Yom Kippur Golan Heights and a Few Thoughts

Well for Yom Kippur I decided to go to Shay’s family’s house in Lehavim where I stayed before the Ulpan. I took the train with Sacha and Ariel. They were going to Beer Sheva which is just one or two stops after mine so it was a fun time. We plan on taking the bus back together Saturday night which would make it a much more enjoyable 3 hours on a bus. 

Well I am writing this on Monday after Yom Kippur and my trip to the Golan Heights. Yom Kippur was fine just hung around and we went to synagogue (or at least the outside because it was packed) for about an hour to hear the shofar blast mostly. I like going to their place its a nice little house that feels lived in and I feel comfortable there with the family. I met up with my buddies at the Beer-Sheva central bus station and we hugged and talked about our Yom Kippur happenings and such and we got on our way on the 8 o'clock bus to Tel-Aviv. As we were waiting for our next bus that goes from Tel-Aviv to Haifa and drops us off near the Kibbutz one of the other ulpanists came up to the waiting area. It was Mike from Germany. He stayed in Tel-Aviv with his parents and was catching the same bus back and also Annie from Brazil got on the bus with her boyfriend. The bus only had like 12 people so we were almost half which is kinda funny. We got back to kibbutz at about midnight so I was super tired and went right to bed. The next day was just a work in the morning and class in the afternoon kinda day. We have a succah right by the classrooms that the looks really cool and I hope to spend some good thought provoking time in there. We had our trip to the Golan Heights. It was awesome. We first did a hike at Banias. Its like a nature reserve that has a waterfall a stream and ancient Greek ruins. The sound of the stream and the way it looked reminded me of home and the Minnehaha Falls. We hiked for almost two hours and it was super hot but enjoyable. We then went and ate lunch at a site of a famous tank battle during the Yom Kippur war and heard some personal stories from our guides. After that we descended to Hamat Gader a hot spring spa/pool/alligator farm and spent 2 hours chilling there and then went back to the kibbutz.

Well its about the halfway point of my program so i figured it would be a good time to reflect. I’m not sure where to start. I’m having a great time being in Israel and meeting new people. My work at the factory is as boring as ever but not hard and I’m friendly with the people there so its not bad but I won’t miss it thats for sure. My roommates are both cool guys and we really don’t have any problems so I think I lucked out because there are some people I would not want to be roomies with. Hebrew class is going good. I have learned a lot but there is still so much to learn. Speaking will be the hardest for me reading and writing come more naturally. The dining hall is ok on some days but can obviously get tiresome also. Friday Night is always good but besides that its hit or miss unless you want to eat schnitzel every day. I’m excited that Ally and Zak are coming to Israel and I know they will have a good time. I have been thinking about what I am going to do after the program finishes. I have been thinking about maybe doing this Magen David Adom volunteer program or something else but I need more information about a few things. Israel is a place that constantly forces you to think. There are great things that Israel does and it also does some bad things and you have to be informed because its easy to get confused by all the information. On a totally different note anybody that wants to skype/vid chat let me know, I LOVE video chatting.

I don’t know exactly where I’m going in a general sense but I’m just going to go with how I feel and see where I end up.