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.