Peru July 25

Woke up this morning with not too bad of sleep. Vaughn on the other hand slept awfully because he kept thinking the wind blowing the tent was cows trying to push it off the cliff. Our goal today was to pass through Choco and back over the bridge and make it a little ways up the road toward Cabanaconde. We made it back to Choco in about 1 ½ hours and sat for a couple minutes to relax. The plaza was pretty crowded and we heard over the intercom that today was the day they distributed shoes. The excitement of shoe day was rivaled by the reappearance of the two white people they saw the day before. We had our yogurt drinks, bought hour water and left. On our way to the bridge we passed about 20 people with mules, which slowed us down due to having to get off the path all the time. These mules would have been a lot more helpful if they had come a day or two earlier. We made it down to the bridge around 12:15 and were offered a ride up to Cabanaconde by the guys who we formally though were creepy. The ride though was not till 3:00, so we took a dip in the river and tanned. I soaked my lower half in the ice cold water for about 20 minutes to heal my newly aching knee and my blistered feet with toenails almost coming off. It felt amazing!! But let me tell you right now, the shrinkage that occurred in those 20 minutes would have made George Costanza feel like a champion. So after our only relaxation so far on the trip, we went up to the workers who offered the ride and conversed with them. This was round 2:45. When we got to them, they said it would be another 40 minutes so we sat and talked. Soon after, one of the workers offered to buy us beer and would not let us say no. So he gave us a bottle of Arequipina, the local Arequipan beer. It was warm and disgusting. While talking to them we found out that they had been drinking for the past 6 hours. Not only that, but one of them was a coke addict with more metal in his mouth than teeth, and had some fetish with taekwondo. The other, whose name we heard about 23 times (because he kept repeating everything over and over because of drunkenness), was named Jorge and attempted to name all of the 50 states about 14 times and only got more than 5 once. He kept naming Georgia, NY, FL, Washington and California. We also found out, in the middle of this deep heart to heart with these two drunk construction workers that didn’t speak English, that it was actually a priest coming from Choco whose car we were going to take, and non one knew exactly when he was gonna be there. Around 3:50 we were getting frustrated waiting for this ride that was seeming to never come, so we decided to get up and start hiking again. Right when we stood up, the priest appeared and we go our goodbye hugs and waves from Jorge and the unknown coke addict and were on our way up. The priest was very nice and it turned out he saw us when we walked through Choco earlier, and I remember I saw him as well. He was Argentinean and had lived in Brazil, Italy and now Cabanaconde. He goes to Choco once a month to do a sermon, and by some sort of Godsend, it happened to be his day today. It was about a 45 minute ride up the road to Cabanaconde and we picked up some local family hitchhikers in the back of the pick-up for the last 10 minutes. When we got to town we sat and people watched until 7:00 and then ate at a restaurant called Kunter Wassi. We got an amazingly delicious appetizer of avocado slices with lime juice, salt and pepper. Scrumptious!! For main courses I got this chicken with a crispy fried crust thingy and mashed taters and Vaughn got Al Paka Steak and cheese stuffed potatoes. Quite good. We now have to catch our 9:00 bus to Arequipa. If this is my last journal entry it means the bus got hijacked or we got robbed by the cab driver at 3:00 am in Arequipa. Adios!

Peru July 24

Today’s entry is going to start last night in the middle of the night. The situation was a first for me. I was having trouble sleeping when Vaughn turns over around 4 am and touches me and says “Forrest, is that you?” Keep in mind that we are in a tent in the middle of nowhere and not more than 2 people can fit in the tent. So of course I reply with a cordial “Ya”. Vaughn takes my “ya” the wrong way and rolls over and says with a little frightened anger, “No it’s not!” He then proceeds to punch me as hard as he can (which luckily isn’t very hard at 4 am) to fight me off, because obviously when I say “ya” it means “No, I’m a stranger that somehow took your friend out of the tent and took his place without you ever knowing.” I finally convinced him that I was myself, not Tom Cruise from Mission Impossible with a mask of my face on. We had a good chuckle after that one. But I be Vaughn’s arm didn’t hurt while he was chuckling. We ended up waking around 6:45 on not very good and not very much sleep. We woke up to a man walking by with some mules and whistling (everyone local that walks past either whistles or plays a crappy fuzzy sounding radio). Unfortunately, I didn’t warn Vaughn quick enough to get him to ask the guy if we could use a mule. So we got up and had our usual oatmeal breakfast. Then, when we were ready to leave, a guy with donkeys walked by but wanted 70 soles for us to use one. BUMP THAT!! So we followed some guy on a horse who was going to Chacas, where we wanted to go. Sadly, he was on a horse and we were wearing heavy packs so we cold only follow him for so long. Soon after he left us we hit a fork in the path. Now I contributed to this dilemma by saying the famous Yogi Berra quote, “If you come to a fork in the road, take it.” Sadly, that advice doesn’t work when it comes to trails in Peru, so Vaughn and I chose one way. That way took us past a bunch of ownerless cows (who we aren’t particularly scared of anymore) and finally to another fork. Shit! We decided to eat lunch at this fork and hope for a local to walk by and lead us in the right direction, or tell us that we have already been going in the wrong direction. No one came except more cows, and their English isn’t too good. We were totally demoralized because the whole hike so far was extreme steepness with literally no breaks in steepness. And now we had to make another guess at what trail to take from the trail we were on (which we didn’t even know if it was right). Thijs is when the thoughts of turning back really became prevalent. Somehow, through our total demoralization and doubt, we chose a trail. The trail took us into a small canyon which was going north, the direction we needed to go in. But, it was a narrow trail with no mule or horse droppings or footprints, only cows (mules and horses are usually accompanied by ppl, while cows sorta roam free a lot). That meant there probably wasn’t much human traffic along that trail, which was not in the least bit reassuring. We hiked for about 30 more minutes through the canyon and nothing looked reassuring. So, at a break that we had, we ended up deciding to head back the way we came because getting lost in the mountains of Colca Canyon is not the smartest thing in the world. We were totally bummed but then realized it was the safest, smartest thing to do, and immediately our spirits went sky high for some reason. So, in high spirits, we climbed right back down to our same campsite in about 2 hours, when it initially took us 4 ½ hours to get there. That’s how steep the paths were. So now we are in the same exact position as we were last night, except going back where we came from instead of forward. We had spaghetti and sauce for dinner and then star gazed for about 30 minutes, like every other night on the hike. Romantic. No light-pollution and clear skies means beautiful and countless stars. We also had the silhouette of the canyon which didn’t hurt the aesthetic pleasure of the sky. And finally, we saw a couple shooting stars and two comets. The comets shot off at the same time but in opposite directions. We watched one for 5 minutes and one for 3 minutes. We’ve learned to enjoy the little things we can’t see at home. That’s it, goodnight.

Peru July 23

Day 2 of our hike, and it was an emotional roller coaster. Our spirits were high as kites at times and then would dip to the depths of hell in a heartbeat. We woke up, had oatmeal and left for Choco, which was supposed to be about 3 hours away. Our muscles were sore and feet hurting and the climb to Choco was almost all uphill. We had decided that morning that we would get a mule in Choco for safety reasons, not because we were hurting and sadly out of shape after the easiest day of the hike. We ended up making it to Choco in about 3 hours 15 minutes, which was good. We got there at about 12:15 and bought some treats from the tiny, crappy, overpriced shop in the plaza. We talked to a guy about getting a mule and he said he’d be back in a couple minutes. The guy came back. No mules. Shit. We were tiered, hurting ex-high school athletes who just simply wanted an animal to carry our heavy packs for us up the mountains. And that, my friends, is what is known as The Beginning of the Emotional Roller Coaster that was Day 2, Colca Trek. We were bummed but decided to go on. We asked where the trail continued on to Chacas and the guy we were talking to pointed us in a direction. We found a small trail that took us up terraces and then disappeared. Low spirits. Vaughn had to run back down to Choco and ask where the trailhead was again. He came back to me and said he asked 4 ppl and none of them knew. There was even a lady who, when Vaughn asked, turned to her 5 year old daughter and asked her. Luckily, on our way back down Vaughn spotted another trail that we decided to take. It was the steepest trail ever and looked like it wasn’t going where we wanted it to. We pondered hiking back to Cabanaconde a couple times because we though we were lost, but we kept going. Lower spirits. We hiked up this path through an old abandoned little town, an abandoned post office and a couple big crosses. We kept looking across the canyon at trails thinking we took the wrong one. Even lower spirits. We took a break (not very uncommon that day) and I decided to go a little further on the trail w/o my pack to see if the trail we were on connected with a trail we saw that went in the direction we wanted. And it did!! High spirits!! I came back and told Vaughn and we were ready to go. Unfortunately, the connection had a split, one that went down and one that went up, both in the direction we wanted. Low spirits. If anybody is wondering, this is where Jesus came into play. We were right next to a cross and Vaughn said if the rock he throws at the base of the cross bounces left, we go down; and if it bounces right, we go up. It bounced right, some may even say it struck emphatically to the right like a bolt of lightning. So we took that path and it was correct! I guess all that praying I’ve been doing the past 20 years finally helped me. Unfortunately, Jesus sent us on the second steepest hike I’ve ever done; second only behind the one we did to get to his cross. Spirits rose and fell along the way as cramps and doubts came and left. We are now camping at a wide, flat part of the path. We had rice with curry and carrots for dinner and I’m now going to sleep so I can wake up as sore as I’ve ever been. By the way, my two big toenails are about to pop off because they keep hitting the front of my shoes. Buenos night!

Peru July 22

We took the 5:00 am bus to Cabanaconde. It was very bumpy and very packed (ppl filling the aisles standing). We arrived around 11:30 and went to see Pablo (his real name), who Pablo (Edwin) told us to see. He pointed us in the right direction and also advised we get a mule at Choco. We began by hiking down passed gorgeous terraces and mountains. We passed a couple locals, one being a cute young lady with a bull. We saw here before we saw the bull and she told us to watch out for it because it’s dangerous. So Vaughn freaked out like a little girl and ran off the path while the lady went and got her bull out of the way for us. So courteous. And of course, since I didn’t understand a word the lady said, I freaked out because Vaughn did. And that’s the ONLY reason why!! We kept hiking and ended up running into more bulls which we freaked out about too. This time the bulls had no owners nearby. An old man walked by, right passed the bulls, while we stood frozen in shear terror. We decided to try walking past them, but ended up having the bulls run in our direction. This caused Vaughn to shutter in fear and hop a stone wall, with his heavy pack on, into someone’s terrace. And of course, since I didn’t want Vaughn to feel as if he were in this all by himself, I had to hop the wall as well, and act like I was scared (which of course I wasn’t). We ended up climbing up terraces behind the stone walls to get around the bulls. We then asked some locals where the path was we were on our way again, 30 minutes after the beginning of the whole bull encounter. We ended up following a skinny, rocky road all the way down to the Rio Colca river, passing breathtaking views, interesting grass patterns, a stray mule and a broken down, torn apart truck from at least a couple years ago. Our destination was a bridge on the river. After about 4 ½ hours we began to realize why there is an “ex” in front of the high school athletes. Our feet and muscles started hurting. I got 2 blisters, one which popped before we even got there, and the other just hurt like shit. We finally turned a corner and saw the ridge. It was the beautiful thing I have ever seen (ugly bridge but it meant we could get off our feet). When we reached the bridge, some guy who is the head of a couple ppl working on the bridge, came and said we can camp on the bridge or in a cave on the side of the mountain over the river, if we wanted. We are men, so we chose the cave. So we set up camp in our 6’ by 8’ cave on the side of a cliff over a river. This guy who told us we could camp there came out like 6 times and would whistle at us from the bridge to come talk to him. It was a very creepy situation and Vaughn and I were sure we were gonna get robbed or killed in our sleep. We had spaghetti and sauce for dinner, which was quite good, and then went to sleep, not knowing if we were gonna wake up ever again.

Peru July 21

We arrived in Arequipa bus station around 9 am. We took a taxi into town and it was 5 soles total. Which meant 1 sole per person. Which meant about 33 cents in dollars for a 7-8 minute cab ride. We finally decided on a hostel called La Reyna. It was right across the street from the Monaserio de Santa Catalina. Different Santa unfortunately. It was also a block away from the main plaza of the city, which is quite gorgeous. We had only 4 beds for 5 ppl, but we did have a balcony that looked out over the monastery thing and the city one way, and a mountain and El Misti the other way. It also had about 8 more levels up higher with better views as you went up. It was 13 soles a piece per night, which, divided by three is about $4.30 per night. God I love this place, Jew Heaven. After we checked in we left and had a pre-lunch snack at this café that is worked by all orphan children and one adult. I had a delicious Empinada for 2.50 soles. I splurged because I was helping the children. Vaughn and I then split from the rest of the group to go shopping and to figure out our Colca Canyon hike. We made no progress before lunch at all. We met back up with Hannah, Sarah and Steven and ate lunch at a little nicer restaurant. I had al paca medallions with mashed taters and veggies. I ate all the veggies!!! And the meal was a little expensive, but good. Vaughn and I then went our separate ways again to figure out our trip. We ended up talking to Pablo (whose real name is Edwin, but for some reason we liked to call him Pablo). He was very helpful and told us to come back at 5:00 for the maps of the canyon. So we went out and bought most of what we needed for the trek, finished off by a power shopping spree at the El Super (Arequipan Kroger). We went back at 5:00 and got the maps and some advice, one being to get a mule when we get to Choco because a steep pass is right after it. But, since Vaughn and I are ex-high school athletes (which means we can do anything), we thought to ourselves we wouldn’t need a mule because we are too cool. So we thanked Pablo and left to go to dinner with the group. We ended up going to a restaurant with a 5.50 sole special. I got a huge bowl of delicious unknown soup, a quite tasty steak (decent size), 5 fries and some rice. Not back for $2.00. After dinner Vaughn and I remembered that we needed a pot for the trip. After an hour or so of looking through malls and lit up streets, we decided to go to this one last store and then give up. Low and behold, the store had a pot in our price range!!! We went to bed around 10 because we had to wake up at 5:00 am for our bus to Cabanaconde.

Peru July 20

Ok, I wrote too much on the first day because I had a lot of down time. That won’t happen again. I woke up, ready for a nice hot shower. Well, what I didn’t know is there was no hot water. So I took my first running shower ever. I did not stop moving once. I then watched some soccer and took a cab to the airport. I waited there for 20 minutes until it said on the screen that Vaughn’s plane had arrived. I got all excited and jumped up to go wait for him at the ”Domestic Arrivals” gate. Then I waited some more. And after that, some more. After 45 minutes of waiting after Vaughn’s plane arrived, I decided I would go look elsewhere for him in case I was in the wrong spot. Right when I bent over to pick up my bags, low and behold, Vaughn arrives. Finally. He arrived with three friends: Sarah, Hanna and Steven. They were very nice people and they were coming to Arequipa with us. So we hopped in a cab to find a bus station in downtown Lima (so sketchy by the way) and we ended up riding Cromotex, a member of the prestigious Marco Polo bus family. Unfortunately, we had to wait a couple hours until our bus left. So, since we were hungry, we decided to ask someone where a good place to eat is. Vaughn found a guy and asked him which way we should go to find a decent place to eat, and the guy responded with something along these lines, “I wouldn’t go that way (pointing down the street) because there is a good chance you might get stabbed, and that way (pointing up the street) has less of a chance of a stabbing.” Needless to say we decided to stay the bus station. When we got on the bus, it was a lot nicer than expected. The seats were nice (not as roomy as preferred though), it was a double-decker, and 90’s movie theme songs’ music videos were playing on the television. HEAVEN!!! And then, before I could bask in the pure magnificence of the Lion King, Top Gun and Titanic music videos, the lady put in the most amazing (cheesiest) informational video on Marco Polo buses that I have ever seen!! And you think that’s impressive, after it I watched my first Japanese movie about alien dogs, dubbed over in Spanish!!! I must have just been killed and sent to walk through the Golden Gates!!! The dinner was quite good actually. It was some sort of chicken dish with potatoes and rice, and a tiny head of broccoli (just the way I like it). And we all slept like shit on the bus overnight.

Peru July 19

Two girls just walked by in all black and with cowboy hats on so I decided to start writing. The plane to Philly was nice and it went by quickly. From Philly we departed early on a small little jet. I sat next to a guy who works at University of Maryland in the housing department who was flying to New Jersey to go see a Yankees/Tigers game. Interesting fellow he was. We got stuck in a line of planes and I ended up falling asleep before we even took off. Like I said, interesting fellow. I woke up later in mid-air to find that we had waited in line 40+ minutes for our plane’s turn to blast off!! Bump that. So I just went back to sleep. So now I’m in Newark airport (which is like a mall by the way) sitting at my gate people watching and trying not to fall asleep. And that brings us back to where we began, the two absurdly goofy looking women in cowboy hats. Now a guy w/ a red mohawk type doo just walked by and stared at me. It could have been bc I was staring right back at him, but I’m gonna say it’s b/c I look damn good right now.
So the flight wasn’t aweful. I did find out though that on four hours of sleep I hate children. I was almost asleep before we took off and then we started moving. I never knew a moving plane could get kids so excited. They were yelling and screaming and waking me up. And that was nothing compared to the indescribable chaos that occurred when we took off. So on four hours of sleep with a pounding headache and a 7 hour flight ahead of me to a country in which I don’t speak their language, I had my first EVER thoughts of smothering a child (or 6). But only till they pass out. Watch out fatherhood. But, against all odds, I made it through the flight with Butch and Sundance, Tom Hanks and J.D. and Turk, not to mention a crying baby most of the flight. I had a lovely lady and her daughter next to me. I think the lady’s name was Reyna and she was going to see her family in Peru, where she was raised, for the fist time in 20 years!! She was nice enough to help me get through the airport, which I needed because of my only Spanish being gracias, denada and numbers 1-29. We got split up at the very end when I had to find my cab the hostel sent. The second I stepped foot outside the main lobby I was swamped by taxi drivers asking me if I needed a taxi. I was literally asked by about 25 taxi drivers within the three minutes it took me to find my needle in the haystack of taxi drivers. His name… Henry. He had no sign but he somehow overheard me asking another driver about Pay Purix, my hostel. He yelled my name, and although it was in broken English, it was the most beautiful “Forrest!” I have ever heard in my life. I had found my taxi!! It turned out Henry was part of the family that owned the hostel and he walked me about ten minutes away from the airport to the taxi in Lima in the middle of the night. Sketchy. But we got their and the taxi ride was like taking a taxi in India. At 11:30 at night we somehow managed to honk about 6 times, break hard about 4 times and almost get in about 3 crashes, all on a 3 minute taxi ride with only seeing 2 cars. I did make it to the hostel though and was greeted by Erik, Henry’s older brother who was very nice. He showed me around the place which is very colorful and pretty nice. Unfortunately, Erik made the mistake of challenging me to ping pong after he saw how crappy I was at pool. Big mistake. And somehow, on my first night I met a pretty English girl from Wales. Good way to finish off the first day.

Israel Jan 26

We woke up this morning in a tent while laying on dusty thin mattresses and under dusty, thin, unzipped sleeping bags. We went over to the building next to the tent to have breakfast which, for me, consisted of freshly cooked tortilla type bread with hazelnutless Nutella on it. American athletes eat Wheaties, Bedouin camel riders eat Nutella-like substances on tortilla-like bread. 6 in one, half-dozen in the other. After breakfast it was time to ride the camels!! The Bedouin’s set up an obstacle course with jumps and we were timed on how fast our camel could jump all of them. If a camel hit the a bar, we got points take off. I really wish that was what it was like (especially because Katherine was my camel comrade and she used to be on the equestrian team), but it was fun anyways. I attempted to get pictures of everyone on their camels before Katherine and I got on Seymour (our camel), but I didn’t quite get everyone. We got on and went for about a 20 minute ride with a nice viewpoint about halfway. Riding on a camel with a beautiful girl on Bedouin land: check that off my bucket list. After camel riding we did a canyon hike (I think it’s Nahal Chavarim). It was a great hike and I stayed in the back with Lucia and Courtney again. We did catch up to Ben and Hannah at one point though, because Ben got stuck in some very deep mud that took him a while to get out of. When we caught up with the rest of the group, it was in a little valley. From there, Chen told all of us to spread out, take a seat and have about 15 minutes of meditation/peace time. The most at peace I could ever be is at a high point taking pictures of an amazing view. So that’s what I did. I climbed as high as possible and took pictures. Mike #1 and I were the only two people to climb. It was pretty spectacular. But not even the peace brought me all the way to nirvana. That moment came just after the peace when everyone continued the hike while Andrew, Kyle, Papa Bear and I stayed behind. Now since the dawn of the Birthright age, many a men have attempted to roar topless for the sake of being a man. What they didn’t know is that there was a manlier man out there. Out of all the roars I have ever heard come from topless Jewish men- you know what, I’ll even throw all the Gentile roars in there too- none have been executed with such ferocity and vigor as the one I heard on that day from the man, the myth, the legend, Papa Bear. Against popular belief, the stumble after the roar was not from clumsiness, but from the exhaustion due to the sheer magnitude of energy exerted during the roar. We even got a thumbs up after the stumble from Papa as acknowledgement that he went head first into that dangerous endeavor and made it out alive. That, ladies and gentlemen, was the moment I reached nirvana. If there was a word to describe something more powerful than a roar, that’s what I would use to describe what I experienced. That’s why I came up with my own word. From now on, I will refer not to it as “Papa’s roar”, but the more powerful and meaningful “Papa’s chen”. The rest of the hike can’t match what just happened, so there is no point in describing it. After the hike we went to Ben Gurion’s home, which is now a museum. It’s up high and has a great view of the surrounding desert canyon/mountains. We all had lunch up there as well, at a place 200 yards from the museum. After lunch we had about 10 minutes to waste before we left. So, in a move that SHOULD be unexpected from a group of 22-26 year olds (but really didn’t surprise me with this group), everyone went over to the playground and went down the slides and rode the bouncy horsies. You should only lose your inner child the second you die, because if it’s any earlier, you might as well be dead. That’s why I loved this group so much…unlimited amount of inner child. We then got on the bus and headed to a kibbutz where we picked a bunch of fresh produce including carrots, tomatoes, basil, cumquats (tiny orange type fruits about the size of large grapes), mini lemons and mini limes. With the cumquats and mini lemons/limes we made necklaces. Some people also got to hold homing pigeons and release them in one big moment of glory. Before Eugene let go, he let me and a couple other people take pictures of him kissing his pigeon. Whenever I feel down now, I just think of that image and it makes me smile. There is actually an innumerable amount of moments on the trip that would make me smile, but this image is just a notch above. After that we headed to Tel Aviv and did a very interesting text study/discussion before we went to our hotel. Almost the moment Kyle, Andrew and I got to our room, Kyle went to do his business. I’m sure it was lovely, but it’s obviously something most people prefer to dispense of as soon as possible. Unfortunately, it clogged the toilet (well done Kyle) and it wouldn’t flush. So we called to the desk for help because the hall and the elevators already smelled like #2, and we didn’t need our room to as well. So he came up and had no tools in hand. He asked what happened and confidently strolled into the bathroom. About 10 seconds later we heard a loud noise and a scream from the bathroom. Andrew and Kyle ran to check on him and he calmly responded that he was ok. He then just poured a bunch of water into the toiled and flushed. Clean as a whistle. After that and Andrew’s 6 hour shower, everyone went out to a bar right on the Mediterranean. Tal met up with us in Tel Aviv and came out to the bar with everyone, which made my night. Viktoria, Dan, Stacey and I left the bar after a little while to go walk on the beach for a couple minutes. When we got back to the bar, some people were about to head to a club and some were heading back to the hotel. I was pooped so I headed back and fell asleep soon after.

Israel Jan 25

We began the day with a great hike. The “outdoors” was finally connecting with the Israel, and I loved it. This hike was up to Mt. Zephacot, an overlook of the Red Sea. The hike started out basically flat and going through beautiful desert mountain scenery. I was way behind because I stayed back with Courtney and Lucia. I felt bad for Courtney because her foot was hurting so she couldn’t keep up with Chen’s pace. They ended up not letting her finish this hike, which was a real bummer. But while I was still with her and Lucia, we sang songs and made random animal noises. Israel brings out the best in everybody. Eventually we caught up with the group halfway through the hike because Chen stopped to talk. We also got a wonderful performance of animal behavior by Mike #1, Jenn, Andrew and Kyle. To sum up the performance, Mike narrated, Andrew and Kyle sang love songs and rubbed asses together, and Andrew rubbed harder so he got the prize, Jenn. I see a Tony in their futures. This is where Chen made Courtney stop because we were about to go steep uphill. We climbed uphill for a couple minutes and Chen made us hold hands and walk up the last 10 yards with our eyes closed to make the view a surprise. I almost tripped about 3 times. Chen would have had a lawsuit on his hands if I face-planted and damaged the money maker. When we got to the top, the view was so worth the tripping. Of course I immediately got my camera out and started snapping. I followed my life motto perfectly: “take way too many pictures, it will never be enough”. The view was breathtaking. We could see Jordan and Saudi Arabia across the Red Sea and Egypt right next to us. I walked away from the group for a couple minutes just to soak it all in before I got lassoed back by Jenna. The hike back down the other side had amazing views and was very steep. It also brought us our first roar. Ryan was up ahead and Kyle told Andrew to yell at him to roar. The roar was so beautiful. I felt as if Mr. T was whispering sweet nothings into my ear. I can’t say that Jenna felt the same way as me. She was right next to him and didn’t see it coming. It is very likely that the crotch of her pants was soaked after that one. Speaking of peeing, Andrew and Kyle made me take a picture of them peeing off some rocks from behind, too. No further discussion of that. After the hike we rode back to the beach for our 2 hour time on own at the Red Sea. Right when we got there we had to take a quick group picture. After the picture, Kyle told me to slap Andrew’s ass as hard as I possibly could and he would tape it. Unfortunately, I did it. I could have sworn Andrew took two huge rocks from the hike and stuck them down the back of his pants. That boy must get to the gym. My hand was throbbing for the next 10 minutes. He got me back later on the bus, which I prefer not to recount. As much as I want to forget how bad his revenge was, I would like to forget what happened next even more. But I can’t. So I’m going to briefly go over it. We went to the first restaurant we passed by and sat down. There were great seats right on the water, but Farrah, Jordan, Dave, Josh, Shayna, Andrew, Kyle and me sat under the shelter. The waiter came and we put our orders in. 10 minutes later we find out they only have enough meat for 2 kabobs and we ordered 3, so I changed to a burger. Shit hit the fan from there because our waiter wasn’t the smartest duck in the pond. Actually, he could have possibly been the dumbest. He claimed he was hit by a car 4 years ago. With how stupid he was, I’d be tempted to believe him. All the food came out at different times and Jordan and I never got ours. We complained and the waiter tried to fix things but just made it all worse. Kyle couldn’t complain to the manager because the manager only spoke Hebrew (this is starting to sound like the plot for a Seinfeld episode). The waiter brought us the check and it was way too much. Arguments ensued. Yada yada yada. We calculated on a calculator what the actual bill should be and that’s what we left there, then everyone walked away. I walked 10 feet to the seats on the beach and the waiter asked me about the tip. I replied, “No soup for you!!” Actually, I just said no, but I wish I had said that. After about 10 more minutes the waiter came to Katherine and I and tried to get Katherine to pay 46 shekels for my burger that I never got. I know, it makes no sense. Katherine wasn’t even at our table. The waiter said he was gonna go get something to prove he was right. When he left to get it, Katherine and I walked away. By the time people got their food and the arguing was over, our 2 hours was up. So we got on the bus and headed to a surprise (which I already knew). It was Nir’s air force base!! On the bus ride people shared crazing dating stories, my favorite of which being Michelle smacking a guy in the face with a slice of pizza. I never appreciated her not hating me more than at that moment. Also on the ride, Chen got on the mic and said something about the Base of the Vaginas and Vagina Mountain, but nobody really heard exactly what they were. And for Jordana’s sake, I’ll say vagina 6 more times. When we got to the base, I was as excited as a group of 22-26 year olds at a playground. When I saw Nir I ran up to him and gave him a big hug. He looked a little embarrassed to be hugged by a handsome man in front of the 3 air force girls that were there, but I don’t care. I couldn’t help myself. And I know he enjoyed it. Nir took us back to a room to watch a video and then he did a quick powerpoint presentation for us. After that, we went to go see the Apache helicopters that he flies. We started by having Nir tell us all about the helicopter. Unfortunately, he is not much of a public speaker so no one could hear him over the background noise except Andrew, because Andrew was practically humping his leg like a dog (I’m so jealous of Andrew). Then, after Nir talked, he let everybody get in the helicopter! Andrew was first to go in as an example after Nir shook him off his leg. Andrew got to put the helmet on and the eye piece and the whole shebang. Damn you, Andrew!! Kyle and I decided to wait till the end so we cold be Maverick and Goose without people rushing us. It was so cool!! I got the front gunner position so I was Goose, and Kyle was the pilot in the back so he was Maverick. Lucia ended up going after us, so I guess that makes her Iceman. I knew I wouldn’t die during ejection like Goose though, because helicopters don’t have ejection seats. What happens is the gun underneath the front of the helicopter moves into a position where it won’t, as Nir said, “go up the gunner’s ass”, and the engine’s drop off to make for a lighter landing. I found that very interesting. There wasn’t much room in the helicopter seats, but they were actually kinda comfy. Also, there were 293,394-ish buttons in the chopper, and somehow Nir knows what each one does. Sadly, we eventually had to leave Nir and the base. We drove Nir back to his building and before he got off, he came down the isle to the back of the bus for the sole purpose of giving me and Andrew goodbye hugs. Roommates for 5 days are roommates forever. He even gave me a kiss on the cheek!! Haven’t washed the right since. It’s hard to keep up, but so worth it!! I felt special after that hug, even though he probably did it because he knew that Andrew and I would chase him down if he didn’t. So we rode off into the night to our Bedouin tent. We got to the tent, which was made of, maybe, goat skin? It was also heated. We started out by seeing a presentation by a “real” Bedouin. I put real in quotes not because he wasn’t a real Bedouin, but because his presentation was scripted and touristy. At the end of his presentation he told us a joke, but it had to be translated by Chen because I guess it wasn’t part of the English script. The funniest parts were when the Bedouin would tell Chen the next part to translate, and he would laugh so hard with his yellow rotting teeth on display. So funny! Then Chen would translate it to us in English and it wouldn’t really make sense at all, or be funny. After that was dinner. We sat on cushions on the floor and had delicious kabobs with rice, hummus and tortillas. Great dinner! Afterward there was a small bonfire outside. But before I went to that, I saw that Katherine was cracking people’s backs. I felt bad asking her to crack mine too, because there was a huge line. But with my bad back problems for the past 8 years, I’ve learned never to pass up an opportunity to make it feel a little better for a second. That was the second time I fell in love with Katherine on this trip. Katherine, if you ever read this somehow, I owe you big time!! Whatever you need. So I went after to the fire for a little bit. When it got too windy and cold I headed in and relaxed on my double 2-inch mattress bed for a while. While talking to Jordana there, I found out her ultimate unreachable dream job was to be a National Geographic photographer. She has to be cool, because any person that has the exact same ultimate unreachable dream job as me obviously has to be cool. After a little while talking to her I fell asleep somehow, amidst the jibber-jabber of Freddie, Jesse and Mike #1.

Israel Jan 24

Everyone was so excited to wake up at 4:30 this morning! The reason for the early wake up was so we could make it to Masada to see the sunrise. Very worth it, and romantic as well. And I am the kind of person that never likes to waste a good romantic moment. So, I spent the beautiful sunrise taking pictures with Kyle and Andrew. Fulfill romantic moment? Check. I think out of the 50 or so people pictures that were on my camera from Masada, 75 of them either have Andrew in them or were taken by him. At least there were no mirrors up there so he couldn’t take pictures of himself topless. I do remember taking one picture though, one that will be etched in my memory forever and ever: the very first tiger picture of Lucy. Grrrrrrrrr! Masada was great and had spectacular 360 degree views with the Dead Sea on one side and the desert the rest of the way around. The way down Masada we took the snake path which is a decently steep downhill, which was pure happiness flowing through my knees. From the snake path we walked 2 minutes to our breakfast location. Breakfast was the usual food, but I got lucky enough to sit with Jordana, Katherine, Pheobe, Anna and Melissa. Breakfast with beautiful girls in a beautiful place, what else could I ask for? Maybe dinner? No. The one thing more I could have hoped for appeared on my trip up for a bit of hummus. Her name was Mira. Just typing the name gives me goose bumps. Many people joked about her being my mom, but the immediate connection we had was no joke. It was like love at first sight, or something along those lines. At the end of breakfast I got my picture eating with Jordana. Phew. Almost missed that opportunity because of Mira. After breakfast we went on what must have been the Ein Bokek nature walk. It was a short canyon hike with gorgeous blue-green water and a nice waterfall at the end. Jenn, Michelle and Jesse jumped in a pool about half way up the hike which looked like so much fun, but I didn’t want to get my clothes wet for the 2 hour bus ride later. Jesse jumped in wearing just his Under Armor underwear and his Brooklyn tan. I’ve never seen him look more like a rapper than at that moment. During Chen’s talk by the waterfall, Eva took my camera and took pictures of random things around her and tried to explain how each picture represented Israel in some way. Absolutely hilarious!! We then had a couple people say how they were feeling about the soldiers leaving. I’m not gonna admit how close I was to crying when I did my tiny little speech. I would write down everything I feel about the soldiers leaving write here but I honestly can’t. First of all, it would take up the rest of the pages in my journal and I need them for the rest of the days. Secondly, it’s been 3 days since I got back and I haven’t looked at my pictures yet because they make me a little sad. If looking at pictures makes me sad, writing my feelings down would be a disaster. So the soldiers left and we went to Ein Bokek beach, our own private beach on the Dead Sea. The sun was playing hide and seek with us and the water was a little chilly. I just wanna say now that the most impressive feat of the day was that Josh floated in the sea basically the whole time we were there, and it was chilly. He just laid back, floated and drank a beer. On my way in it took a while for me to get in all the way. I stood there with Shayna, at a water level just below the danger zone, for about ten minutes before both of us ended up going in. It was really something else. You think about how it will feel to float in the Dead Sea, but it’s just so much better actually doing it. I’m not even gonna attempt to describe it. On the way out, I got the salt from the sea floor rubbed on my back (I don’t remember too clearly by who, but I’m sure it was an attractive girl) which actually felt really good. My skin was as soft as a baby’s bottom after that. Then, Papa Bear came in, and it was so funny that we asked him to go back out and do it again so we could get it on video. When we got out, my skin had a greasy feel to it. Weird. Then, on the way to the outdoor shower, Andrew, Stu, Kyle and I saw something that really only we need to know. Then Andrew started singing about it. Hilarious!! We then ate lunch and relaxed for a while before getting back on the bus to head to Eilat. When we got to Eilat, we had a free night out on the boardwalk. Who woulda thunk that 22-26 year olds would have to be told when they have a free night out? But hey, when I pay for my own trip, I’ll choose my nights out. Viktoria and I walked the boardwalk for a while looking at shops and stuff. It was nice, and we came across a shop with stuffed dancing dwarves from the 7 dwarves. Jesse and Music Mike were with us at the time. Jesse picked up one of the dwarves and pressed his hand to make him sing. To no one’s surprise, the dwarf sang the same line over and over again. To everyone’s surprise, the last word of the repeated line was the n-word!! We were all delightfully shocked. After that, Viktoria and I kept walking and eventually made it to the big screen where the Jets game was playing. A bunch of us sat and watched the game, and were surrounded by even more obnoxious Jews, many of them older gentleman. I blinked my eyes a couple times and then opened them to make sure I wasn’t in the Carnegie Deli. I headed back at halftime and ended up going to bed a couple minutes later.

Israel Jan 23

Slept late this morning. Amazing!!! Not too much happened today. Neil Lazarus talked to us about Middle East politics and jammed a semester’s worth of info into an hour. Loved his British accent though. We also went for a walk around the neighborhood which was really nice. On the walk we walked by the biblical zoo, which is the only name of anything on the walk I remember. I ended up in the back, like always, because of my lack of walking speed and my disease that forces me to take too many pictures. Luckily Shayna stayed back with me and kept me company, and Courtney and Lucia were in the back as well. After the walk we headed on the bus to the Negev and stayed the night in a hostel. I sat next to Eva on the ride and we played dots and talked. OBVIOUSLY I let her beat me in dots. We got to the hostel, Andrew, Nir and I had our nightly talk, and then we went to bed because we had to wake up early the next morning.

Israel Jan 22

What a gorgeous day!! We woke up and drove to the Haas Promenade, a viewpoint over a valley of the old city. It was a wonderful view but I just couldn’t seem to work it into a good picture. We took a group picture there and Chen told us all the things we were looking at, and then we got back on the bus and continued to the old city. On the bus I found out that Ronan loves Seinfeld and so do many Israelis. Israel just became a little more attractive to me when I found that out. The first thing we saw when we got off the bus at the old city was t he bullet holes in the side of the wall. Makes you count your lucky stars. We started walking through parts of it and it was as beautiful a city as there is, not only visually but historically as well. And luckily the weather was just as beautiful as the city. We walked by a residence in the city and Eva told me that it was owned by a rich American couple who hosts soldiers to dinner quite often. She had been there once before for dinner which is why she knew that. Along the lines of her getting special treatment, she told me later sometime that she got a pendant from the wife of the Prime Minister of Georgia when she came to her base. She showed me a picture of it. It wasn’t the prettiest piece of jewelry I’ve ever seen, but it was still really cool. But anyways, after a little while we had shopping time on own in a little market. Adam and Jenna guarded the end of the market where it turned into the Arab market. We weren’t allowed to got into the Arab market for safety reasons I guess. In the market, Nadav bought an “Israeli bagel” and let everyone try it. It was a big piece of dough that you dip in this salty, dry spice mixture. It was very salty but tasted quite good. We then left the market to head to the Western wall. We had to go through security to get into the courtyard of the wall. Because Andrew, Kyle, Lucia and I were way behind (because Andrew wanted to take a picture that looked like he was holding up the dome on the Dome of the Rock), we missed out on Ben’s little debacle. Apparently he didn’t tell anyone he had a knife longer than the width of his 4 fingers in his pocket, so he got caught at security. Nir tried to fix everything because he is in the service, but he wasn’t a guard like them (I personally would have succumbed to his charm). So Ronan had to help, and because he is a guard, they let Ben off the hook and Ronan had to hold his knife. Ben apparently would have gone to jail if Ronan didn’t save him. Hey, shit happens, right? So after we made it through security we headed to the wall. On the way I tried to take a picture of the Israeli flag flying in front of the wall, but the wind wouldn’t blow it. Bummer. Also on the way to the wall, there was a bucket thing with paper kippahs in it for people that didn’t have one to wear to the wall. SOUVENIER!! Before we put our notes in the wall, we went into the synagogue in the tunnel to the left of the wall. It was quite interesting, and I feel bad for the girls because they couldn’t come on the men’s side to see the synagogue. Men couldn’t go on the women’s side either, but I’m sure there was nothing as cool as the tunnel synagogue over there. Boo ya! There were some odd outfits, styles and looks in the synagogue and at the wall, including boxes on people foreheads and straps wrapping all up peoples arms. But who am I to judge considering all I wear ever is pajamas, sweat pants and gym shorts. Whatever makes you happy and gives you peace of mind. There was also a small part of the floor that was glass so we could see how high the wall was at one point and all the different levels of it. We then went to go put our notes in the wall outside. We all got picture doing it (Andrew, Kyle and I) and I put Raji’s note in for him as well as mine. I’ll never tell Chen, but I didn’t feel anything powerful when I was at the wall other than the history. I guess I wasn’t blessed with the gift of faith. The good thing about that though is it forces me to live the hell out of life until I die. When we left the wall we went to meet at the flag. I tried to get Eva to take a picture with me but she denied me. Devastating!! I would have shed a tear if it wouldn’t have ruined my reputation as a manly man. I’m an optimist though; I like to think she wouldn’t take a picture with me because I would have made her look bad (even though it’s not possible for me to make someone look bad in a picture, especially her). But hey, every time a door closes another one opens. And mine opened: the wind blew and I got my picture of the Israeli flag in front of the wall that I couldn’t get before. Hell ya!!! After we all met there we got a group picture and left the old city. I would have liked to see some of the Christian and Muslim sites while we were there, but I guess I’ll have to wait till I finally get accepted to the Southern Baptist Ministries Birthright trip. I’m crossing my fingers. After the old city I know we went to Mahane Yehuda, the marketplace, but for the life of me I can’t remember it. So anyways, we headed back after the marketplace and relaxed before Shabbat. The Shabbat dinner was quite good and afterwards everybody started pounding on the tables and clapping and singing for about an hour straight. We could totally make a Stomp video purely from Shabbat dinner. Later that night we gathered together for a little mitzvah. We snacked on all different snacks that people bought from the market earlier that day. We relaxed and talked afterwards for a while, until Eva decided she wanted to play “sheep”. So we gathered people and ended up with a huge game. I have never had more fun and laughs acting like a kindergartener. After “sheep”, Andrew, Laura, Shayna, Anna, Nir and I went to our room to play Yaniff, an Israeli game that, according to Nir, was invented by tankers. It’s a great game and it took the new people a while to get the hang of it. While playing, people started trickling in and watching, talking, playing music and whatever. Then Courtney came in and said, “I brought friends!” Behind her were 9 Argentineans, all guys (throwing off my ratio). Before we knew it we had 22 people in our room (Andrew counted). So of course, what else do you do with 22 people other than play “sheep”!! It lasted for a little while then everyone just started talking and what not. We were up late because we didn’t have to wake up till 11:30 the next morning because of Shabbat. I was tired so I got up and laid down behind Eva and Lindsay on Andrew’s bed just to relax. I guess I gave off some bad vibes doing that because, within 10 seconds of me moving, everybody had gotten up and left. You mess up the order and chaos follows. I like to think it’s because everybody was intimidated by me, and when the big boy is tired people get the hell out of his room. Wishful thinking. About 5 minutes after everyone had left, Laura and Anna came back in the room “looking for their key.” I think it was actually a classic case of the George Costanza leave behind, but what do I know. Either way, they got a heck of a show. When they came in, Nir and I were in bed (in only our underwear of course) and we both pulled our covers off to our waste to help look for the key (the ironic part is that Andrew, of all people, was the only one without his shirt off). I thought our rock-hard chiseled upper bodies were enough to make any girl melt, but Nir decided to bring out the big guns. He got out of bed and stood up in his tight underwear, with his FedEx package very prominent in the front and a tiger on his ass. What a fucking man!! And the best part is that he put a shirt on (common courtesy, of course), but it didn’t even reach his undies, so it left everything that was previously showing, showing. That was the moment that I fell in love with Nir Hunger. The rest of the story is for me and the other participants to know, and whoever reads this to…well…not know. Needless to say, we never found the key :)

Israel Jan 21

Today was Yad Vashem day. We woke up, ate and headed to the museum. Its ironic that the day we go to a museum about one of the darkest times in all of history is our first bright, sunshiny and gorgeous day. Beat that Alanis Morrisette. The museum is up on the side of a mountain and the view is quite decent. Our tour guide’s name is presently slipping my mind (probably because I never knew it), but he looked EXACTLY like a miniature Desmond from Lost. Desmond Jr. seemed to have Chenanitis, an untreatable disease where the victim suffers from a lack of ability to stop talking and takes forever to get to the point, but has great info that is very interesting when the listener puts all the facts together. I stayed a little behind the group the whole way so I could take my time and read and see everything. I took my headset off when I wanted quiet, and put it back on when I wanted to listen to Desmond Jr. The museum was truly amazing. We walked by the Garden of the Righteous, where trees are planted for non-Jews (I think) who did extraordinary things to save countless lives in the Holocaust. We saw Oscar Schindler’s tree, but we didn’t really get to walk through the garden. The inside of the museum had so many artifacts and pictures and stories, it was pretty indescribable. The most amazing thing to me was seeing an original copy of Mein Kampf. It was just a surreal moment. Seeing all different kinds of weapons, tools, clothes, possessions and other stuff and reading all of the stories that go along with them was mind-blowing as well. After we finished walking through the museum (I was the last one out with Courtney, and I could have stayed for hours longer), we went to another building and listened to a Holocaust survivor talk. He was 76 I think, and was a wonderful speaker. He also had a sense of humor about many things, which impressed me very much. That’s the kind of person I hope to be; someone that can stay positive and keep a sense of humor in any situation. I guess laughter really is the best medicine. After the speech we ate Israeli pizza (totally lives up to its reputation). We then hiked 5 minutes to the top of the mountain to Har Herzl, the national memorial where all ex-leaders and heroes, along with military personnel have the option of being buried. Theodore Herzl is also buried there, hence the name Mt. Herzl. Golda Mier is also buried up there. It’s an aesthetically pleasing place and we walked around most of it. This is where Chen told us about his time in service and how most of his missions are confidential and secret. We continued to get story after story from Chen and some of the soldiers and it turned out to be quite emotional. When leaving, we all washed our hands, which is ritual when leaving a cemetery. We then went back to relax and eat dinner before going to the incredible, amazing, mind-blowingly impressive Jerusalem Time Elevator!!! This was an interactive ride that was such an intense trip through history that we had to be pinned in by a bar like on a roller coaster at the state fair. Looking back now, my guess for the reason for the bar is so we don’t jump out of our seats from pure joy and excitement. The ride opened with a lady dressed as if she would be working at a hot dog stand in the mall, with a yellow suit and small cap on. She was standing outside our “elevator” on the screen. While in the middle of listening to the hot dog lady introduce everything, the elevator started to collapse and the seats shook. The lady looked genuinely concerned about our safety in the elevator and tried to help us. Unfortunately, we broke all the off and started falling. Down and down we went and the seats shook violently. My heart sank. They say your life flashes before your eyes right before you think you are gonna die. They are right. I saw Power Rangers, Captain Planet and that delicious steak I had in Peru. Heck of a life I’ve lived. As the opening line of Twilight most famously (sort of) says, “I’ve never given much thought to how I would die” (the only reason I know that is because my…uh…sister is watching it right now). I haven’t ever thought about it either, but I can’t say I ever woulda thought it would be in the Jerusalem Time Elevator. By what I could only imagine as the grace of God, our elevator got caught on something. The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes from the coma of fear I was in was an old man with a long beard in a Moses robe. I thought to myself, “I must be in Heaven”. It turned out he was just another guide, this time from the past. He took us past ruins and through stories and through mine tunnels reminiscent of those in Indian Jones movies. We even splashed into some water and, what do you know, water sprinkled from the ceiling and got us a little wet. The violent shaking of the seats along with the pure adrenaline rush of the history lesson excited me to sleep. I missed the last 15 minutes. When I woke up it was time to go clubbing. We had about 45 minutes to roam around before clubbing so we walked around for a little while. Eva bought this snack which is a marshmallow like substance (which she kept insisting wasn’t marshmallow) with a cookie underneath and all covered in chocolate. Quite delicious, but then again how could you go wrong with that combination? So we then went to a club called Triple, I think. It was upstairs atop a bar and it was a pretty small dance floor. But as I always say, it’s not about the size of the dance floor that makes the party, it’s how drunk you can get everyone. And considering the bartender got confused all the time and gave so many free drinks out accidentally, we did a pretty good job of getting drunk (besides myself and a few others). So it was a blast!! I’ve never had so much fun making a fool of myself. Eva dragged me out and got me dancing first, and I didn’t stop the rest of the night except for a breather from time to time. Reminders of how out of shape I am. Love those moments. And the three things from that night that stick out the most are Chen dancing, Rebecca doing her best to help me out with a favor, and most of all, Katherine trumpeting. I will forever be in love with her for doing that. She could possibly be the next Louis Armstrong. Eugene was a dancing machine as well. After clubbing we got back and the hall was loud for a little while before we went to bed.

Israel Jan 20

I was excited about this morning because on the itinerary it says canyon hike. That usually means great pictures. But what’s new, it rained and the hike got cancelled. But the good thing is that fun comes from the inside and the people around you. I got lucky on this trip to get such a wacky, good group of people. So we started off the day by driving to an olive oil plant and taking a tour. The drives on the bus are actually quite fun. I sit in the back with the cool kids. We trade Pokemon cards. Today Andrew traded me a Charazard for a Squirtle. What a loser!! Kyle’s sack lunch also broke and his egg salad sandwich and string cheese fell out. That stinks because I was gonna trade my tapioca snack pack for his string cheese. Bummer. Then little Josh tried to sit in the back, but he isn’t cool enough. So we gave him a noogie, purple nurple and Indian sunburn!! Triple threat!! Apollo, the bus driver, saw us and made us sit back down. But on the real, we just sit back there and chat and play games and what not. It’s always interesting to hear Andrew’s analysis of girls, too. Watch out Dr. Phil. But the ride to the olive oil plant had a gorgeous view of the Sea of Galilee as we got higher and higher. It was cloudy, but still an amazing view. When we got to the plant, a lady greeted us and sent us first to a tiny theater with wooden benches. We watched a video on the plant we were at and all the products and how they are made. Before I continue on to describe the film in detail, I’d just like to say how baffled I am that this movie got snubbed from an Academy Award nomination last year. The only way I could sum up the film is a transcendingly brilliant melding of Citizen Kane and Tootsie. Tempting, I know. It starred one man in about 6-7 roles including an explorer, olive oil connoisseur, scientist and a woman, among others. This one man acting machine took us through the basics of how olive oil is made with the smoothness of an ice cold Mellow Yellow. The fact that all of his accents for his characters could barely be distinguished from each other emphasized the unity of the nation of Israel. It’s those subtle inferences and morals that are the foundation of the classics. His cane with a seat on top showed the pure sophistication of that character. And when he sat on it, it looked as if it was up his ass, which showed his toughness (I guess). Andrew actually thought it was up his ass the whole time until we told him later about the seat on top. When the actor dressed as a woman, my heart melted. The six inches of makeup, horribly unrealistic blonde wig and the seductively manly voice would make any transvestite loving man weak at the knees. I know I’ve been stuck on the superb acting, but the background/scenery deserves some recognition as well. The one scene that gets across the brilliance of the background for the whole movie is what I like to call the fountain scene. The actor is talking while standing, but it looks like he is floating because of his placement in front of the green screen. Behind him is the lobby of the building with a fountain and two people sitting on the bench. The mind-blowingly artistic part of it was that the fountain was frozen in time and the people never moved once, not an inch. The background was a still picture action shot. Rebecca was laughing her behind off next to me, but I personally was mesmerized by the pure genius of the movie. I don’t know about other people, but this could possibly be the next German Expressionism. Well I think I’ve plead my case for an Oscar. After the instant classic, we took a short tour of the plant. The best part was the testing and tasting. We washed our hands in freezing cold water (it was very cold around us too) with the soap they make out of the pits and skins of the olives. The soap just looked like wet, wet mud in a bucket, but it felt good and smelled good. The soap was fun once I got past the mental barrier of having a shit-like substance all over my hands. We then tasted the yellow, green and black label olive oils by dipping bread pieces into them. They had a bunch of bread and I kept dipping and dipping because all three olive oils were delicious. Jake would have loved it. Sadly, Andrew’s stomach felt awful and he complained all day (not an uncommon occurrence). And I had to be his roommate that night. Let’s just say nose plugs would have been nice that night. I felt bad but luckily he got better pretty quickly. So I don’t know how much he enjoyed the tasting. Besides tasting the olive oils, many people tried out facial products ranging from lip balm to moisturizer. After that we went upstairs and finally met the soldiers. To break the ice we did a game where each table of Americans did a skit on stereotypes of Israeli soldiers, and the one table of soldiers did a skit on stereotypes of Americans. For our skit I put Courtney’s puffy vest on to show my muscles off and we said they were strong (I flexed), sexy (I posed), and they love hummus (musician Mike held his hands out and I scooped imaginary hummus out of his hands and rubbed it all over my body. Needless to say there was drool on the tables from all the girls and jealousy in the air from all the guys. The soldiers did theirs on valley girls. Yael and Nadav played boyfriend and girlfriend in the mall. Eva walked in and Yael said how happy she was to see her and how nice her hair was, then when Eva left, Yael turned to Nadav and said how much she hates her. Right on spot with American girls. She also acted like she broke a finger nail and completely over reacted about it. It’s like these people have lived in America their whole lives. Mike’s group was quite funny as well. Mike stood up and said one descriptive word at a time while someone in the group would act it out quickly. After the skits, each soldier went with a group of us to make it more personal and we drilled them with questions. My group got Eva. She was gorgeous and had a dry, assholish sense of humor, but was very nice as well. What else could I ask for in a girl? Anyways, she is a commander in the army and is 21 years old. She trains soldiers. The other soldiers were Nadav (in engineering school, hilarious, and calls me Ya’al, which is forest in Hebrew), Ronan (outgoing prison guard who is hilarious; he is married and has a son, and he loves Seinfeld, the Chicago Bulls and Larry Bird), Nir (22 year old apache helicopter pilot with a bachelors degree and the face of a young George Clooney; a little shy until you get to know him well, which I was lucky enough to do as his roommate for 5 nights), Yael (pretty girl; I think she does HR for the army; always says “run Forrest, run”; never thought I would miss anyone saying that), Ashii (not sure what he does in the service, I think he is just in the Army; very funny, and his lack of English speaking skills makes him 10X funnier), Tal (cute; not sure what she does either; crazy and I love it; probably the best English speaker out of all of them) and Meital (the only blonde in the group; funny like the rest and loved to take group photos; the only other student other than Nadav). After intros we left to go to the Hamei Tueria hot springs in Tiberius. There was an indoor one and an outdoor one. The outdoor one had a gorgeous view of the sea but it was a little cloudy and drizzling (the drizzle felt nice in the outdoor one). The minerals in the water were supposed to be healthy for the skin and body. Let’s just say I wouldn’t put my trust in those “minerals” to help me physically, mentally or spiritually. It did feel great though. The sign said to stay in no longer than 15 minutes at a time; it’s a wonder why I was light-headed when I got out. And then, when I was changing, the unthinkable happened (or at least unthinkable in my mind): an orthodox Jew singing “shawty fire burning on the dance floor”!! What the Moses!? Jordana heard it and thought it was me at first, but then realized that the voice didn’t sound like Frank Sinatra so it couldn’t have been me. But that’s not all!! If you call within the next 5 minutes, you get a free “my n@#*!r” with the song. I started yelling “shawty!” for the heck of it and the guy said to me, “my n-word” (but actually said the word)!! Shocking. We all got changed, finished off my pull and peel Twizzlers and got on the bus to Jerusalem. On the bus I somehow got on late and didn’t have a seat in the back so I sat in front with Nir and talked to him for a while. He has Norah Jones on his ipod too!!! I had an epiphany at that moment in the front of the bus: cool people don’t necessarily sit in the back! Who woulda thunk? Ya learn something new everyday. I ended up rooming with Nir and Andrew that night, which was the start of something great.

Israel Jan 19

I slept like a baby and woke up energized at 6:30. So to waste the time until 7:00 I roamed around the kibbutz and found an amazing view of a valley leading into the Sea of Galilee. We then ate breakfast which consisted of many different veggies and yogurts, pudding, hard-boiled and scrambled eggs. Yum yum in my tum tum. We then sat through one of many of Chen’s inspirational, very informative talks with thrice repeated and over emphasized points and the lack of ability to condense a story into the normal human length. But don’t let that sentence fool you, Chen knows his stuff and is the best tour guide I could have ever imagined having. The reason we had this talk at the kibbutz is because it was raining and we couldn’t do the hike we were supposed to do. After the talk we headed to Tzfat, the Jewish mysticisms place. It was foggy but a nice little quaint place on top of a mountain, which would have had a gorgeous view if we could see more than 10 feet in front of us. We had a presentation by an artist who is from the US but moved to Tzfat 30 years ago to learn more about the Kabbalah. His artistic talent was good but nothing to write home about, but he explained Kabbalah through and in his work which made the pictures 10X more interesting. He was a little creepy because it seemed like a spirit would take him over for seconds at a time and send him into a blank stare that would burn a hole in the back wall. After the artist we went to a synagogue. Walking into the synagogue I got yelled at by this little old man for having nothing on my head, so he gave me a kippah. On the way out he was begging for money from everybody, but for some reason he didn’t ask me. Luck shows its face in many forms. After the synagogue we at lunch. I had a chicken shwarma in pita with hummus and this weird sweet/spicy sauce. It was actually quite delicious. After Tzfat we left to Yraon winery for a tour and tasting. I was tempted to get Dad a drinking wine at the shop and Jake a cooking wine. I then realized not only that I don’t know the difference, but I know nothing at all about wine in general. So there goes that. We took a tour with a lady guide who told us about everything. The best part was the barrels and how they were stored. For some reason that room seemed cool to me. We also watched a movie about the company that was absurdly cheesy, with a man (I would personally categorize him as a tool from my first impression) smelling and tasting wine and a random girl in a red dress dancing all over the screen. After that we went back to the kibbutz and ate dinner. After dinner I played cards with Viktoria, Dan and Eugene. Viktoria taught us “fool”, a Russian card game that I can’t remember the Russian name for. We played for a while and then headed to the bar where most others were for a couple minutes before heading back to hit the hay.

Israel Jan 17-18

The time-zone change really screwed me up so I’m blending the 17^th and 18^th together because I don’t know the difference. That’s what 36 hours without sleep does to me. Woke up at 6 am to catch the 7:55 plane to JFK. When I got to JFK at 9:30 I had to waste time until 2:00 in JFK. A dream come true. I walked as slowly as possible through terminal 8 three times looking at shops and people to waste time. Then took the air tran to terminal 4 where I was to meet the group. Unfortunately that wasn’t for another 3 ½ hours. Luckily there is a small little shopping mall outside security in terminal 4 to waste time in. Many testings of Brookstone massagers, some Chinese food, an article about an illegal animal smuggler kingpin (very interesting actually), and 1,656 games of pyramid solitaire later it was time to meet up with the group next to Swiss Airlines. I found 5 Jewish looking 22-26 years olds in front of the Swiss Air counter. Dan, Ryan, Lindsay and Farrah and Jordan were the 5. They were very nice people and we continued to pick out lost looking Jews to join the group. After everybody gathered we got our tickets and made it through security with ease. I hung out with Courtney and Laura most of the time until we took off. On the plane to Zurich, Freddie asked to switch seats with me (so he could sit next to Lindsay, DO WORK!) and I agreed. Little did I know it would send me in a whirlwind of bromance that would not end. I ended up sitting next to Kyle, a Target pharmacist from NJ, whose first impression led me to believe he was an asshole, but whose heart of gold corrected my false accusations. He was a really nice guy, a Seinfeld fan, played basketball and soccer and randomly brought up Detlef Schrempf on the airplane (huge plus in my book). We played cards, watched District 9 and ate a kosher meal that was to die for (or die from, not sure). The hot part of the meal said “meat” on it, with no specification of what kind. The meat was a gefilte fish looking ball/patty that was completely unrecognizable to the human eye, or taste buds. It also seemed on the plane that every time (twice) I was just about to fall asleep, the lights were turned on. I must be living right. So no sleep on that 8 hour flight and no sleep on the 4 hour flight from Zurich to Tel Aviv. On that one I did sit next to a State alumni thought, Stuart. When we got to Tel Aviv we got through immigration quickly and right when we got to baggage claim our baggage was there. How about that RDU. We got on the bus and they gave us a nice hard-cover Israel “travel” book and cash. Yes, cash!! A free trip to Israel where they give us 105 shekels for spending money? Life sucks. So we rode to our Kibbutz (Afik) in the Golan Heights, ate a decent dinner and I then conked out immediately after about 35 hours straight with no sleep. My roommates were Stuart and Josh, and Josh had some of the nicest clothes I’ve ever seen, especially his shorts. Also, when we took showers we had to squeegee the floor afterwards because the shower was even with the rest of the floor and the curtain was about a foot off the floor. Brilliant.