Rayna, Rosh Hanikra, and Ulpan

Sorry for being bad about updating, living life has gotten in the way of my free time. So it's been a while, let's re-cap. I work weekdays, Sunday -Thursday, in the afternoons, and this isn't that exciting so this will just be an assumed section of my life unless otherwise told.

Tuesday June 24 - In a crazy turn of events, my best friend from high school, Rayna, was in Israel for a program and then had extended her stay. She happened to be staying only 10 minutes away from my apartment. So we got together and had dinner and chatted. We haven't really spent time together since last year so I was a great way to reconnect and become friends again.

Wednesday June 25 - Friday June 27 - Career Israel had a 3-day trip up north and I fortunately got to go along for FREE! the trip began by driving up to Haifa and meeting at a mosque of a very peaceful sect of Islam, it was very interesting to hear them speak about the entire situation from their point of view. Then we headed up to Acco and took a tour of Acco in the deathly heat, it was so hot. After that we headed up to our Hostel which was in a little town right near the Lebanese boarder. For dinner was traditional kibbutz style food, schnitzel and veggies. Then we watched a really good Israeli film, called Someone to Run With. The next morning, we headed even further north to the actually boarder crossing at Rosh Hanikra. We saw the beautiful grottos and then got to enter the army base there and go up on a huge tower where you could see into Lebanon and see where Hezbollah used to be. In the afternoon, we headed to Tzfat and took a short tour, where we ran into some crazy Na Nach Nachman's who were American and told us all about the happiness of na nach nachman-ish, it was hilarious. After Tzfat we shortly stopped over at Har Meron, which is where the grave of Shimion Bar Yochai is located and where people go on Lag B'Omer. Then it was back to the hostel to watch the big soccer game. The last day of the trip, we went back to Haifa and had a tour of the Bahai Gardens; it was beautiful but soooooo hot! Then we went to a local Druze village for Duze hospitality, which was so yummy and delicious. Lastly, we stopped at the shuk at Dalyet El Carmel, another Druze village. Then we headed home to J'lem.

Shabbat - Friday night Jason and I got invited to eat dinner the at PresenTense Institute (PTI) house, run by Jason's two business partners Aharon and Ariel, so we went. The house was huge but in the middle of nowhere in arnona, there were maybe 35 people for dinner, it was HUGE! I felt very overwhelmed, but things were fine. The food was great and afterwards Jason was part of a panel that spoke about their experience at PTI last summer. Then we went home. Saturday afternoon, we had Shabbat lunch at our place, Rachel and Rotem, and Rachel's boyfriend Yoni and his friends. Jason and I cooked spinach lasagna which was amazing. And the girls brought over a good salad and chocolate fondue as desert, there was so much chocolate that we still have half a container left. But before lunch was a balagaan, we woke up to find a bizillion ants had found on of our challahs and eaten it. Then in the process of cleaning the ants, Jason broke a glass mug on the floor. But in the end everything turned out just fine.

Sunday June 29 - normal day, in the evening we had coffee with Noam, a participant of career Israel who is going to Brandeis next year, because he and Jason are working together on finding housing.

Monday June 30 - In the AM, I woke up early to go to the temple Mount to see the mosques with Rachel and Rotem; we got there at 7:45 am. After spending a ton of time taking photos we went to breakfast at a cafe and then shopped at Mamilla mall for a little. Otherwise it was a normal day, Jason had a meeting in Tel Aviv in the evening so I got to stay home and have an evening alone, I watched the Tony's, they were pretty good, this year's crop of nominees for musicals wasn't the best but I love In the Heights and it won for best musical which made me happy.

Tuesday July 1 - no work today, it was my first day of Ulpan at Pardes so in the morning, I went downtown to go shopping and then in the afternoon Jason and I spent some time together over lunch and then I went to Ulpan. I ran into someone I knew from Brandeis and met some very nice people. My Hebrew class only has 4 people in it but it should be a good help for a month or so. That evening we baked cookies, we made chocolate chocolate chip, they are amazingly delicious!

Wednesday July 2 - normal day at work, then Jason and I went out on a date, which was really nice. His mom told him he had to take me out on a nice date and that he could pay for it with their credit card. So we went to this really good restaurant on Emek called Caffit, they have such good food! Then we went home and watched Sixteen Candles because Jason had never seen it.

Today I am at work right now and later we are leaving for Eilat/Petra and I will write more about that later.

XOXO
Adra