"I Would Date a Loadmaster"

Boy, do I have a blog for all y'all! I was in Jerusalem for three nights and two days (the third I left pretty early in the morning) and in that time had several amazing adventures! Honestly, this will probably be the most exciting blog to date, so I am very anxious to get these stories out to you!

You all remember the blog I posted on Thursday (most of you didn't see it until today, which is fine), but after I arrived at Beit Nativ (also known as the Center for Conservative Judaism (hostel and synagogue), where Nativers live during their time in Jerusalem) I hit the ground running. I wound up getting off the bus a stop early so I walked for several blocks down King George Street.

No big deal, just Jerusalem's Great Synagogue itself

When I arrived at Beit Nativ, it was time for Ma'ariv. Honestly, I had forgotten that this is a USY program so obviously they are going to be praying for the third time that day. But I went in, sat in the back with my weekend backpack, took a Ma'ariv card and went along with it. Then, Jules Gutin (former director of USY, he was the big cheese in my USY days, famous for always rocking the sweater vest) began his lecture on Conservative Judaism. I didn't realize I had stepped into the first part of the weekend lecture series commemorating some number of years of the Conservative movement. So I moved down, sat with my friends, and listened to the lecture. Mostly it had to do with a survey the Nativers had filled out a number of days prior but it was still very interesting to see how the group relates to the Conservative movement. After the lecture was over, I put my things up (this is a youth hostel after all) and we went out to enjoy a Thursday night (no classes at Hebrew U on Fridays) and my being in Jerusalem! I got to see people I haven't seen in years and met a lot of their friends. We got back late but in the morning some of them had another lecture early on Friday, so I packed up my things and headed out.

Sipping coffee and enjoying the view before leaving Beit Nativ

Friday morning I decided to go to the Old City. See the Wall, get a couple things from a kiosk, eat some felafel, the usual. I was the only person on the bus when we got to my stop, but I didn't stand up soon enough for him to know I needed to get off (yeah, I know, the buttons...who uses those??). I figured I had all day so I got off at the next stop and started to walk back. As I was crossing the light rail, a guy came up to me and asked if I had a couple minutes. Now, this happens every once in a while in Israel, mostly bigger cities like Jerusalem. In my experience, it's campaigners and sometimes soldiers having a fun day off, and these guys weren't campaigning. So I figured I'd help them with whatever, see what they were up to, and be on my way. They got a couple more people to join them at this big sun dial and we all joined hands and sang songs about the sun while dancing around it and being recorded on someone's phone. I got to talking with them after this. They were a group of IAF (Israeli Air Force) reservists from battalion 757 on a fun-day scavenger hunt around Jerusalem who invited me to join them for the rest of the day!

Me: "My friends are NEVER going to believe this..." Here's my proof

The last station where we found out where we were having lunch, proudly waving the 757 from a balcony

Like I said, I had all day and it was going to be a public transportation-only trip around Jerusalem with a group of Air Force reservists. I was very safe. So can you believe it, we go to all these great sites around Jerusalem, doing blindfolded puzzles (me) on Ammunition Hill, dancing with and singing about felafel at Denya Square, finding people named David at Davidka Square, getting girls (me) to have video recordings saying "I would date a loadmaster*," finding people who actually know what happened at Allenby, and ending the adventure with a 757 lunch at Rosa's.

Awards ceremony at Rosa's

Our group (#4) got fourth place, and the guys were ecstatic. Why? Not only was 4 and 4 lucky, but mostly because the winners had to organize next year's scavenger hunt, a rough job. (Also, for the record, the group that consisted of the 757 guys still in their service got last place.) So second place was the new first place, making fourth not so bad! Not to mention we had the most fun taking our time, eating felafel, and our group had the most girls (one). After lunch and the trophy being awarded to the poor team that got first place, some of the guys who have stayed close invited me to enjoy the pre-Shabbat Mahane Yehuda (the largest shuk aka market in Jerusalem). We walked around, I bought some rugelach from Marzipan for the family I was going to see over Shabbat and tried fresh-pressed pomegranate juice for the first time, and we got free samples everywhere.

Rugelach ready to go in the oven, it was going so fast!

Tehina Queen, sister company to Halva King

We even got to see how tehina is made and samples of different flavors of tehina (the sweet chili was not very good). Finally, we went to a little pub and celebrated the loss before parting ways. I was having trouble figuring out which bus to take and my phone was low on battery (my battery case was dead as well), so one of the guys whose parents live near the Muszkats gave me a ride right to their door. It was very interesting to see life after the army and to see how Israelis see olim chadashim. They had lots of questions, and we all got to practice our respective second languages. I even got to meet the IAF Chief of Staff (if I'm remembering his position correctly) who they had been sending the videos and pictures (featuring yours truly) to via Whatsapp all day! He wanted to know how much the boys had paid me, which everyone from our group thought was funny, but the other groups asked the same thing. All in all, I had a lot of fun with my first army experience, which is not normally how it goes!

When I got to the Muszkats, it was crazy as well. This is a family I hadn't seen in ten years, with a new sibling that I hadn't even met! It was so much fun spending Shabbat with them (although Nurit was studying for some major exams for Sunday). Friday night we went to their neighbor's house for dinner after shul and some great discussions went on, but I only understood some of them. It was definitely the hardest part about the weekend, everyone talked very fast in Hebrew most of the time! (For the record, the best part was seeing the family and Michal or somebody feeding me every five minutes!) In the morning, we all had breakfast together and talked a bit about the parsha. Then we went to shul again, which was pretty cool because it's very unique. It is a traditional Orthodox synagogue, except it is egalitarian. For instance, a woman led the Torah service and carried the Torah around the women's side and then handed it off to a man to carry it around the men's side. When we got back, we rested for a bit but then we had to get ready for a late lunch because Moti's family was coming! And come they did. Aunts, brothers, cousins, grandparents, you name it, they were there! There was so much food and all but about four people had birthdays in October (including myself, as you may know) so we celebrated by toasting and singing about four different times while trying to name everyone with an October birthday. Everyone helped clean up then left, and then I spent some time playing with the youngest and trying to speak my best Hebrew. In the late afternoon, Nurit and I went to a program with the after-school program where she is a counselor. It was absolute nuts, but apparently the kids were just being crazier than usual.

After havdallah, Michal gave me her mother's number (she lives in Petah Tikva!) and made me a sandwich for the road. I said lehitra'ot (see you later) and left to return to Beit Nativ to watch the UT vs. #11 SC game with Zach and Nathan! Boy, it was a crazy game. We were down by one point and all of a sudden we had a beautiful 39-yard reception by Marquez North (#8) which led to a field goal by Palardy in the last three seconds of the game! Everyone went nuts! We went out to celebrate singing Rocky Top and screaming "IT'S GREAT TO BE A TENNESSEE VOL!" in the streets of Jerusalem. Truly an awesome win and such a fun night out, even though it was Saturday, which is a weeknight here. Fortunately, nobody had a class on Sunday before noon!

The next morning, we got up and once again said lehitra'ot. I made my way back to Petah Tikva, showered, and headed over to Michal's mother's house for lunch! She made aliyah when she was twenty or twenty-one from Buenos Aires and gave me some great advice and a couple of children's books to read in Hebrew. When I finally got home for good, I fell asleep for several hours and spent the rest of the day in pajamas. As you can see I am a very busy person!

Usdi is also very busy with making sure I don't sleep too much by taking up ALL the space on my bed

Just to put my mom's old van in perspective, this is one of Petah Tikva's family vans...and y'all thought SHE had a lot of bumper stickers!

Anyway, winding down from Jerusalem also involved making plans for my next trip back and catching up on some TV (can I get a hell yeah from my Walking Dead followers?!?). Basically another lazy day, but I see jambalaya in our apartment's future, so that will be tomorrow's endeavor, along with finding a local gym I can join. Have a wonderful week everyone! 

*A loadmaster is someone who works on a military cargo plane, basically everyone I was hanging out with.