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)
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