Very random weekend

We woke up at 3AM in order to get home for the weekend!!! Left base at 430AM and ended up at home by 1PM. Before I got to the kibbutz I stopped off at the supermarket to buy food. As I was shopping some random person came up to me and asked me if I was a lone soldier and if I had a place to eat for shabbat. How did she know that I was a lone soldier who didn't have a place for shabbat? Well I kinda stick out like a sore thumb. A soldier doesn't really go shopping for food alone in uniform 4 hours before shabbat unless he really has to. If you know me, I only go shopping when I REALLY need to. I had no food, and therefore really needed to shop. I politely declined because my buddy Jon was visiting me on my kibbutz for the weekend. It's not uncommon for that to happen. People are really nice to soldiers.

After a long night of partying I actually decided to do something besides sit around and waste time on the internet. I haven't really ventured around the neighbourhood and I figured since someone came to visit me we should actually do something. I'm usually too tired and lazy to do anything. So just like that we decided to go for a hike up the Gilboa mountain. It had rained the day before so it was a bit muddy, but that still didn't stop us. There was nobody around and as we started walking through the farms to get to the base of the mountain there were 2 cars that passed us. Jon and I were both wearing AEPi t-shirts and the guy in the second car rolls down his window and yells AEPi!!! He was in AEPi in Vegas and a very hilarious and random encounter. At what point do these random encounters stop being random? It seems that every corner I turn I expect to bump into someone I have some sort of connection with. The hike was pretty awesome and long - 3 hours in total, but the view was definitely worth it!

My backyard! Thats my kibbutz to the left of my head.

Before we went on the hike I got a call from a friend, Dan who is in Israel on Birthright, but I was surprised to hear that it was a different friend on the phone, Cliel (an avid reader of Kaldors Korner I might add) who I didn't know was also here. So just like that I decided to go back to Jerusalem with Jon to meet up with them at night at Ben Yehuda Street. Whenever I go to Ben Yehuda Street or the Old City I am always on the lookout for people I know. There is rarely a time I go to those places and don't bump into someone I know. In fact, I get disappointed if I don't bump into someone I didn't expect to see. So not so surprisingly, I bumped into someone else that was on the birthright trip that I knew.

So that was my weekend of very random encounters. I'm sure I will bump into people again tomorrow when I tour Jerusalem.