a ton of them, which I had seen the day before, however, unfortunately, we had a busy day at the Acropolis and could not make it to the market in the late afternoon, when I went to put in a new stud, I would not go all the way in, so the guy in the store gave me a regular earing and I bent it and essentially had to partially re-pierce my nose. My nose hurt all the rest of the day and for a few day afterwards as well but thankfully, as is well now. GROSS Story over** So, we walked up the Acropolis, which is the name of the area not the buildings, and saw the Parthenon and other temple ruins. On our way up to the Acropolis, we were followed by a stray dog (they have tons of these in Greece) and this dog literally followed and lead us around the entire Acropolis, so we figured he was our guide dog and we named him Hercules, obliviously.Then we went down and saw the Theater of Dionysis, which I learned about in a theater class of mine. Then we walked by this huge rock which had stairs to climb up it, and of course I wanted to go climb up to see the view and for the fun of climbing, but no one else did and tired of not doing fun and adventuresome things I climbed up all by my self and took some pictures. We continued on to see the Ancient Agora, the Roman Agora, Temple of Zeus, and the Olympic Stadium. I took tons of gorgeous photos. After our long day of sightseeing, we went back to our hostel to pack up all of our stuff, then we hung around all afternoon in Victoria Square, a nice area full of cafes, waiting until it was a good time to have dinner. Aaron and Alyssa met up with us again and we ended up having dinner at the same restaurant where we had dinner our first night in Athens and we thankfully grabbed our bags and went to the airport to head home. Our flight was at 2 am so we had a while to wait. SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, once we made it back to Israel safely, my bags never came out of the baggage claim, so I had to put in a missing bag report and go home empty handed. My parents had let me know that day that we were taking a trip to the Dead Sea before Pesach (passover) so once I got home from the airport, I had 4 hours to sleep.

To hear about my relaxing Dead Sea vacation, please keep reading!!

Whats in a sperm? - Ask him!

Naxos - after getting up in a hurry, we made it on time to our 7am ferry from Santorini to Naxos. We got to Naxos and were settled in our completely empty hostel by 10 am. Our hostel was run by a very cute and awkward Greek woman, the hostel was very nice, we had a 2 bedroom apartment with a kitchen and common room and another room for the 6 of us, and we were the only guests in the entire hostel. Our hostel was located in the main port town of Naxos, it was supposedly near the beach, however, the next day when we went to the beach it wasn't cleaned for the tourist season yet and had garbage and stuff on it. So anyways, we got there on a sunday and took a walk around the main town, mostly things were closed, but we found a nice bakery where we got a traditrional cream filled powdered sugar covered pastry called a "bogasta". Then we walked around the town some more, down the main row of restuarants right along the water at the port and then we walked up to see the ruins of Apollo's temple which lay on a hill next to the port. Then we headed over to the beach, which as i said before we found in a state of disarray so we headed back to the hostel to take a nap, we had had a long morning. We ended up napping for something like 3-4 hours and then we got ready and headed out to go for dinner. We had great great Italian food, pizza and salad, at a place called Susana's. Then on our way home from dinner, we ran into Becky's friends from camp again, the same people we had seen on the road in Santorini, together we all went back to our hostel and sat around drinking our wine and vodka and playing UNO. The next morning we went out for pastries with those same friends and then took a million years deciding what to do but eventually decided to try going to a different beach, suggest by a local. This second beach was much further away, but was a bit nicer, we laid out for awhile before retuning to the port to meet our friend's Aaron and Alyssa as their ferry came to port. That night, we went to dinner with them and then had amazing desert at one of the cute desert bars along the port. We had a hilarious half hour photo shoot and then walked over to a bar because Aaron wanted a drink, on the menu were all these crazy drinks with name's like "impatient virgin" and "sperm". So we asked on of the waiters who spoke english "What's in a sperm" and he replied "Ask him" (referring to Aaron being the only man among 7 woman, which he was constantly being complimented on everywhere we went to dinner. Speaking of dinners, did I mention that almost every dinner we had we were offered free wine by the restaurant owners standing out front, it was ridiculous.) Then the next morning we again boarded a ferry to head back to Athens!

To hear about the last leg of my trip, see my next post!
PS- pictures soon to come, however, there are almost 300 of them so it might take a while!

Why I love ATVs

So, it has been a whirlwind this past week, wow! Last Wednesday night, before leaving for Greece, I went out to dinner with my parents, my cousin Anna, and her mom. It was so nice to see my cousin, she is abroad in Spain and came to Israel to visit her twin brother who lives in an orthodox yeshiva somewhere. Then after dinner, I went home to get to bed early because I was leaving for Greece at 3 am. So then we took a sherut to the airport and got on out flight to Athens, Greece. We spent our first day in Athens at the Archaeological Museum and then did dinner with some other Hebrew U friends of that were also in Athens. We stayed at Hostel Aphrodite, which had a room of 4 bunk bed so we had two cute Australian girls as our roommates. The next morning we got up early to catch a 7 hour ferry to the island of Santorini (where Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants was filmed) there was a totally obnoxious group of Greek teenagers on our boat. They had whistles and bullhorns - they were so loud and made so much noise at 7 am, but after a while it became hilarious to watch their crazy antics, like when they played truth or dare with the old people sitting on our deck. The only reason we got stuck sitting on the deck with these high schoolers was because both Ilana and I had trouble getting all 3 of our ferry tickets, for both of us they could only find two. (we both actually didn't even end up getting our third tickets until we got to the other islands we were traveling to.) So the boat ride was very long and tiring, but had amazing views of all the Greek islands and we eventually made it to our first island adventure, Santorini!
Santorini - so we got picked up at the port by our hostel people, and got driven to the cutest hostel, it had a nice little pool and the owner, her name was Poppy, was so cute and funny. They gave us a yummy glass of wine and lots of advice about what to do in Santorini. That evening (we arrived in late afternoon) we met up with one of the girl's I was traveling with friend from home who was studying abroad in Spain and we headed up to the town of Oia/Ia. Ia is where they actually filmed the movie, when you think of Santorini in general, this is what they pictures are of. It is all the white houses with blue roofs and many different colored little houses all down the side of the cliffs. You can ride through it on a donkey if you want, we didnt have the time/want/money to do that tho. We took so many gorgeous photos and we tried to watch the sunset but it was very overcast out, then we sat down to another traditional Greek dinner. The next morning we got up and rented ATV's, which is a huge thing in the tourist industry of Greece. And because Santorini is such a small island, you can ride around the whole thing in back and froth a few times in one day. We rode out to the black beach, Santorini is located next to a volcano so it has all these different colored lava beaches. We had another traditional Greek lunch and then laid out for a while on the beach. Interesting fact - similarly to Israel, Greece has a huge popular of loose animals roaming around but instead of cats, in Greece its dogs! So as we were sleeping on the beach this huge dog came up to me and starting licking my feet, I freaked out and jumped up and my bathing suit almost fell down it was so gross and unexpected! Then we rode around the island some more and ran into some of Becky's friends from camp who were also spring breaking it in Greece, they are studying in Tel Aviv this semester. Then we headed back to the hostel to change for dinner. We went into town to turn our ATVs back in and then we met 4 more of our friends from Hebrew U for dinner overlooking the volcano with a great view! We also had amazing desert at this cute little cafe. Then we went back the hostel because we had to be at 6 am to catch our next ferry to Naxos. However, in the morning we woke up at 6:09 and had to be ready to go at 6:15, it was a huge crazy mess but we made it on time and everything was O.K.

To continue hearing about my Greek adventures see the next post!
Adra

but at least i was actually able to fix it!

Monday March 31, 2008

did somebody say midterms? - (does that mean working?)

Hi all, its been another week here in Jerusalem. Last monday I went to to dinner with Jacob Merlin (Brandeis grad in Israel studying) and we went to Tal bagels [I can't wait to go there and sit with computers in the back doing work, just like someone I know], it was so nice to see someone from home that I was actually friends with before I came to Israel, we had a good time catching up and now we are going to see each other more often. And on my way home I ran into to Eli/George/Getzel Davis also another Brandeis graduate. The rest of the week has been a bit of a blurr. I had two test/quiz things in Hebrew last week, both were OK. Rotem's computer died, like really died, she has to get a whole new one, so that was kind of a bummer seeing as we all sit around and watch TV on her computer every day but it's getting fixed soon so we are all right. Thursday night was Rachel Horn's birthday outing, and a bunch of Brandeis people from Israel and people studying in Europe came in to celebrate with her. We started out with a big party at her suite and then a group of us, mostly Brandeis kids and Rachel's roommates went out drinking and dancing, it was so much fun, we were out until 3 am - which was actually 4 am because it was day light savings time day. Gillian stayed on my floor and then in the AM we got up at 6 am to go catch buses, Gillian was going back to Haifa and I was supposed to head to Eilat with some girlfriends. We had no idea that you had to buy bus tickets beforehand, on most buses in Israel you just get on and buy a ticket then, so we got screwed and couldn't get on the bus, the next bus to Eilat was much later and it would have been a waste of a 4 hour bus ride just to go to Eilat for less than 24 hours, so we decided to stay home. I spent most of the weekend sleeping off my crazy party night Thursday but also I watched tons of episode of Sex and the City and began to study for my two midterms which are both on Wednesday of this week. The Saturday night I went out with Rotem and Rachel because we had to cheer Rotem up after her sad computer situation. We took some ridiculous pictures, I will put them up soon. And now I am working on studying for my tests, I have lots of stuff to memorize. So that is all for now, nothing much else to discuss, just working on studying, finding an apartment for the summer or a job, and trying to remember to have fun!

xoxo,
Adra

Had to fix my blog!

Wednesday April 9, 2008

Busy Busy Busy

Crazy crazy past week and half.
Last week, I had two midterms on one day, both Halacha and Archeology. For halacha I had to write two essays in one class period and for Archeology I had to define 4 artifacts. (I have now gotten both of these tests and of course, as assumed, I did well, which is great because I haven't really been working that hard) Thursday afternoon, I went to lunch/dinner with a few friends at Bet Ticho, the food was great and hilariously a bee flew into my lemonade and so we covered the cup and the bee eventually drowned and we watched it, it was both cruel and hilarious. Then Thursday night I hung out with some friends, and it was just nice to sit around and chat. Friday morning, I left to go on a shabbaton with the conservative movement that my friend was in charge of. We drove up north towards the Galil and stopped at a Druze village on the way there. It was very cool, there was great food and GREAT shopping! Then we continued to Kibbutz Hannaton which is next to Nazareth. Its a tiny kibbutz but they have a guest house where we stayed, they had a dairy on the kibbutz and on shabbat afternoon we got to see the cows!! Also, during the weekend I taught a bunch of people how to play Dutch Blitz and now my friends are obsessed with it too! Also, the Kibbutz had a pool that we got to swim in, it was a really nice weekend. Right before I left for the shabbaton, I found the my parents were arriving two days early for their visit because they could not use their credit card in Spain and were running out of money. So that means that now my parents are here. On Saturday night, I headed to the David's Citadel ( a really nice hotel where they stayed) to stay over the night and hang out with my parents. Then Sunday morning, after free breakfast buffet at the hotel, I brought my parents to my apartment and to school with me. We were learning about how to teach Israel in JESNA so it was very interesting for my parents. Then Monday my parents moved into their rental apartment on Shamai street. It is really a nice apartment. We went out for dinner that night at a non-kosher really delicious sushi place. Tuesday and Today (Wednesday) I have had my hebrew midterm which I studies a little bit for and I it actually wasn't as hard as i though and I could do OK on it.
Ok, so more craziness in my life is that I am running for Hillel board from abroad, which I think is tough. I am running for Communications Coordinator because I am really good at sending emails and organizing calendars and I think that it will be really good for the board and for the community, I cannot wait to work hard to make the community an even greater place. So if you are a Brandeis student, and any Brandeis student can vote, please vote for me from 12pm Sunday April 13th to 12pm Monday April 14th.

I am leaving for my spring break vacation in Greece at 3 am tomorrow morning. So I won't have internet or my Israel cell phone, so don't try to contact me, I won't be there.
It's going to be so much fun!

Much love,
Adra