ISRAEL

OH MY GOD. i felt like crying all the way from when we landed until i got to my apartment. i dont really know why, mostly because i was overwhelmed and the airport had all these signs that said "israel is always a part of you" and "everyone has a place in israel" and so i was thinking "its true! its true!"

so anyway i was so on edge maybe because lack of sleep or because everyone was speaking in hebrew, all the signs were in hebrew and i was now starting a new program with all new people. anyway, i took the train to tel aviv and hobbled my way over to 138 dizengoff where i thought i would be so late and embarassed. turns out they wanted people to arrive 4-6 pm so my 5:15 was totally fine.

they led me to my apartment right in 138 dizengoff with violetta (russian), yulia (german) and sarah (american). breathe. we met everyone else at 6:15 and walked to a park by the water to do "ice breakers". very international group (italian, french, spanish, australian, british, american, german, and russian) but not so diverse gender-wise (16 girls, one boy). we then walked to a restaurant and had a lovely meal and met the famous shoshana. now a thing about shoshana, i have been emailing her all year and was terrified of her because i thought she hated me, but turns out everyone has been emailing her, phewww.

so we have been doing tours of tel aviv. everyone is really nice and really eager to make friends so i am pretty at ease. its definitely college orientation-like but with so few people its so much nicer and less stressful. we also do tours with another MASA group who is studying music at a conservatory in tel aviv, but they mostly (not to be totally prejudice) are alot of nerdy boys who spend too much time with their saxophone/oboe/piano. but still its nice to have people.

we have been walking around orienting ourselves with tel aviv (home for the next month) and on organized tours, the most notable on an open roof bus where the bus driver made us all dance in the aisles to sephardi music.

i have been very impressed with the organization of it all- everything is planned for us for these few days before ulpan- especially after knowing so little about the program. i still dont have a real schedule, but i know ill be in ulpan after sunday and go on a tour to the south in october where we spend shabbat on kibbutz ketura, oh ok.

so im in tel aviv, friday night, i have the option to go to chabad for serivces which i think i will opt ot and try to find a masorti synagogue for next week.