Sand through an hour glass and other over-used metaphors

With only seven-and-a-half days left in this country things are rapidly winding down and all the Last Moments are waiting there turn to be noticed and commemorated.  Last Saturday marked my Last Shabbat on the Kibbutz and my Last Opportunity to Go to the Club (which I had every intention of doing but ended up missing completely), last night was [probably] my Last Time Shopping in Rehovot, today marked the important and emotional Last Class with Our Teacher, and there are many more Last Moments ahead of me.  Each one will get their moment in the spotlight where it is potentially overly-cherished, celebrated, and wished farewell.

Saying goodbye to our teacher today was a fairly significant one of the Lasts.  Though we have a few more hours of class before our exam on Thursday our teacher will not be with us for them as she is flying to the U.S. with her son for a couple months of site-seeing and frivolity, so today we celebrated.  We bought her a hilarious thank you/parting gift, I wrote her a special card of my own, and she baked us a cake.  We took pictures, some girls shed a few tears, and we said our goodbyes.  It truly was one of those moments that renewed my faith and desire to be a teacher.

Thursday will be my last full day on the kibbutz and Friday I plan on leaving to travel a bit more before I leave.  Yet despite the fact that the next few days will be filled with packing, organizing, arranging, then traveling, hiking, hanging out, and more traveling, I have surprisingly few things on my mental list of Things I Want to Do Before I Leave Israel.  I suppose that's a good sign indicating that I have, in fact, experienced a lot while here and I'll be ready to go home without feeling as if I missed out on too much.  With the exception of eating at another hummussia and visiting the Banias before I leave, I don't feel there's a lot I absolutely have to do before I leave.  All in all, I'm feeling very fulfilled.

Additionally, one reason I don't feel the urge to do more here may have to do with the incredibly strong force that is homesickness.  Even now it's hard for me to believe that I picked up and flew away from my family and friends for so long, and the allure of seeing them again so soon is almost too much to bear.  Generally speaking I didn't suffer from great bouts of homesickness.  With the exception of the holidays and my birthday I usually kept busy and enjoyed myself enough to justify being so removed from normal life, but when I allow myself to stop and think about it the distance is almost too much to bear, especially when it comes to my friends.  Sure, I've made friends here, but nobody compares to my amazing group at home.  Ya hear that, girls and guy (you know who you are)?  We're only a week away from the most epic reunion we've had yet!

I know this is a short post (Who just exasperatedly said "finally"?), but rest assured there will be more posts coming in the following days.  After all, I have to give each of those Last Moments their well-earned minutes of fame, right?

I'm not alone

I recently discovered a blog written by a women named Maya who made aliyah (moved to Israel) and writes about "How to be Israeli," giving tips and stories and fascinating insights into life in Israel and all its quirks.  (This is the blog that had a post about Israeli pickles which I referenced in my last post.)  She started the blog in 2009 and unfortunately hasn't written since last December, perhaps because she finally feels completely Israeli.  Congratulations to her!

I find her blog hilarious and intriguing because she writes about many of the same things I've either written about or thought.  When I read a post about how to drive like an Israeli entitled "Everyone ELSE on the road is an idiot," I kept mentally pointing at the computer screen while my inner dialogue shouted "That's so true!  That's exactly what they do!"  I may have even legitimately laughed out loud.  Her list of Things *NOT* to do if you want to seem Israeli made me chuckle and then feel a little sheepish as I realized I've actually done some of those things (ignorant American tourist that I am), and her post entitled "How do you pronounce שופרסל?" seemed to read my mind as I, too, have been wondering how to pronounce the name of the giant grocery store chain for five months.

In addition to her sense of humor and fluid, conversational writing style, I love her blog because when I read it I feel like I'm sharing an inside joke, laughing and wondering about all the curiosities of Israeli life from that unique perspective of an outsider spending some time as an insider.  It also gives credence to the things I've been noticing and questioning as if to say "Yeah, I saw that, too.  And I totally know what you're talking about!"

Hers is not the only blog of this sort.  A number of months ago I came across comedian Benji Lovitt's blog that makes a very similar commentary on Israeli life minus the "How to."  His yearly list of things he loves about Israel is especially hilarious to me.

Unfortunately, I realize that many of these things I'm finding hysterical and spot-on are things I may not be able to share with my family and friends who haven't been in Israel, much like how people outside Wisconsin simply don't get what's so important about cheese curds and bubblers (talk about a couple things I definitely can't get in Israel).  In coming here, temporarily living here, and finding my way around this vibrant, hilarious, and confounding culture, I feel as if I have been initiated into a not-so-secret society.  And with that membership comes access to all its inside jokes.

The thing I wonder, though, is if Israelis recognize this or if this is one of those things that only visitors and olim chadashim (new immigrants) talk about.  Do Israelis joke about their own tempers and lack of customer service?  Do they laugh about things that seem inherently funny to me, like English words and names adopted by Hebrew and used in their signs, like the Israeli fast-food chain Burgeranch?  (Never mind the fact that Israelis probably don't know what a "ranch" actually is, and they certainly don't have them here.)  There is no doubt that Israelis have a sense of humor and are constantly making fun of themselves and their lives, but I wonder if, for instance, a native Israeli would read blogs like Maya's and Benji's and find the same humor that I do.

If the blogosphere is any indication then there is a fairly significant community of non-native Israelis who like to comment on Israeli culture.  Apparently I'm not the only one who finds this country fascinating and worth writing about.  Little did I know that when I came here I would not just be joining the community that is Israel, but also the community of non-native Israelis and foreigners who love this country and notice all its faults, foibles, and feats with a loving and accepting eye.

I also wonder if this kind of community exists for new immigrants to other countries.  Are Hispanic immigrants to the U.S. laughing in Spanish about all the funny things in American culture?  Have Americans living in Europe created online communities to discuss and commiserate over those things that are shocking to the American system and psyche?

Or is Israel just that awesome?

Newsflash: Israel isn't paradise

For nearly five months I have regaled you all with stories of glorious experiences in this country, opportunities that I have sought or have seemingly been handed to me on a proverbial silver platter.  Between great food and kind strangers, breathtaking nature and a language that never ceases to amaze me, this experience has been better than I ever could have imagined.  But I don't want anyone to get the mistaken idea that Israel is a Gan Eden-esque paradise with people breaking into song on the streets (they're more likely to break out into arguments), so I present to you yet another list: Things I won't miss when I leave Israel (listed in no particular order).

Things I Won't Miss When I Leave Israel*

1. Bathrooms - I firmly believe Israelis have a lot of their priorities in order - artificial pleasantries low on the list while helping out a stranger is toward the top - but apparently bathrooms haven't even made it on the list.  Maybe I'm just a bathroom snob, but clean bathrooms are one of those little things in life I've learned to count on.  But with the exception of a few over-priced hostels, fancy restaurants, and private homes, good bathrooms in Israel are a rarity.   Especially in public transportation centers, usually they're small with disgusting floors, toilet seats that can give you hepatitis just by looking at them, and no hot water or soap in the sinks.  Toilet paper is a godsend, and believe it or not, sometimes you have to pay for these conditions!  Forget the shekel, where's the nearest bush?
2. Pickles - That's right, I will not miss the pickles.  More importantly, I am really looking forward to some good ol' Milwaukee's Baby Kosher Dill Pickles.  Apparently pickles here are traditionally made from small gherkins and pickled only in saltwater, and I just plum don't like them.  I must admit, I never thought I would actually miss pickles.
3. Intersections - I have yet to figure out exactly how intersections in Israel are engineered, but it makes getting to an opposite corner of a large intersection a time-consuming endeavor.  You see, in the middle of each major street there is a median, and on that median is a walk signal which means that on a single road you have to wait for two walk signals (and yes, you'd better wait for them if you're at all interested in making it to the other side).  If luck is with you both signals will be green at the same time, but otherwise, well, have fun waiting.
4. The Israeli concept of "waiting in line" - Rather, the nonexistent concept of "waiting in line."  You've heard me say that Israelis are impatient and nowhere is that demonstrated better than in any situation where you might expect people to wait in a line - ticket counters, getting onto a bus or train, getting food in the chadar ochel.  Once I had to buy a train ticket at the train station and there was one person in front of me and an old lady behind me.  The moment the person in front left, the 80-some-year-old lady cut in front of me then, mid-transaction, turned around and muttered an unapologetic "Slichah" (Forgive me).  I know that America may be full of false sincerity and superficial manners, but I kind of prefer that when it comes to queues.
5. Customer service - Again, this doesn't seem to rank high on Israeli's priority lists.  Besides, Israelis tend to show you exactly how they feel and if the girl behind the counter at the convenience store making minimum wage isn't interested in her job or her customers, she's not going to put on a smile just to make your Bisli-shopping experience a little more comfortable.  Unfortunately this mindset also extends to restaurants, shops, banks, phone companies, etc.  Oh gosh, could you even imagine the DMV?  The horror!
6. Tile floors - Whether it's because of the heat, the sand, or both, Israeli homes are devoid of carpeting.  Many people have area rugs, but the floors themselves are always tiled or made of some other cold, hard material.  Sure, it's reasonable, but I miss carpeting!  I miss walking around barefoot on fuzzy textures, and I miss not feeling sand under bare feet.  Israel, thumbs up for pragmatism, thumbs down for comfort.
7. Israeli bachurim - That is, guys about my age.  Cocky, over-confident, and ready and willing to hit on anything with a pulse.  I'll admit, the first couple times guys hit on me here I thought I was hot stuff, thinking "Wow!  He's interested in me? Well then, I'd better not turn this opportunity down!  Who knows when this will happen again?"  Turns out that if you're a girl under the age of 30, that opportunity can happen any time you're in public.  Case in point, a guy tried to get my number as I was getting into a taxi.  And it wasn't the taxi driver.  Furthermore, chivalry is utterly ignored here (probably because it doesn't get a guy very far with bullshit-intolerant Israeli women).
8. Ugly cities - Sure I enjoy the amenities of cities like Jerusalem, Haifa, and Tel Aviv, but to be quite honest, there are large portions of every major city that are just plain ugly.  Even the nice areas are replete with abandoned, crumbling buildings covered in graffiti.  It's one of the reasons I don't like spending time in the cities, though admittedly I've never been much of a city girl to begin with.  I've heard, though, that it's not entirely because of laziness to tear them down; apparently any time anyone does a construction project in Israel that would entail digging, there's a significant possibility they'll dig up something of historical or anthropological significance and when they do they have to stop construction, wait for someone to do an archaeological dig, then continue.  Like earlier this year when they were digging up a road in Jaffa and they found remnants of an ancient cistern or aqueduct.  It can end up being a waste of time and money, but that's the price you pay for living on ancient land.
9. Heat - Bet you didn't expect that one, eh?  I come from a cold state that celebrates sunny days and spends most of its year under cloud cover receiving some form of precipitation or another, so imagine my discomfort when in May all precipitation stopped and we were left with humid, boiling temperatures that will only get hotter as the summer rolls along.  Additionally the recommended amount of water per day is 3 liters at minimum, which if I were to even attempt would have me going to the bathroom a few times every hour.  Thank goodness for the lovely mazgan (air conditioner) found in most rooms.  But not all.
10. The incredible sadness that is missing my friends and family - Yeah, yeah, I'm getting sappy.  For as much as I love Israel and my time here, an 8-hour time difference and over 6,000 miles of distance makes for one very homesick traveler.  I have some friends I haven't had more than two conversations with since I've been here and some I haven't talked with at all.  And holidays are the worst because, as I've discovered, it's not where you celebrate, it's who you're with that makes it all worthwhile.  This is, and always will be, my greatest pull away from Israel.

So there we have it.  And y'know what?  This was a really challenging list to make and even required help from my roommate to come up with an even ten.  I can assure you, my list of things I will miss is significantly longer, but I'll save [some of] that for another time.  At least now you know Israel isn't entirely perfect.

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*I have deliberately ignored that whole "Our neighbors want to destroy us" issue.  It's not that I'm ignoring the elephant in the room, but that really it hasn't dampened my spirits while here.  Score one for carpe diem philosophy!

The Many Faces of Israel

Just when I think I know what Israel looks like, I travel to some new corner of this unbelievably tiny country and discover some new facet of its incredibly varied landscape.  I love those moments!

Today the Ulpan had its last day trip, this time to the furthest reaches of the country.  We left the kibbutz shortly after 6:00 AM and drove north, stopping once for a picnic breakfast before arriving in Metula, the northernmost moshavah (like a moshav but even more closely resembling a small town).  In Metula, which is essentially nestled in the borders of Lebanon.  Not necessarily the most comfortable situation, but at least they've got border patrol to help make sure no unsavory people wander into their pretty moshav (and I'm not talking about the Lebanese - there are unsavory Israelis, too).

Nahal Hatzbani

We spent very little time there before heading to Nahal Snir, also called Nahal Hatzbani (the latter is the Arabic name) where we hiked along and through the river on a short path.  I think it took us less than a couple hours but it was fun and absolutely beautiful, yet again.  This time the river was much larger and stronger than the ones I've been on previously, and had a number of small waterfalls feeding it from the sides. This was the kind of place I would love to see with a little more solitude.  Maybe someday...

Jordan River

After taking a dip in the river at the end of the trail, we went back to the bus, changed quickly so as not to drench the seats, then made the short drive to the Jordan River for kayaking.  With the exception of one itty-bitty little fall of about a meter, the river was wide and calm and rather forgiving when most of us had no idea how to paddle the large rafts.  I'll admit, I thought my paddling skills were pretty decent considering my experience paddling canoes from my camp days, but a raft is not a canoe and four people in a boat is different than two.  Alas, we did get turned around a couple times.

Upon reaching the finish line we piled out of our rafts and kayaks and enjoyed a lunch buffet of salads and fresh pizza cooked on-site.  Our Ulpan director is all about surprises and we were all content with this day's tasty surprise.  So we sufficiently stuffed our faces, changed into dryer clothes, then got on the bus and fell asleep for the three-hour ride back home.