Start of Ulpan

Tuesday started our ulpan. Now that we are done with basic training we start our hebrew classes for the next 2 months. But before we could start the classes I was voluntold to do something called toronute rasar, which I think loosely translates to bitchwork. Of the 6 hours of toronute rasar I did about 1 hour of sweeping the streets. The best part of the entire day (not just the 6 hours) was that while I was sweeping I found a pinecone and started playing hockey using the broom as a hockey stick. I'm not sure which is worse - the fact that my day was so crappy that the best part was playing hockey by myself with a broomstick and a pinecone or the fact that in all seriousness I actually had a lot of fun!

I survived 12 days on base without going completely nuts. Maybe the previous paragraph might change people's minds. We now get a long weekend and don't have to be back on base until Tuesday because of Yom Kippur, which makes next week very short!

Officially a soldier!

Monday was our last day of tironout - basic training. To start the day they semi-unexpectedly woke us up at 4AM and gave us 7 minutes to get dressed and downstairs. We then went on the masa - hike - to end basic training. It was only 6km, and it wasn't difficult except

for the fact that I did almost half the hike with a broken shoelace.

Me with my tag after the masa: now I am part of the education corps, and have slightly moved up from a nobody.

After the morning, they drove us to Akko - where we were to have our searing in ceremony. Our ceremony was at the Akko prison which was used by the British prior to

the establishment of the State of Israel to hold members of the Irgun, Lehi and Etzel - groups that supported the establisment of a Jewish State, protected the Jews

from the Arabs, and opposed the presence of the British in the land. Later in the afternoon we had the ceremony where we officially became soliders in the IDF. In a ceremonial fashion we were given our guns and swore on a bible to protect the State of Israel.

I`m third row on the left

Recieving my gun fom the Samelet

Rosh Hashana shmirot (guard duty)

Thursday at 6AM I started my shift on kaf-kaf. Kaf-kaf is a 24 hour shift where 6 of us are on call for basically anything and everything. We are the first response for terrorists, fire, ambulance and everything in between. In addition to doing everything like a normal day with the tzevet, the 6 of us have to stay together the entire time and fully dressed including the appx. 25 pound vest the entire shift. We also took turns wearing the stretcher. We got to sleep at 930, but got woken up at 11PM by one of the guys yelling kaf kaf. I jumped from the bed and started the almost 3 minute sprint across the base to the war room. I did not mentally wake up until I got there and the samelet started talking to us and telling us to open the stretcher.Until then it was a full on adrenaline rush. As part of the test we had to put one of the guys on the stretcher and run him about 200 meters to where the ambulance is. After that ordeal I was not able to go back to bed and stayed up all night waiting for the next test call which never came.

5 of us on kaf-kaf: david, me, anton, edgar and anatoli

Friday everyone went home for Rosh Hashana except for us. In the afternoon (during my nap) we had another drill. For everyone not on kaf-kaf you get 7 minutes to get over to the war room. So I had to jump out of bed, get dressed and wake up then sprint across the base (in that order). Once again I was pissed off this occurred yet again during my sleep (this becomes a reoccurring theme).

After the drill I had my first shift of guard duty. The shifts are 2 hours long - and you get shifts at ALL obscene hours of the day. Some blaces have 2 people guarding, while others only have one. In theory guarding is pretty easy - the things you are allowed to do are:
1. Guard
2. Stand
3. Drink water or hot tea
4. Sit for 10 minutes in the middle of your shift.
5. If something happens, call it in on the radio.

Things you aren't allowed to do is EVERYTHING else including but not limited to eating, listening to music, reading, praying, writing, using your phone, going to the bathroom, sleeping, etc.

My first shift was 4-6PM at the front gate of the base. There was a guy that works there and does all the work, so I just had to stand there. During the shift 3 cars almost pulled up to the gate, but turn around - I think I scared them away :-) Shift highlight: There was a shift switch of the guy that works at the gate for my last 10 minutes, and the new guy put on music (he can do whatever he wants).

For the holiday we had a nice sit down dinner minus food trays, timed meals, and self service. The tables were set, and the food was much much better than what we normally get. It was a full meal with salads, soup, chicken, brisket, potatoes, and desert. All the meals were like that.

The next shift was from 2-4AM. Luckily I had someone with me to talk to so it helped to pass the time. Shift highlight: someone at a differetn guard post saw a dog and felt it was necessary to tell everyone a number of times over the radio.
Shift 12-2PM on saturday: I had to run from shul to get there. The worst part was that I ran past the lunch room while everyone was lined up to go eat. This was the most boring 2 hours of my life - exhausted and hungry with nobody to talk to. Shift highlight: a bee chased me around for 5 minutes.

After about an hour nap I got woken up for a relatively unnecessary head count. To make sure everyone was still around and hadn't gone missing from the base. One would say that this is pretty stupid - who is going to walk off the base, but what do you know some moron walked off the base on Sunday to buy a pack of smokes. Just after the head count it started to rain! It was awesome to finally see some rain. I hadn't seen rain since the beginning of May in Toronto. It hung out in the rain for a bit as it was nice and refreshing - especially because Israel needs all the rain it can get. My next guard shift was from 12-2AM and boy did it pour. A transformer blew just as I started my shift so there wree no lights - luckily my guard partner hada flashlight. We also managed to find shelter and stay dry for the most part. Usually for Rosh Hashana what I do is go to shul, eat and sleep. However this time the sleep was swapped with guarding.

More Basic Training

Monday I thought that I almost got lit on fire. We were sitting in a class and the jerk behind me pokes me in the back a few times. I then turn around really pissed off and his response was 'fire, fire'. I smelled something burning slightly and lept from my chair and tried to brush off my back, but there was nothing there.The guy had just put a small piece of paper in the metal backing of my chair and lit that on fire. I looked like a spaz because I freaked out in the middle of a class of 60 people.

On basewe dont' get to use the internet and the only outside news that we get is what they tell us - which they dont usually unless something big happens. On Sunday, Asaf Ramon - the son of Ilan Ramon was killed in a training accident. Ilan Ramon was the first Israeli astronaut, who was aboard the Columbia in 2003, which had a malfunction resulting in the death of all those abourd. Similarly to his father, Asaf was killed in a drill when his plane suddently took a nose dive - nobody else was hurt. He was 21 yeras old and graduated at the top of the class from the air force flight school - possibly the most difficult job in all of the IDF. May he rest in peace.

Tuesday I got to be a VIP and spend most of the day in an air conditioned room. Four of the top soldiers in the mahlaka of 64 were selected to be interviewd about who we are, where we came from, why we decided to join the army, etc. We got to speak with a general and a bunch of other well decorated people in the army. Talking to people that high up is pretty much completely out of the question, and I think looking at them might even be frowned upon. We also spoke with the head of the base and the head of all new immigrants to the army.

This week we wrapped up basic training part one. I get to do it all over again in 2 months though when I join my combat unit. The only difference is that it will be much more intense and longer. Soon we start the ulpan, but first we have a weekend of guard duty.

Week 3

Despite the fact that this week was one day shorter, it most certainly didn't feel that way. After Shabbat I went to Jerusalem to visit a friend. As a lone soldier I get one extra day off every 2 months in order to do things like go to the bank and run other errands. It's impossible to do any of these things because I get off base on Friday mornings (when most things are closed for the weekend already) and I have to be back on base Sunday morning, leaving no time to do anything. So I figured that after going to the bank on Sunday morning, I could take the day and relax. Little did I know that I actaully had to go to my specific bank in Rehovot to get what I needed. So there went the rest of my day - travelling.

When I got back to my friend's place I realized I might be going slightly crazy. Jon asked me if I wanted to go for a jog. Despite the fact I did not have shorts OR running shoes I decided to go running in my army pants and boots.

This week on the whole was pretty good. Unfortunately nothing 'interesting' happened this week. Monday was pretty relaxed as we didn't get to base until 1PM. Further we didn't do much of anything until after dinner, where we had to do out group punishments for things like being late, not being in formation properly, talking, not paying attention during classes, etc. The sanctions involve 12-15 second sprints at a time, where you never have enough time to get there and back in time. When we clearly need a break from sprints we get to do pushups. Then we go back to sprinting followed by situps. This continues for about 25 minutes to half an hour.

Throughout the week we had some lessons on first aid and radio communications mixed in with of course more running, pushups and situps.

Our base is an educational base, and the course I'm taking is mostly for new immigrants and volunteers to learn Hebrew. So they try and ease us into the whole army thing. Every week they start introducing more things to us; Last week was sanctions and evening group punishments. This week it was a daily morning flag raising ceremony. Also known as a huge waste of time. The ceremony is supposed to be at 9AM, and its supposed to mark the start of the day. My question is, if 9AM is the 'start of the day', what the heck was I doing for the previous 4 hours!?!?!? By the 'start of the day', we are already fully dressed to perfection, shaven and boots shined, beds made, room and dorms cleaned and inspected, eaten breakfast followed by our 20 minute break. Also throw in there some pushups and situps depending on how on the ball we are as a group. The entire pluga (Company) - about 150 people congregate for a speach by the head of the pluga. So far the speaches have involved how much we suck. One day for being disrespectful, and another for being an hour late.

On Thursday morning I was able to take my first power nap since I started the army. We aren't allowed to sleep during our brief breaks throughout the day. Only during our free hour can we sleep. When we went to the field we were allowed to sleep on the bus ONLY because it was a long busride. While we were waiting for the samelet (sergent) to inspect our rooms we were sitting on the beds. One of the guys in our room who was sick or 'sick' had just taken a shower and was sitting in a towel on his bed just as we got to the room. He sat there for for I guess about half an hour (I had lost track of time) because he was taking his time/unwilling to get dressed, and so the samelet (who is a female) would not be able to come into the room. This way we were all able to sit in the room without anyone barking orders at us. Lucky we all dozed off for a few minutes :-) This is how we were about an hour late for the flag raising ceremony.

Thursdays are by far the best day for several reasons. The most obvious is that the next day is Friday, which means we get to go home. The day is easier because some poeple get to leave a day early because they live in Eilat, and there isn't enough time for them to get home on Friday, so they leave Thursday afternoon. Because of that, the things we do are not the most critical things we do and learn during the week. We are given time to clean our guns before we give them back after lunch. Getting rid of the gun is great - its one less 8 pound thing we have to have strapped to ourselves for about 23 hours and 45 minutes of the day. I spend most of the day holding the gun in one hand and my canteen in the other - the 2 things you can't be without. The ONLY times I dont have the gun strapped around me is the combined 15 minutes or so during the day that I take a shower and am in the bathroom stall, so to be without the gun for half a day is great. Another good thing about Thursday is that we get meat for lunch and dinner. I don't know why, but we usually never get meat for dinner. There is never group punishments on Thursday, so that is a great thing as well, but unfortunately it doesn't mean we won't get punished :-( Lastly, we get to go to bed early!!!! Yesteday we were in bed at 9PM :-D This leads right into the worst part about Fridays - 430AM. In order to be off base by 630AM, we have to wake up at 430, therefore we have to be in bed by 930. The early bedtime is really there to fool us.

Next week its our Machlaka's (Platoon's) turn to do guard duty. This means that we have to stay for the weekend. Because this weekend is Rosh Hashana, we miss out on a long weekend, meaning we have to spend Rosh Hashana on base doing guard duty. From seeing the first group who got to do it last week, it did not look like a lot of fun, and they didn't get much sleep. The group that is doing it this week isn't guarding the base, but they got bussed down south to guard communities around Gaza for the week. Since we are on base for the weekend, it doesn't mean that get off after the weekend, it means we lose out weekend. So I will be on base for 12 days straight starting on Sunday. Hopefully I won't go too crazy.

Since I'm on base until next year and beyond, I hope everyone has a shana tova!

basic training - shetach

Despite the fact that I didn't have to go directly to the base on Sunday for 945, I still had to wake up at 520AM to get to the doctor. I had to take 8 busses/trains to get from my place in Rehovot to the doctor in Tzfat and back ot the base. Miraculously I did not get lost. I had to go see a lung specialist in order to get my medical profile raised. After taking a few lung capacity tests, the doctor asked me what my profile was. I expected him to then say, okay I will raise your profile up to the next level, but instead he asked me what I wanted it to be. Naturally I said 97 - the highest profile. He said sure. So now I need to go to the doctor on the army base to get her to accept the doctor's recommendation.

When I got back to the base I was voluntold to help move boxes of battle rations halfway around the base. We were going to shetach (the field) for 2 days and amongst other things, we needed food. We stacked about 100 boxes of food onto a cart and had to wheel it halfway around the base - both uphill and downhill. It also didn't help that a few of the boxes on the bottom started to cave in and caused everything to topple over. Luckily we made it without everything falling off - despite the fact that 3 people were practically hugging the tower so it wouldn't fall over while one person was pulling the cart. It took us about 25 minutes - when the walk on its own only took a fifth of the time. Aside from the problems they were causing us just transporting the food, the battle rations suck. It contains 3 cans of tuna, 3 cans of peanuts, 2 cans of halva, 1 can of chocolate spread, 2 cans of loof (the kosher equivalent of spam - it tastes like bad salami and hot dog meat in a can), some teabags, juice mix, and a loaf of bread - for 5 people. Notice the generalization of the term battle ration - as opposed to breakfast battle ration or lunch battle ration or dinner battle ration. its the same crap for breakfast lunch and dinner. Something else i learnt about the battle rations is that if you get punched in the face with a can of peanuts it hurts. I'm okay, only a small cut on the inside of my upper lip. When we were eating our first meal of battle rations someone from my tzevet came up and wanted to take food from our box (we already had 5 people to our box, and there were other boxes). After explaining that to him, he got upset, and half an hour later came back and punched me in the face with a can of peanuts.

We had to wake up at 4AM on monday in order to get everything in order to go out to the shetach. We spent 2 days out in the sun practicing shooting and learning how to maneuver in different positions. It was a lot of fun, and I didn't do half bad. One of the rules when your in the shetach is that your not allowed to take your gun off your body. On base, your not allowed to be without your gun, but you are allowed to take it off your body (for example, if your doing pushups you put your gun down next to you, when you shower you hang it on a hood, when you go to the bathroom you can put it next to you). In the shetach you do pushups and situps with the gun around your neck, and there was no showers so that wasn't a problem. We had to pitch tents and sleep in our clothes and boots. Everyone also had to do half an hour of guard duty throughout the night (luckily I never got a turn). After waking up at 4AM and baking all day in the sun, we didn't get to bed until midnight. Shortly thereafter we had a terrorist drill - so everyone had to jump out of their tents and get into position. So, we didn't get to bed until 1AM. Day 2 was more of the same, battle rations, baking in the sun and shooting guns.

After we got back from the shetach they explained to us the specific sanctions for specific infractions. Surprisingly, there wasn't a standard punishment for punching someone in the face with a can of peanuts. Something tells me that doesn't happen too often. So I've been doing a lot of pushups and situps - not because of personal sanctions but because of group sanctions. At the end of the day the mefakedet read out a long list of sanctions and things we did wrong, and then made us do about 40 minutes of pushups, situps, and sprints.

Some of the classes we had this week as part of basic training were shooting from different positions, camouflage (unfortunately we only learned some theory behind it - no practical), and some first aid. It seems somewhat rediculous that the first 4 weeks of the course is basic training and then AFTERWARDS you learn hebrew. Here is one example of I'm sure many more to follow of why this is backwards. The mefakedet was explaining how to do CPR - one person was the guy lying on the ground, and a second was the one doing practicing doing the CPR. Through explanation in hebrew of how to do things and most likely a combination of poor instructions or complete lack of understanding of hebrew, the following was supposed to happen: to roll the person from his back onto his side you put your thumb through one of the belt loops on the pants to help roll him over. What happened was that the 'victim's' belt was unhooked. The buildup to this was quite hilarious because throughout the steps he didn't really know what to do and he was getting things mixed up, and the hesitation before he unhooked the belt reinforced that fact he knew he probably shouldn't unhook the belt but he had no idea what she was saying.

Thursday mid afternoon there was some ceremony on the base, so we had to change from our bet uniforms (the ones you get dirty on base) into our alefs (the ones you wear in public) and stand out in the sun for an hour, sweat and NOT move. Someone important was taking over some important job on the base. I don't know what was being said, but this one person had a lot of people to thank for who knows what. The only good thing about the ceremony was that it was ONLY an hour. After that we got an hour for sports. Ideally this would be good, but apparently the army has a different definition of sports. The hour of sports was us being taken on a run and then we did a bunch of pushups and situps - sounds a lot like punishments. The only difference was that I got to wear shorts a t-shirt and running shoes, as opposed to my uniform. This just reminded me of how much my army boots suck. After 'sports' we were given time to change - so I decided to hop into the shower and cool down - I figured there was no point in actually showering because I was changing back into dirty clothes and it was only 5PM, so still plenty of time left for pushups situps and running. After dinner we got hour free hour where we could do what we wanted (including actually showering because after that would be bedtime). After our free hour we have to be back outside in whatever clothing we want where they tell us what time we have to wake up in the morning and other important things. Only this time, we were told we have to be back outside in our running shoes. The bad thing about that was quite obvious, but the plus was that I saved an extra 10 minutes of free time beacuse there is no point of showering. After half an hour of what seemed a lot more like the sports that we had earlier in the afternoon it was bedtime - not showertime, but bedtime. Since Friday is the weekend, we had to be outside by 445AM in order to get off base by 630. No chance I was going to be able to move fast enough that early to get dressed AND shower. Also, I was changing into my alefs that were already dirty, and we still had an hour and a half of running around to do. When I finally did get to shower it was well earned and extremely necessary.

This weekend is a long weekend!!!! Every 2 months lone soldiers get one extra day off in order to do stuff they can't normally do. Luckily I ONLY have to go to the bank, so the rest of the day is free. I don't have to be back on the base until 11AM on Monday!!!!!

Every morning we have to make our beds perfectly. Besides arranging everything properly on the bed, the 2 time consuming steps to making the bed is one of the blankets -called scabies has to be put on the bed like a sheet, and the second one has to be folded properly as an 8 fold - its complicated to do, because you need 2 people and if you don't do it perfectly it looks like crap. And if it looks like crap you get in trouble. The trick is to never get the scabies in contact with any part of your body - just by looking at them you might get sick. So every night I put my own sheet ontop of the the scabies and in the morning rip off my sheet, so the bottom one is made perfectly. Secondly, you take the 8 folded scabies and fold it again in half and put it under the mattress behind my head so it acts like another pillow, then in the morning just place it neatly on the bed and fix it. It saves a lot of time this way. By the way mom, apparently I do an excellent job of making my bed.

Week 1 - In the army now!

So I have seen the sunrise every day this week - but despite the fact that the base is located in the mountains and the scenery is beautiful (will take some pics later) its not so fun to be up by 530 and earlier every day. Today we got to leave base for the weekend, so we had to wake up extra early - 830 so that we could clean and make our beds in order to be released by 630.

I am on this base for the next 14 weeks - the first month is basic training, and after that is an ulpan - where I will be learning Hebrew. Everyone that is with me are foreigners who have either just made aliyah or are not Israeli, like myself. The officers and everyone only speak in Hebrew, and luckily mine is good enough to understand about 90% of what they are saying - the missing 10% I can still figure out what is going on. However, there are some people that are completely lost.

The first few days of the army they were taking it easy on us because everything was new. But after dinner on the third day things changed. The first few days they were teaching us the formations that we have to stand in. They gave us our on base uniforms - which are not as nice as the ones we wear in public. Everything we do is timed - so we have to watch our watches constantly and know whats going on - we will get 3 minutes to go clean and then have to be back outside in formation. Or we will get a 15 minute break. Never a second more. We had some classes about Israel, and the army. We also took a few Hebrew tests to see where our written, reading, and speaking levels are at. Surprisingly after not having any formal Hebrew teaching in about 15 years, I managed to pick it up quite easily.

The base is full of people from all over the world - the first group I was in called a tzevet. Of the 12 of us in the group there were 2 people from France, 2 Americans, 2 Argentinians, and one each from Panama, Holland, South Africa, England, and Russia. Just as our tzevet was starting to get the hang of things - like counting, showing up on time, making formations, and writing something similar to an attendance sheet (which has to be written every time we are given more than 7 minutes to do anything) everything got switched up and we were all given new tzevets after 2 days.

We don't get much free time. We are outside and dressed well before 6AM and its lights out between 10 and 11PM. Every day we get an hour (or sometimes one and a half) of free time, where we are given free time to use our phones, buy food, and wear something other than our army uniform. But also in this time we have to shower and get ready for bed. We get a lot of breaks throughout the day, which is good, but its not enough time to do anything substantial except go to the bathroom and sit around and talk - its not like we are actually allowed to do much else in that time anyways.

The first night before our free hour they were explaining to us about what we can and can't do and all that stuff, and also about fire drills. That should have been a hint that there was going to be a fire drill 5 minutes into our hour break, but everyone kinda forgot about that because we were excited for our free hour. So just as everyone got changed out of their uniform, naturally they had a fire drill. During a fire drill you have to have a shirt on past your shoulders and at least have a pair of shorts on; we also must wear our army boots and obviously run outside and get into formation. So this was a preface to what happened next. We were sent to bed at 10PM, and 45 minutes later while we were about 80% asleep - one of the leaders called mefakdim comes into our room and says is Alexander so and so here - silence because this person wasn't in our room. 30 seconds later he comes back and says is Alex here. My response was Alex who? - it seems that every other person on this base is either named Alex or Alexander. He said don't ask questions, is your name Alex? So obviously I say yes, to which he responds with 'Aish! Aish! Zuz! Zuz!' which translates to 'Fire! Fire! Move! Move!' So half asleep I have to jump out of the top bunk, look for my boots, which looks like everyone else's especially when the lights are out and I have to run outside while everyone else in my room is still in bed. So I'm running outside and following the guy in front of me. I get into formation with a different tzevet thinking what the heck is going on, and why am I here. There definitely had to have been a mixup because the only person to take note of where I went was the guy who was yelling at me to get out of the room. As I was standing there I heard the exact same thing I had heard in my tzevet before we were sent to bed. That tzevet was then sent to bed, and I went back to bed. When I got back to the room, the guys asked where the heck I went to which I responded that I have no idea what just happened. Day 1 and already rediculous stuff is happening ONLY TO ME!!!!

On Tuesday, the mefakedet asked for a volunteer after lunch. So I decided to volenteer........ for kitchen duty. So when I got there, I learned that kitchen duty is AWESOME. I picked up chairs for 15 minutes, then sat around for half an hour. Mopped the floor for 20 minutes, sat around for 45 minutes. threw out empty boxes for 10 minutes, sat around for 45 minutes. The lunch ladies are awesome. They just told us to sit around, and we were able to rest, and sleep if we wanted and they would call us if they needed anything. There were 2 other guys on kitchen duty - one from France and the other from Azerbaijan so we sat around and had a conversation in Hebrew, because that was the only common languge. It was also a great opportunity to rest my feet because they were killing me - 2 blisters after day one on my left heel and a huge blister on my right heel by day 2, and working on a third at the base of my baby toe. It was hard to walk, yet alone run.

That night after dinner our mefakedet said 'okay, now that you have seen a bit of the army, now we are really gonna start with the REAL army. We then spent the next 2 hours running in the dark down a huge hill at 10-15 second intervals and stopping each time in formation. At the bottom of the hill we stood at attention for about an hour while they talked to us and gave us tags identifying what group we were in. After that we ran back up the hill again in 10-15 second intervals.

On Tuesday we were assigned to new tzevets, and now I'm with a bunch of people who don't know how to do anything. They don't count the time left, and therefore are always late. Also none of them know how to write up one of these attendance sheets. I am pretty much forced to do everything so we don't get into trouble. After lunch, the mefakedet decided to send me kitchen duty for my second time. Not only was it a relief that I was able to get off my feet again cuz they were hurting even more than the day before, but I got an extra satisfaction knowing that kitchen duty means that I was doing a good job, and that my tzevet would be screwed without me and would most definitely be running, pushups and situps all day long. I did 8 hours of kitchen duty, and maybe an hour and 15 minutes of work. Once my duty was done it was our free hour and a half off and then bedtime. My entire tzevet was exhausted from running, pushups and situps as I expected :-D

Because I know whats going on and actually doing things properly, I can't seem to get in trouble. When the fools in my group were cracking jokes and doing funny stuff I was laughing and while others got in trouble for laughing and misbehaving I didn't. One example was that myself and worst person in our group were sitting together on the ground while we were discussing something as a group. I was sitting in a very relaxed position and so was he. The mefakedet told him to sit upright, to which he pointed out that he was sitting in the exact same position as me, yet still the mefakedet told him not to talk back and to sit properly while I sat and chuckled and not got in trouble.

Can you believe they gave me a gun??? Well - they did! We only got them towards the end of the week this week, but we got long M16s. No ammo this week, but we had to carry our gun around everywhere. In the army if you lose your gun, its 7 years in jail. You take it to the shower, and sleep with it and take it EVERYWHERE you go. We only get the guns on base though, so I have to turn it in before I go home for the weekend. Aside from our gun, the other thing we have to have on us at all times (aside from our free hour) is our canteen. So a gun in one hand and canteen in the other - everywhere I go.

On tap for next week:
Aside from the usual - early mornings, running, situps, pushup, cleaning and all the non fun stuff, we get to practice shooting on Monday.
Secondly I get to see the doctor on Sunday to try and get my profile raised so I can do Nahal. I have to be at the doctor at 10AM in Tzfat - which is probably at least 4 hours away then I have to get to base. That should be an adventure in itself. I'm estimating at least 7 different bus and or train transfers.

First day off

I decided to meet a friend for lunch on Friday in Jerusalem. One of the benefits of soldiers are that we get free public transportation if we are in uniform. I had no other plans for the day so I didn't mind taking the hour bus each way for only a few hours in the city - in fact it actually paid off. My friend showed me how to properly tuck in my pant legs and how to tie my boots ( these things are not intuitive). Once the boots were tied properly the pain in my feet changed from nearly constant excruciatingly unbearable pain to extremely painful. (side note: yes mom, even though I put the insoles in the boots my feet still hurt like hell). It's kind of like working in a brand new pair of hockey stakes except I have to wear the boots ALL DAY LONG!

Army day 1

Bright and way too early (6AM) I had to wake up in order to get tot he army base by 730. Life is already changing too quickly considering I haven't set my alarm in over 3 months. Once I got to the base I sat there and thought 'what the hell do I do now', until i found someone else who spoke English and together we said 'what the hell do WE do now?'. Within 10 minutes they put us on a bus and drove us 3 minutes around the corner where we sat on the bus for the next 45 minutes. Luckily we still had the AC.

They took the 30ish of us off the bus and started talking to us in Hebrew (obviously). Our group consisted of mostly foreigners, like myself and new immigrants where are in the country for about less than 2 years. Luckily my understanding of Hebrew is good enough to understand what was going on, otherwise I would have been in big trouble, like a lot of people there.

Similar to sitting on the bus and waiting most of the day was spent sitting and waiting or standing in lines and waiting. Aside from asking for my banking information so they can pay me and letting me go home at the end of the day, the processes seemed a lot more like jail than the army. Additionally we didn't know that we were going home at the end of the day until the end of the day. Mugshots, haircut, fingerprints, x-rays, DNA test, immunizations, medical questionaire, interview, clothing and lunch all seemed to be processes that one would also go through if you were going to jail.

One of the things I needed to do was to speak to a doctor to try and get my medical profile raised in order to be in Nahal (the name of one of the infantry divisions). Due to the fact taht I told them I have asthma the options I was given were tanks or artillery. Apparently answering yes on a medical for to the question 'would you like to see a doctor and learn more about your profile?' is not enough to see a doctor. After I turned in the form (filling it out was hard enough - the form was in hebrew and russian) I was given a peice of paper and sent around the corner. That guy took the paper and sent me downstairs. There I saw a warehouse full of clothing and not a doctor. So I went back upstairs and said that I wanted to see a doctor. The soldier said 'it's okay, just go downstairs'. To which I responded in a louder voice how rediculous this process is considering the way I filled out the questionaire. After some more arguing he sent me back to where I filled out the form where I went thru the same conversation with that soldier. 45 minutes later I see a doctor, and he said that he would refer me to a specialist who would be able to raise my profile.

Next I went back downstairs where they gave me a huge bag full of clothes and boots and told me to get dressed. I then spent the next hour trying on different sized boots. It's not like a shoe store with different styles, they just have differetn sizes. I have rediculously wide feet so its always been hard to find footwear that fits. I was one of the last people in the group to get dressed and was waiting for the soldier to tell me to move on to the next station. It's approaching 2PM and we are still waiting - at this point I'm starting to get restless because they have not fed me yet. The soldier then calls me and tells me to go back to the warehouse and tell them I am supposed to be #4. I go back and tell the soldier who ten looks at me like I'm from another planet and asks me what does that mean. As I giver her the shocked are you joking me look while I tell her I don't know what the heck is going on - I don't speak Hebrew. Apparently #4 means go over there and take off your red boots. For the next 5 minutes I'm standing there in my socks with boots in hand saying what do I do now, and what do you want from me? Someone finally took my red boots and gave me black ones (red boots are for nahal and black is for everything else). Even though I'm not in nahal I wanted the boots because apparently its a massive hassel to have to swithc boots for any reason. I tell them to give me back the red boots. This caused a problem that required 6 people to solve, as there was a large crowd around me. Someone asked me if I was in mahal (foreign volunteer soldiers) I say yes. He then asks me if I'm in nahal to which I said yes (even though I'm not yet). After waiting for 10 more minutes they take back the black boots and give me the red ones I was originally wearing. Score Alex: 1, IDF: 0. I get back to the end and as I'm explaining to the soldier that after half an hour the end result was absolutely nothing another person comes from a distance and asks the soldier that I was talking to if the group of us waiting had eaten yet (its 230PM). I yell back to her that we are starving and haven't eaten. To my happiness lunch was much better than I expedcted - but I'm sure the fact that it was already 230 and starving definitely had something to do with that.

After lunch I sat and waited. About an hour later the small group of people that were waiting with me before lunch all showed up with black boots on instead of the red ones they were originally wearing. They were pissed off (rightfully so, they were actually going into nahal) - I smiled and laughed. After 2 hours of waiting I was finally called. They took us to get our stuff that wehad checked at the beginning of the day and took us over to busses. At this point we still didn't know if they were taking us to the base up north or if we were going home for the weeekend. They started to explain to us the basic rules for soldiers conduct while off base and the proper dress code. Tehy also told us where we had to meet on SUnday morning and how to get there. They put us on a bus drove us to the central bus station in Tel Aviv and let us go home! After a very long day I got back to Rehovot by 7PM. I checked the internet to see how to get to Carmi'el by 930AM on Sunday and I need to be out of the house by 6AM - CRAP!

It was great ot have a long weekend after only one day in the army. For the next 3 months I get the majority of the weekends off - however they define weekend as leaving base Friday morning and I have to back on base Sunday morning. Despite the weeekend I am eager and excited to go back for my first week!

The birthday tour

My birthday seemed to drag on for days - not that it's a bad thing. It started on Friday (my actual birthday) by heading off to Tel Aviv and the beach, of course. Later in the evening on the way to dinner I found 20 shekels on the ground (appx. $5)! Who ever finds that much money on the street?? Obviously my lucky day, and yes it was real money. At dinner I went out with a number of friends, some of whom I have not seen in over half a year.

Saturday was spent again at the beach. The waves were particularly strong today and I was able to ride the waves on my stomach (anywhere from 10-15 meters), which was wicked cool. Later in the day it was off to Jerusalem to party once again with my friends who were in Jerusalem.

Sunday was spent hanging around Jerusalem before I was picked up to go to another party with family in Ramat Gan - outside of Tel Aviv. This party was a combined giyus (army enlistment) party for my cousin Ido and I, as well as birthday party for about 5 or 6 of us that had upcoming birthdays.

The cake reads: Ido and Alex - to a good army service

Monday was spent visiting different relatives before there was a Bar Mitzvah party for a different cousin.

After that I needed a rest from all the festivities. It was a great extended birthday.

I haven't been blogging much, because I haven't really done much more than the usual - which has become visiting relatives, going to Tel Aviv, and Jerusalem.
The weather here is awesome. It is best described by this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QLSRMoKKS0
Quickly a few things that I have done:
- See the Church of the Holy Seplecher in the Old City. I was with some friends who bumped into their friends in the Old City. They were going sightseeing, we were doing nothing so we decided to go exploring.
- Wine festival in Jerusalem: over 300 wineries present for the event. Given my previous experiences of tasting wine, I decided to try my hand at winemaking.