Home sweet home

This week was super short because of Yom Kippur - so I didn't have to be back to the army until Tuesday morning. I had an easy fast for Yom Kippur. It's a lot easier to fast when you sleep for 15 hours of the day. The rest of the day was spent in shul. From the very limited time I spent in between sleeping and being in shul it was very interesting to see there wasn't a single car on the road - not just where I was in Kfar Saba, but in the entire country. Every kid that had a bicycle, roller blades, scooter, etc. was out in the middle of the road without anything to worry about.

Now that we are getting into the regular routine of the ulpan, we are starting to actually get some stuff done. In addition to learning boring grammar and verb structure we have classes on Israel and the IDF. One person we are learning about in detailis Ro'i Klein. In a few weeks we will be putting on a play/presentation about him. As a reserve soldier in Golani, during the 2nd Lebanon War of 2006, Ro'i instinctively jumped on a grenade, thus saving the lives of his fellow soldiers.

So your probably all thinking that now that I have been in the army for a month and a half, and Israel for four and a half months that I probably have a fantastic permanent place to live when I get off base. Well, as of Thursday I have a permanent place to live! I hope its fantastic - time will tell. I now live up north just outside of Afula on a kibbutz called Ein Harod. As a lone soldier, the army is supposed to help me find a place to live, which they finally got around to doing. They told me on Wednesday night that they found me a place and that I would go check it out the next day. I was thrilled that they finally found me a place, and even more thrilled that I got to leave base on thursday morning before we had to start cleaning the dorms! I woke up got dressed, ate and then left the base. For breakfast there was fruit yogurt which we had never gotten before. Yes, this is very random to be talking about, but you will see how this comes into play in a bit. FYI, the fruit yogurt was delicious and I made a mental note of it.

I don't know much about the kibbutz. Without much say in the matter of where I was going to live, I didn't really know if this was a good place or not. After speaking with the person on the kibbutz who takes care of settling in the soldiers onto the kibbutz, it seems like its a good kibbutz and will be a lot of fun. There are 10 soldiers that live in what used to be a hotel. We all get our own room, and there is a common room with TV, computer and kitchen. As we (5 soldiers) were in a car with the coordinator on the way to the kibbutz (yes - car. 6 people in a CAR. Oh, we all had huge backpacks. And the kicker is that there was barely any trunk space) the second thought I had as we pulled off the main road towards the kibbutz was 'phew, its a good thing my kibbutz is the next one cuz this kibbutz smells like cow shit.' My first thought was I still can't move or breathe - get me the hell out of the car. I looked closer at the smelly kibbutz and recognized the logo as being one that I had recently seen. I then put 2 and 2 together and came to the conclusion that the kibbutz is in the business of turning smelly cows into delicious tasting yogurt (and most likely other dairy products). Hopefully my kibbutz gets deals on the imported food whithout having to import the smell as well. If not, I will have to make friends with people on the other kibbutz to hook me up with food.

I left the kibbutz around 11AM and went back to Rehovot to prepare for the big move the next day. I had to go to the bank which always seems to cause me a lot of problems. I won't get into that, but for some reason banks don't like when foreign citizens open up accounts. The only reason I am able to open one is because I'm in the army. The guy at the bank was trying to convince me that I didn't have an account there and that maybe I had opened one up at a different branch. Surprisingly to him, after about 5 minutes of arguing he realized I was right.

Friday was the big move. I moved everything I own (except for one bag that I already had at the kibbutz). With a backpack on my back, one on my chest, a bag in each hand and a giant suitcase I took a train and a bus halfway across the country. I met some of my housemates - not everyone was here for the weekend. They don't speak english, which is good so it forces me to work on my hebrew. After dinner, the kibbutz put on a nice show for Sukkot where kids were singing and dancing. Later at night we went to the local pub on the kibbutz.

This upcoming week is going to be pretty awesome because I heard that we get off on Wednesday. I can't wait!