The Holidays

It’s been a while. Okay, I have been extremely lazy with maintaining this blog.
So there have been four national holidays that have happened since I last updated this blog.
The first holiday was Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. I can’t say that I am that involved in Jewish at home besides the major ones, so I don’t have much to compare the Kibbutz celebration to the my American Jewish experience celebration these holidays. To start off Yom Hashoah, they had a large ceremony led mainly by the 17 and 18 year olds of the Kibbutz. Between songs, they had filmed interviews with Holocaust survivors from the Kibbutz and they had a couple children who survived the Holocaust speak in person. Hannah, a 20 something year old who works in the chedar ochel with me and is going part time to music school, sung for everyone. I usually hear her sing in clean-up during work, but on stage, with no background noise to drown her out, her voice was amazing.
I think we had the next day off of work, but I honestly can’t remember. There was a big ceremony on the back lawn that everyone also went to the next night to end the holiday.

The next Holiday we had was Yom HaZichron, Memorial day in Israel. The day is meant to remember everyone who lost their lives in service of the Israel army and to remember all the people who were killed in the many terrorists attacks Israel has had. At first I was very confused about this holiday. I thought that it would be similar to America’s Memorial day, where there are parades, we get school and work off, nothing too emotional. I know there are some communities that take the US Memorial Day very seriously, but since I don’t know a single person who is even in the military, it is not that meaningful of a day to me and I think it is the same for many other Americans. Here in Israel, I experienced a completely different type of Memorial Day. We had a giant ceremony on the lawn again, in which everyone wore white. In addition to the super patriot themes, there were songs, and stories. There were many stories. The stories were about brothers, sons, and friends who had all fallen in combat. Since the stories were told with such emotion through pain and sometimes even tears, I didn’t understand that much, but luckily I had a friend from “Dalet” ( the highest Hebrew class) to translate for me.
After the ceremony, we went to the coffee shop. There they had pictures and little books filled with more pictures and short biographies written by parents and friends. Altogether, there were about 30 people in the Kibbutz that had died in the service of the military. While that is a lot of people, for a Kibbutz that has existed since 1949, and has a population now of about 1,500, that number doesn’t seem that bad. It is actually really low considering that the culture on the Kibbutz is to go to combat units and Special Forces units.

The day before Yom HaZicharon we had our own Ulpan ceremony organized by my teacher and the “Gimel” teacher. It was similar to the ceremony the Kibbutz had except there were parts of it that were in English. Carrie, a girl from South Africa, shared a horrendous story. About two years ago in 2011, her then longtime boyfriend of 3 years parents and aunt and uncle were driving down to Eilat, and were stop by a group of terrorists pretending to be a security checkpoint in the road. They were shot point blank in the head along with seven other people in the cars behind them. The story really hit me hard, especially because I could understand it in its entirety. I think that because Israel is so small, everyone in Israel has either lost someone to terrorism or war, or at least knows someone who has lost someone.

Immediately following Yom HaZicharon, we celebrated Yom HaAzmaoot, Israel Independence Day. As somber as Yom HaZicharon was, Yom HaAzmaoot was a complete 180 and turned into a giant party with one of the most energetic ambiances I have ever experienced. After a quick outdoor ceremony that included classic Israeli folk dances and Israeli break dancing, we all climbed on the roof of the chedar ochel to watch the fireworks that they set off down the hill over the fishponds. It was beautiful, especially with the backdrop of the Mediterranean Sea as a backdrop to the many colorful and loud fireworks. After the fireworks is when things got really crazy. The Kibbutz was handing out free beer and Caiperinha, a Brazilian drink with Cachaca, sugar, and lemon (according to Wikipedia it is supposed to be made with lime). The Kibbutznicks were out of control, I remember seeing this guy with a hook for a hand dancing around like crazy on the pub dance floor. It was quite ridiculous how drunk some of the Kibbuznicks, and some Ulpanists (not me), and some Bambachim got. The next day was filled with Barbeques on the beach.
The last most recent holiday that we had was “Workers Day” on May 1st. At first I had no clue what people were talking about when they said it was workers day, I thought it was like America’s labor day (without the sales of course) celebrated early. When I asked my Chilean friend Eytan what the holiday was he said it was celebrated all around the world. It was then that I realized it was May Day. Or I think it was, I still am not completely sure. The Kibbutz no longer celebrates the holiday because it feels it has lost its true meaning. Instead, all the money that Plasson made on that day went to charity. I knew that Israel was partly a socialist country, but I never really thought about it that much.

That is it for the holidays so far…


Oh I also, got a new roommate, Daniel Chippin from Canada. Alex switched rooms with Daniel because he is really good friends with Daniel's former roommates. the switch is going well especially since Daniel and I were already friends.

Hofesh Pesach

A lot of stuff happened over Choffesh Pesach (Passover Break)

On March 22nd I headed down to Tel-Aviv to meet the Hoffman clan. I got in from the train station around 12 PM and my plan was to walk around Tel-Aviv for 6 hours before meeting up with the Hoffman's at their hotel at the David Panorama. Unfortunately, there was a sandstorm that blew north from Egypt that captured almost all of Israel. It was hot and very dusty. I decided to rest at a place I knew very well. The bench outside the Chertock's apartment, which was conveniently in the direction I first walked. To my luck right as I passed by the apartment driveway, Mika, the Chertock's daughter was getting something from their car and invited me inside. I felt a little bad for dropping in so unexpectedly, but the Chertock's welcomed me with open arms.

After some rest at Chateau Chertock, I dropped my bag and walked around Tel-Aviv for a few hours and got some lunch. I met the Hoffman's at their hotel via Noam driving me, (eeek!!!!) (just kidding he was much better than the typical Israeli driver). It turned out that they had actually been in Tel-Aviv since 2PM. After I got my stuff situated in the nice rollaway bed the hotel gave me.


We had a lovely dinner at a restaurant in the nice part of Nevezedeck then walked around. Ellen showed us the center for dance in Israel which was right around the block from the restaurant. This area contained the top four dance companies in Israel.

The next morning we woke up at around 10 AM and went to the delicious hotel brunch. I swear there were 5 different kinds of cheese, all the types of fruits I could think of, 4 different types of fish, and a bunch of other delicious foods. This was the overarching theme of our brunches: delectable and all you can eat.

From there we headed up north, but we had a pit stop at a place right near the kibbutz: Cesaria, a community about 10 kilometers south of Ma'agan Michael. The cool thing about Cesaria, was that it used to be giant Roman port, palace city built by King Herrod 2000 years ago. We saw the ruins/ relics of the ancient city including its amazing amphitheater, horse racing stadium, and the foundation of Herrod's palace.`

We ended our night at Kfar Blum, a kibbutz hotel up north near Kyriat Shmoneh. We had dinner at this Italian place called Ciabatta, a good lead up to Pesach.

The next day we went on a big Ti-ul all around the north and the Golan. First, we went to a former 1967 Syrian bunker. It was amazing hearing the story from the Hoffman's tour guide, Uriel, about how the Israeli army captured the base in the 6 day war. After that, we went to the Banians springs, supposedly the play ground of the Greek god Pan.

From there we drove up to Nimrod's Castle. It was an ancient crusader castle built in the 12th century by the Templer Knights. It was a crucial point to controlling the entrance to the holy land and to the Mediterranean Sea.

We went to have lunch in a Druze Village. It had AMAZING labana. At lunch we heard some rockets fired. At the time we thought it was just a Israeli military test, but the following day we found out that the Syrian opposition had fired into Israel, so to counter the attack, Israel destroyed one of their bases.

The next day we drove back to Tel-Aviv.

From there I returned to the Chertock's Apartment for Pesach Sedar. The sedar was a bit smaller than normal. It consisted of the Chertock's, Hanush's brother, nephew, and sister-in-law. It was very fun and intimate. We read through the whole Haggadah in Hebrew, then did a dance we found online to Echad-mi-yodeah. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHw8lZvH4Es . We had rice with , beef bergonion gulash, and lamb chops. After dinner, Noam showed me the bar scene at Allenby street. It was really cool, too bad every bar was either empty or closed so we didn't stay that long.

Tiyul to the Negev

Hi everyone that is still following me on this blog. Sorry for my sparse (lack of) postings these last two weeks. In truth, nothing super interesting happened. I have been surfing almost every day possible excluding the two days a week I have been doing army training. When there are no waves, which happened about half the times I have gone to the surf shack, they always have something else to do. This past week I learned how to paddle surf. It is sort of like canoeing on a surf board while standing up with small waves throwing you to and fro. It was challenging, but once I got the hang of the balance the only reason I fell was due to waves that I wasn’t sufficiently prepared for.

I also got my second test back in my Ulpan class; 95% wasn’t too bad, but I feel like the test was so easy that I could have probably done better had I studied more. I really have been trying to study more. Some nights I am more successful than others. But I have been doing other things to help my Hebrew: talking to my bosses in Hebrew, watching Israeli television, and flirting with Israeli girls in the pub ;-) . I am starting to pick up on the most of the words when people talk. Now I just need to learn the meaning to the 95% of words I don’t know.

I am also in the process of switching rooms in an amicable way. I am switching with this kid Gideon, who is going to CWRU next year, except the switch is currently postponed, due to Gideon’s second thoughts. If the switch does happen I will be rooming with Pavel, the Russian, who lived in Germany most of his life and speaks English. The other guy I would be rooming with is Daniel, another guy from Russia, I don’t know that much about him because he doesn’t speak English and is a little quiet, but I think it will be a nice change.
Last night we got back from our two day trip to the Negev. It was Amazing. I will try my best to give a detailed outline of the trip.

The night before the trip some friends and I stayed up really late and watched “Horrible Bosses” in the “moadon” our ulpan’s community space. The movie was really funny, but by the time it was over we had all passed out on the couch. Luckily, someone set an alarm on their phone and we were all able to get up with sufficient time to pack and shower before our bus left at 5:30 AM. Or it was supposed to leave then except being part of the Middle East, where time means nothing, the bus didn’t arrive until 6 AM.
My lack of sleep the night before contributed the ease I had in falling asleep on the bus as we made our way to the Negev. The first stop on the trip was the “machktesh gadol” a giant crater like geological formation in the middle of Negev near Ber Sheva.

Our guide Felix gave us a great “eggsplanation” of how the machktesh was formed. I am not sure if he confused his thousands and millions, so either 80 thousand or 80 million years ago, the Arabian tectonic plate collided with the African plate, created enormous earthquakes which resulted in 3 giant egg shaped sandstone mountains. Here is where our guide pulled out a hard-boiled egg. He started cracking the egg shell with his finger and said that was how years of rain began to crack the hard outer soil later. Then eventually it washed this outer layer away, with that he wiped the shell away. Then the rain and erosion quickly (geologically wise) broke down the inner layers of the earth and washed it through the one flash flood stream that runs through the machktesh, then he took a bite of out of the egg. That left a crater like shape.
After the machktesh we went to an ancient camel water hole on a spice trade route to the port in gaza.
Then we were off to the Dead Sea (yom hamelech) the Salt Sea. Almost everyone went into the Dead Sea. Someone bought a jar of mud and was nice enough to share the extra mud with everyone. My skin felt super soft afterwards.
Then we headed to the Bedouin camp. It was really fun. They welcomed us with the traditional Bedouin three cups of coffee. After that we had a beduin dinner where we sat four to a ground table and consumed tons upon tons of rice, lamb, and chicken. It was delicious. After dinner we had a bonfire, where we revealed our secret Midgets to each other. It was a game we played modeled off of Secret Santa except we would leave anonymous presents at people’s rooms or in their boxes. The person who gave me my gifts which included two very good chocolate bars was my friend Daniel Chippin from Canada. I never would have guessed him though, he was uber anonymous. After that we all went to sleep in a giant Bedouin tent. It was really dusty, but sort of fun being in a giant tent with 90 good friends.

In the morning we went to hike Masada. It was really pretty. I relearned the history of it as the last zealot stronghold during the Roman destruction of second temple in 70A.D. and the resulting war.

After Masada, we went to the Eyn Ghedi nature reserve. In the parking lot I saw a flash of red hair go by and decided to follow it. It turns out that it was the younger sister of Micah’s best friend Isaac Hoffman. I knew their family was in Israel because I was planning on meeting up with them this coming weekend, but it was really cool that we were in the same place at the same time. The nature reserve was a beautiful green spot in the barren Judean desert right next to the northern side of the Dead Sea. There were many spectacular waterfalls that came from nahal (stream) David.
It took about four hours to get back to the Kibbutz after Eyn Ghedi due to some bad Jerusalem traffic. About 7 of us ended up taking a nap on the floor of the bus because everywhere else was super cramped. I arrived back to the Kibbutz exhausted at 6 P.M. yesterday

(pictures to come soon)

Late Nights in Kibbutzland

The past week on kibbutz Ma'agan Michael has been pretty fun. I guess I will relive the past 5 or 6 days in chronological order, just the highlights though.

For some reason last Tuesday night I had a horrible time sleeping, so I woke up at about 5am and went out to the beach: it was beautiful. Even though the sun rises over the mountains to the east of the kibbutz, the moon was on a certain cycle where it sets in the west over the sea. It was beautiful. The funny thing was that as I was taking these pictures I tripped over a giant rock hidden by the darkness and fell flat on my face.

This picture was worth the pain and self humiliation.

I spent the next hour and a half laying on top of some huts on the beach and watched as the sun illuminated the kibbutz and the moon disappeared over the horizon in the sunlight. It was inspiring.



Nothing particularly interesting happened the rest of the week at the kibbutz until Friday night-- the night of the Kibbutz adult Purim Party. It was crazy, and held at a redecorated hedar ochel dining hall. While the consensus among most of the ulpanists was that the party was in likeness to a high school dance. The thing is that I guess it was sort of like a high school dance, if your high school served super cheep alcohol drinks, great food, and didn't lock you inside the pool lobby for the duration of the dance. OK maybe the last statement was just a Hawken thing. I do have to say I had a blast. For the party I went as a French painter. My costume was equipped with a pallet, paintbrush, frenh baret, and a button down painting shirt with paint of a assortment of colors covering it.


After the party ended at about 3:30 AM! I wondered over to the pub right outside my room. They had an alternative party going on equipped with trance music instead of regular pop party music. The party was pretty dead, but luckily I spotted my new friend Pavel, the Russian who lived in Germany for 10 years and speaks perfect English. He introduced me to his new friend Sonia, a neo-conservative Russian American olah hadesha. After about an hour of speaking about politics, we decided to go to the roof of the then abandoned, the chedar ochel. We stayed there until about 5 AM. Then I went to bed.

Saturday was filled with some catching up on sleep and lounging on the beach.

The last thing the I want to tell you, my readers, is about my evening tonight. Every Wednesday and Sunday evening at 4:30PM the kibbutz has a pre-army training workout program. It's meant for the kibbutznics and olim hadashim planning on entering the army, but they don't actually check and my faked interest in joining the army (not in a million years)was enough to get an invite to the training. I didn't finish class until about 5 PM so me and the rest of my classmates got to the training about 45 minutes late. Nonetheless, the training was fun and hard. It included running down the beach from circuit to circuit. In between circuits of crawling, sprinting, running up a sand dune, and just plain running we had to jump into the salty Mediterranean. The first time I made the mistake of opening my mouth a little, and I felt the salt in my mouth all the way until the first, and only water break. We also had to wade in a fishpond empty of fish for about 10 minutes, its a test in the army tryouts. While it made most people cramp and freezing. I enjoyed it thoroughly. It reminded me a bit of cold rink before, during, and after run through. It was a bit easier just because the air was relatively warm compared to the ice cold, dry or super damp, lung puncturing air inside the ice rink. Overall, I finished tied for 3rd among the 25 or so ulpanist that did the training. Not too bad for my first time doing the training. When I finished the training I was soaked, covered in sand, and smelled like sweat and fish poop; I felt amazing.

Before I go, I forgot to mention that Katie Scott, my history teach in 10 and 12 grade asked me to skype her Middle Eastern Studies class and talk about the kibbutz and current politics in Israel. While I know a lot about the the history of the kibbutz, I know close to nothing about Israeli politics, it seems so much more complicated than American politics, or at least to an outsider. I better go and educate myself about this stuff. Until next time.

It’s A Small World After All

Last Wednesday we had a tiul, or field trip to Rahovot and Jaffa. Rahovot, now somewhat of a southern suburb of Jaffa contained three highly interesting places: The Weismann Institute, which has it’s very own particle accelerator; the site of one of the largest British military outpost in the middle east; and Ayolan Institute, the place that we came to see. Before its conversion into the ghost of its former self, the Ayolan Institute was an active functioning kibbutz, with an underground bullet making operation. From the late 1930s-through the 1940’s there was an illegal arms race between Arabs and Jews. The British who had control over Palestine at the time forbid both groups from gathering arms. It was a capital punishment under the British Mandate to produce weapons. All around Palestine at the time there were secret operations producing the guns for the coming war between Jews and Arabs, but the secret factory at the Ayolan Institute was the only place producing bullets for these guns. The factory itself was located underground between the laundry room and the bakery. I still can’t believe that they did the whole operation within a mile of the largest British base in Palestine.

After the Ayolan Institute, we took a quick tour of Jaffa. In Jaffa we went shopping in the shuk and flee market, but since cleaning out Mary’s house, I can’t look at so much junk and have any intention of buying it. The bus ride back took 2.5 hours (a trip that should take about 40 minutes). We basically took every side street from Tel-Aviv to Natanya.

Nothing particularly interesting happened the rest of the week until the Friday night of Purim. A newly arrived Ulpanist from Zurich, Liat, invited us to her cousin’s party in Tel-Aviv. None of the people who went to the party wanted to stay the night in Tel-Aviv, so we rented a sherut for the night. There were 9 of us who split the sherut. Before the party started we went to this bar where the bartenders were dressed as bees. It was pretty funny, seeing a fully grown man in a bee costume meant for a petite girl. At the bar I ordered my first beer ever from a restaurant. It was so exciting!

After the bar we headed to the party. It was located about a mile north of the Florentin neighborhood of Tel-Aviv. We got to the building and the door was locked. Luckily, a friendly face from a nearby balcony shouted the code: 1357. After walking up 4 long flights of stairs, we ended up on the roof, for a misebah al roof. I felt a little awkward at first because it was a costume party and I didn’t have a costume. Once the party got underway though, I felt much more comfortable. It was so much fun. Unbeknownst to everyone from the kibbutz that came to the party, except for Liat, Liat’s cousin did the Ulpan at Ma’agan Michael a year and a half ago (ulpan 107, we are 110) , and a lot of the people she invited to the party had done the ulpan with her and lived nearby in Tel-Aviv. I also met a couple other Americans my age who are also taking a gap year and going to college next year. Altogether, it was a very exciting and fun night. The sherut picked us up at 2:45 and we were back at the kibbutz by 3:20; much faster than the bus on Wednesday.

Here is my friend's beard costume I tried on for a picture, I sort of had the right them with cowboys and cacti on my shirt.


We got class off on Sunday because of Purim, but I still had to work in the afternoon.
Today in class we had a giant misebah (party) to celebrate Purim. Luckily, our teacher brought some play costumes for us to use for the party, and I actually found a great costume; a French painter, barrette, palate, and everything. I am planning on wearing it to the kibbutz’s Purim party this weekend.

Tel-Aviv: Early Nights?

Last weekend was the first time since I arrived that I left the kibbutz. After an eventful Valentine's night, where I captured my first valentine, I ditched the Kibbutz early Friday morning at about 7 because I didn't have any work. Since the shuttle to Binyamina (a town about 5 miles away with the closest train station)didn't operate until 12 PM, my plan was to walk to the nearest bus station about a kilometer from Ma'agan Michael. While walking, I was going to hold out a thumb hoping for a car leaving the kibbutz (specially marked of course, so it is safe) to either give me a ride to Tel- Aviv, the train state, or the bus station. Luckily, I didn't even have to walk out of the entrance before someone offered me a ride. The friendly driver who so nicely offered to take me to the train station, was a girl who works at the school on Ma'agan Michael who was going to Jerusalem to visit her family. Once I got to the train station, it was smooth sailing (besides the train station's inability to take an American credit or debit card) to Hashalom station. Although, David Chertock recommended taking a bus to Dizengoff square, I was feeling a little antsy after the car and train ride, so the twenty minute walk to chateu Chertock seemed like a nice change of pace.

When I arrived at the 14 Zamenhoff, Tel-Aviv, I was greeted with a smile and a warm welcome from David Chertock, my dad's good friend from Columbia University. After I settled my stuff in to the apartment, we went to do double errand: get me breakfast, and pick up hallah and food for the weekend. It so happened that we were able to accomplish this at the same place. Yachanan!, a little restaurant about a kilometer or two south of the Chertock's apartment. The best way to describe it would be a mix between a waitressed Stone Oven and the ready made food section at Whole Foods. David's mission for the weekend was to keep me better fed than a Jewish Bubbi. At Yochanan's, I ordered french toast and a cappuccino. I was ecstatic when the dish came with real maple syrup, not kibbutz corn syrup syrup, or Omaha's hot syrup, REAL MAPLE SYRUP! I also tried some of David's herring. Delicious. We also got an assortment of salads, meats, and some vanilla toot jam.


We returned to the apartment, and shortly after Hanush, David's wife, arrived. Then about half an hour later, David and Hanush's son Noam arrived. He was in a hurry because he had a pre-army thing, for the community based army service he is going to enter next year. After Noam left I decided to go to the mall and get a few essential items that I had been lacking the past few weeks, which included: extra socks and undies, a power-cord with 4 outlets (we only have two working outlets in our room of three people), and an extra towel. The Dizengoff mall, though not humongous, was utterly confusing. It consisted of uneven ramps that went up about 3 levels or 4 levels depending how you counted that spanned two small blocks. The narrow hallways would not have been a problem if by 2PM everyone had not stormed the mall, and there were no street vendors making food inside the hallways, thus creating narrow gaps for people to pass through. All in all the shopping trip was successful. After shopping, I took a walk by myself to the Tel-Aviv port, about two miles away. The farmer's market was just closing, but I did manage to get some fresh squeezed carrot juice and cooked sugar coated pecans and cashews.

Here is a pic of the port, now a shopping area.


When I got back to the apartment, Mika Chertock, their 16 year old daughter, was back, but soon left for her friend's house concert. This left me with no kid plans. Since in Israel I am a full adult, I decided to embrace it, so I ended up going to Django Unchained with David and Hanush. While the movie was enthralling, it was violent enough to even give Hanush, an Israeli worn by many years of Israel's conflict, nightmares. So much blood! The movie ended at 2, and I was to bed by 2:30AM. Although this sounds late, in Israel, especially Tel-Aviv, the night is young until about 4:30AM. When we got back we found Mika, in her pj's. Apparently, the concert had been broken up by the police due to sound complaints.

Since Noam was gone, I got his room for the weekend. I got sooooo much sleep. I slept until 11AM. To put this in perspective, usually, after a 4:30 AM Friday night, I wake up at 8:30 or 9. The bed was so comfortable. At about 1PM I went to get coffee at a cafe a few blocks over per David's recommendation. One by one, the three Tel-Aviv present members of the Chertock clan joined me. I had another delicious cappuccino, and a frittata with potato and Gouda cheese on top. It also came with bread, jam, and a delicious 3% spread.


For the afternoon David took me to the Tel-Aviv Museum of Art. According to Hanush, our resident art expert, the museum recently experienced a change in leadership, so the main exhibits encompassed many more modern and contemporary pieces. The most interesting exhibits in the museum were the photographs by Pinchas Cohen Gan, and the artistic movies by Douglas Gordan. My favorite part of Gorden's large exhibit entitled, I Am Douglas Gordan was his 90 minute film of Zidane, the French soccer player. It plays on two wide screens next to each other and was of one of Zidane's game shot at 12 different camera angles, which alternate and fade in and out at different times.

After the museum I took a long nap, then went out to yet another amazing local restaurant with a Greek Mediterranean theme. David and I split some fish, a burekka with an egg inside, and ... sweat breads, which weren't that bad. After dinner, Hanush dropped me off at the markaz train station and I returned to the kibbutz.

Lets go to the beach

Its been a couple of days since my last post and a lot has happened. Unfortunately, it's way to much to put into this small blog experiment so I will try to go over the highlights in chronological order.

Friday after work, which ended at 11AM, everyone went to the beach for an afternoon filled with sun. After relaxing for an hour or so on the sand, I decided to go for my long run of the week-- a 10k on the beach. While it was a hard run, I think I did it pretty fast for my first 10k especially in sand. When I returned back to where everyone was hanging out, two Aussies, my roommate Alex and I decided to swim out to the small rocky island about 300 meters into the sea. The water was freezing! When I stepped onto the rock, to my surprise, pain went shooting up my foot. Luckily, I didn't cut anything, but the island turned out to be a dead coral reef that had been pushed up above water. We managed to find a smoothed out part of the coral and rested there for about 15 minutes, before swimming back. Later, we found out that to kibbutznicks , the coral was basically nothing because they are used to rough surfaces from running around the kibbutz barefoot at such a young age. I guess Friday was my partial triathlon day, I just forgot about the bike part of it.

Saturday, while most people slept in until 11 or 12, i made sure to wake myself and my roommates up early enough to catch an 9:30 breakfast. After breakfast we went to the beach until 12. Then we went to lunch. I made sure to save some of the salad being served at lunch for dinner, because the Kibbutz does't provide any food for Saturday night. After lunch, we went back to the beach for 4 more hours. I got in on a game of soccer (football), and learn how to play the Israeli beach game with the wooden paddles (I still don't know it's name).

FYI, for all those concerned I wore lots of sun screen and remembered to reapply.

Around 7PM I returned to the beach with some of my friends and we had a great barbecue cookout on the beach. Because no one had an actual grill, we dug a hole in the sand, put wood in it, and had a small metal frame over it. We also made a second larger fire for light and heat. In addition to the salad I nabbed from lunch, I had mini veal burgers I bought from the merkolit . The burgers were delicious and everyone else agreed. There was a lot of other food too: hot dogs, salchichas, bruchetta, kebabs, and marshmallow. We sung a lot of songs by the fire too, but none of them were in English so I just clapped to the beat.

Sunday, was sort of sucky going back to work and classes, I really wish we had two day weekends here instead of one day weekends. My class and work schedule changed. This week I have class in the morning, and work in the afternoon. Even though class starts at 715, it is so close to my room I don't have to wake up until 7 AM. Although I am tired in the morning, I find that from years of early school days, I learn better in the morning. Habit I guess. In the afternoon my work partner Ofir came down with something, so I was by myself with Yizack (Isaac) and Nomi (the woman who had her birthday last Thursday who's name I forgot). I actually had a really nice conversation with Yizack while pealing and shredding (through a machine) 4 full 15 kilo bags of onions. As a side note, normally the kitchen uses 7 of these bags a day, yet there is rarely any dish where you actually see onions, it is a mystery to Ofir, Nomi, Yisack, and me to where Shlomo, the chef, hides all of these onions. Anyways, Yisack has 3 children. A daughter in her 20's just finishing the army. He has an 18 year old son, who is a dancer. And he has a 14 year old son who came into the kitchen today (Monday), to make cookies with his friends.

Speaking of today. Today I while cutting 3 boxes of eggplant, I found an especially Jewish eggplant with a great sense of smell :)