Sorry I haven't blogged in a number of weeks. I've been enjoying my time off from the army. Since I have time to relax and I'm always around a computer I am not pressured to get a blog post up. Usually I end up waiting until the last minute to get a blog post up before I need to get back to base for a few weeks. I would typically post my blog at about 2 or 3AM and catch a few hours of sleep before waking up at around 6 to head back to base. Since I don't have that pressure I have just been constantly pushing off writing another blog post. I would appologize for my laziness but I'm not at all one bit sorry. After practically finishing up with my army service (I am on vacation until I get discharged) I needed time to wind down and I haven't been in the mood to blog regularly. Additionally, there hasn't really been anything interesting enough to devote a blog post... until now.
Without getting into too much details here are some things that have been going on with my free time.
The week following the last week of training was a nice relaxing week that our entire battalion spent in what can be described as an army resort. It was a relaxing week that we spent together and hung out. These opportunities are donated by large organizations to provide combat soldiers with a nice vacation during our intense and stressful service. It provides us with a time to relax and enjoy ourselves outside the confines of the army structure. We had a sports day and there were a number o comedy acts in the evenings. For the most p
art I spent the week just relaxing and hanging out with friends.
At the end of that week I met my sister at the airport - she is here for the next 5 months. I helped drag all the bags to a relatives house where we spent shabbat and then to Jerusalem where she will be living.
Headed back to my kibbutz and took a nice day hike in the area. The community in the picture below is my kibbutz. More pictures from the hike here.
Celebrated purim in Jerusalem. It was great to see people walking around in costumes for a number of days.
My account of the terrorist attack in Jerusalem:
Yesterday afternoon I was in Jerusalem and on my way to the central bus station to catch a bus to Rehovot for a cousins bar mitzvah party. As I was on the bus about 10 minutes away from the central bus station I saw an ambulance fly by our bus, and then a second one. At that moment I didn't think anything of it as that can be a frequent occurrance in Jerusalem. A few seconds later came more sirens - ambulances, motorcylces, police, all sorts of other emergency vehicles with sirens flew by our bus within a matter of one minute. At that moment the bus driver turned up the radio and everyone was listening attentively. I didn't pick up everything that was said as it was in Hebrew, but I heard enough "bus bombing on Binyanei Ha'umah". Binyanei Ha'umah is the street across from the central bus station where all the inner city busses stop - exactly where I was going. I picked up my phone and called my mom in Toronto to say we were okay, and then started calling other people as well to ask if they were okay. It was extremely difficult to make calls because the network was working overload as everyone was doing the same thing - calling everyone they know at the same time. A few minutes later I got off the bus with my sister and started walking as traffic wasn't moving. I made my way to the scene and all I could really see was a broken bus window. The bus was blocking my view of most of the scene. My initial thought was that for a bus bombing it did not look that bad - but then again I had no information as to the number of casualties and I had arrived about 20 minutes after the explosion so the injured had for sure already been evacuated. I later heard of reports that the bomb was not on the bus itself, but ouside which explained why I did not see much damage.
We heard reports that the entrance to the city was closed and that we might not be able to get out of the city. We were contemplating heading back into the city. We then suddently saw a team of paramedics sprint down the street to their ambulance and drive to a different location. A number of other vehicles followed. Another attack? Shortly after we heard rumours of a shooting nearby (in the end it was just rumours and nothing had transpired). We decided to go to bus station in the hopes that the busses were still running, which they were. Very quickly it seemed as life was returning back to normal.
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