Archive for the ‘Mikveh Alon’ Category

Blame The Jersey Shore.

Posted: January 29, 2011 in Mikveh Alon
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The Then.

So I haven’t updated for 2 weeks again… and it’s due to two factors, one I won’t discuss because I’m not jinxing shit at this point – the other is Jersey Shore. I’m watching it right now while I’m writing, and if there is one way to feel at home and hate home at the same time – it’s watching Jersey Shore. There’s no better way to spend a weekend than to culture bash Guido’s.

Last weekend I watched about 10 episodes of Jersey Shore with Adam and Steph, fittingly this week in the Army was full of Adam making stupid references to the Shoooore. I’ve now acquired Mike from the show’s nickname… “The Situation“. What can I say, I’m sorry I don’t have the body of a 12 year old like you Adam. If this entry has a lot of cursing and terrible grammar, don’t blame me, blame the Shore.

I try to take notes throughout the week to  remember what to write about, but most of that usually get’s mixed up with my other Hebrew notes. In the  end I get a mixture of important Hebrew words I should know and dumb anecdote’s about things that most people just won’t understand. Being in the army is a combination of an N.R.A. sleep away camp, a fraternity and a club for masochists. We’ve got guns, make stupid immature jokes, and enjoy the pain of wind sprints and push ups.

Most of us have come to the realization that while in “Course Evrit” (Hebrew class’) we get to do one fun thing a week. Last week it was Krav Maga, and this week it was watching some guy drive around in an Armored Personnel Carrier. While seeing the A.P.C. in action was cool, Krav Maga totally kicked it’s balls. We learned a couple moves, and practiced on our makeshift punching bags made out of our army bag filled with our sleeping bag. Fun times,  I hope we’ll have another class this week – probably not though, they tend to keep the fun down and the learning up.

Armored Personal Carrier... I forgot the name in Hebrew...

The past two weeks tons of fighter jets and helicopters have been flying over head, pretty crazy stuff. I always ask my Hebrew teacher “Efshar, Ani tzareech lelechet leshuruteem” (If possible, I need to go to the bathroom), which for me actually means “Can I go outside and giddily watch the jets flying over head?”  I couldn’t get a picture of the helicopters, but here’s a decent shot of one of the jets:

F-16 flying overhead... This photo does it no justice...

How I wish I was born with perfect eyes and could fly a jet. Speaking of which, this week I had the pleasure of having some disgusting infection in my “eyein” – seriously, that’s how you say eye in Hebrew. Basically I had “zombie eye sickness” for half the week and had to wear my glasses. I probably got it from constantly dutch ovening my self at night. What can I say, the food doesn’t agree with me and I sleep in a sleeping bag. I refuse to provide a link for “dutch oven”, you can google at your own risk. After a combination of conventional medicine (the kind that works) and my adopted mother’s crazy herbal remedies (the kind that maybe work), I now have perfectly normal, functioning “eyeineem” again…Normal in that I’m still blind without glasses or contacts.

The Now.

Time has been flying by and instead of counting our days till our weekends off we’ve been counting meals. Our schedule is very predictable and very much the same every day (once in a while we’ll have something different – rare and very appreciated). Wake up at 5. Waste time cleaning and making Chet’s (a simple formation) until breakfast at 7:30ish. Learn Hebrew till lunch time at 12:30. Learn more Hebrew and/or some random stuff about Israel until Dinner at 6:30ish. Learn some more, run, and do push ups because we messed something up. Have an hour to an hour and a half of Shetash (break). Go to sleep around 10-11. Rinse, Reuse and Repeat.

One thing I look forward to every Friday is the Mefakedetohts (women commanders) in Aleph (dress) uniform. When the only women you see all week long are wearing gross, baggy Bet (secondary) uniforms, it sure is nice to see a tight uniform at the end of the week. My standards in women have dropped significantly since I’ve gotten into the army, but thankfully I don’t need to worry about that right now. As I mentioned in the beginning of this blog, I’m not mentioning that because I’m not jinxing shit at this point. Maybe next week/entry I’ll mention it. That’s supposed to be confusing, so just say “huh?” and continue reading.

This coming week I get off on Wednesday! what what!! I can’t wait to have more than a day and a half off! I need to go to the bank to see if the lazy army has paid me yet and take care of some other errands so I’m really looking forwards to Yom Siddureem (our extra day off). I’m officially off the US Dollar and I sure hope I have some Schmeckels in my Israeli piggy bank to spend on some Goldstar for the weekend.

Today I went for a random trip with my adopted family up to the Golan Heights. We stopped at Kibbutz Naot Mordechai, home of my adopted mom’s brother’s family (my uncle?) and the Naot factory. It was weird winding up there since I had been there 2 1/2 years ago with Birthright/Taglit… not much has changed, they still make shoes. After that we continued up, and up, and up into the mountains and stopped at a couple places along the way. As I feel like I’ve done every week, It’s time to cut this blog awkwardly short. I gotta finish up watching Jersey Shore now so I’m  just gonna leave you with some pretty pictures… remember you can always see more pictures on my Flickr Page.

P.S. I do feel bad about cutting this blog short, I’ll make it up. Pinky swear! hopefully next weekend I’ll have some shenanigans to write about…

One Month, One Country, One Army.

Posted: January 15, 2011 in Mikveh Alon
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Last week I thought I’d be staying this weekend at base, but apparently that’s not until next month, so you do get an update!

I can hardly believe it but it’s been a month already, one down and at least 17 to go. The time has been flying by spectacularly fast for me. Every day lasts around 18 hours and we’re constantly doing something throughout that time so I don’t have much time to contemplate what’s been going on around me. Weekends are for contemplation, seeing friends and doing a lot of NOTHING. Nothing feels like such an amazing thing to do after a week in the army.

This week was a pretty short one at that; if you read my last update you know that I had off on Sunday – which already made for one less day in the week. On top of that we had our “Tekas” (Ceremony) this week for our swearing in. Basically we swore our allegiance to Israel and the IDF. The ceremony took place at a historic jail in Acco that is now a museum. It was a pretty nice place, and we got to go on a short tour of the museum while we were there which was an enjoyable change of pace.At the ceremony we received our first tag for our uniform. It looks pretty cool, but in the grand scheme of the army, we look like total n00bs. The tag means we’re tied to the part of the army dealing with education. Great! I came to the army to get away from college and normal life and now I’m in the equivalent of kindergarten!

We started our Hebrew courses this week and I’m a little disappointing so far. As for now I’m a bit above what they’re teaching, but I guess review is good. Myself and two of the other guys in my unit complained to our Hebrew teacher because we are, and she knows, much higher in our Hebrew knowledge than the rest of the class. She said she would give us extra work to do, and she has already. It’s nice that she’s trying to help, but at the same time I still wish I was in my old unit being taught a higher level of Hebrew. Instead of being taught more I’m just working harder to learn more…

Like I said the week was pretty short and generally uneventful. Same old sprinting and push up punishments because of the jackasses in my unit constantly screwing up. Myself and two others got out of half of the punishment since as our mefakedit (commander) said, we didn’t do any of it. We tried to make her let us stay, since as everyone knows, you’re unit is supposed to act as one in the army…She wouldn’t have any of it. After a bit of arguing she threatened us with court, so that was the time to give up. We got out of punishments, but at the same time I still feel like we just looked like suck-ups to the commander. As I say over and over again: It’s pledging a fraternity; hazing, pledge-masters and all. Since there wasn’t anything too out of the ordinary going on during the week I struggled to plan my weekend instead of really paying attention to what we were doing.

I found out through the week that some friends from home would be on a birthright trip in Jerusalem so I wanted to try to go see them. My predicament was that I was also trying to visit Haifa again… It came down to the age old problem of friends vs. girl. I tried my hardest to go to Jerusalem and back to Haifa, but both my body and the rules of Shabbat in Israel said no. My body was screaming in agony for me to go to sleep and it being Shabbat meant that all the public transportation stops at around 4pm.

market in Jerusalem

I swear this is going to be the quickest rundown of Friday that I can do, and it’s still going to be long: Wake up at 4am, do some pushups and clean the barracks. pack my bag and get on a bus to the Acco train station at 6AM. Watch a train pull away from the station at 6:30 as I’m getting my ticket. Wait until the next train at 7. Get to Tel Aviv at around 8:45. Hop on a bus to Jerusalem, get there at around 9:45. Find my friend/Hillel director’s cousin’s apartment. It’s now around 11 AM by the time I meet him. Go on a hike?!?!?! yea, we went on a hike. After the hike we went to the market near King George street to get lunch with the other people I know from college. On the walk over to the market I heard my named yelled out randomly… I ran into a friend from high school! He was on a Birthright trip, how crazy! I hadn’t seen him in 5-6 years and now he recognized me on the street in Jerusalem in an army uniform with a shaved head!?!? That was amazing. After that interesting experience we continued on to the market and ate some awesome Iraqi food. yum! I had a coca-cola, it was duhhhhlicious. We walked around the market a little bit and eventually headed back to the apartment, got in the car and went back to the “Tachana Merkazit” (Central Bus station) I caught the second to last bus at 3:45 PM back to Tel Aviv. PHEW!

Now the problem is that I don’t actually live in Tel Aviv… lucky for me my adopted parents called and said that they were randomly going to be in Tel Aviv that night to see some friends – talk about good timing! I decided to walk to my old hostel, HaYarkon 48, since it’s the one place that I know people in Tel Aviv. On my way there I stumbled upon some ridiculous open air market that seemed like it was China Town in NYC… but it wasn’t just Asians, there were also lots of Ethiopians? The one thing I needed to get this weekend was shoe polish for my boots (they’ve been getting pretty scuffed lately). Every other person in this open air flea market was selling polish, but all black – not the reddish brown that I need. I finally stumbled upon a real shoe store and went in to talk to the guy. He said he didn’t have any polish. It was a mixture of English and Hebrew as I got to talking to him, and he was very interested in my story. He told me to wait a minute and he shuffled through a messy drawer he had and eventually found a little container of polish (brand new). I asked him how much it was and he responded that for me, with all that I was doing, it was free and on him. He told me “Kol Hakavod” and “B’Hatzlecha” (All the Respect and Good Luck). I walked out after thanking him with a big smile on my face. I love the generosity that Israeli’s have. They may be pushy and hard asses here and there, but they assuredly take care of their own. It might sound dumb but this one guy and his small gift of shoe polish really made me feel welcome and a part of Israel.

I started walking in the direction of the hostel and randomly started talking to a couple of guys I heard speaking English on the street.  One was German and the other French, both studying at universities in Israel. Interesting the people you meet… I made it back to the hostel and was able to say “Hi” to some of the employee’s there that I had befriended during my stay there. It was nice to be able to see them again. I wanted to stay the night, but I didn’t have any civilian clothes, so I wouldn’t have been able to go out anyways. Eventually I met up with my adopted parents and had dinner with them at their friend’s house. Exhausted after dinner, we drove back to the kibbutz as I slept the whole way. I never made it to Haifa… hopefully next week?

Today (Saturday) has been a nice day of relaxation, naps and nothing. I enjoyed it immensely. The End.

They let us shoot guns in the Israeli Army???

Posted: January 8, 2011 in Mikveh Alon
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I know I haven’t posted a full blog update since two weekends ago, but let’s be serious here, I work on about 5 hours of sleep a night. I need to catch up on sleep during the weekends, not write a blog. That being said, If you haven’t already, become a fan on Facebook – DO IT! There are much more frequent updates there since I can send updates from my phone during the week! Also, check out photo’s from throughout the week at my Flickr Page, it’s updated every time I get some wifi access.

I’m going to try to quickly summarize last week since it wasn’t all that much different from the first week with a few big exceptions. I got switched to a different tzevet (unit) at the beginning of the week. I felt terrible about it at first and was in a REALLY bad mood the first couple days. I’m still not happy about it but I’m dealing with it – mainly because I’ve already argued a lot with the higher ups and don’t think they’ll switch me back. assholes.

I wouldn’t have minded the switch so much if they had switched me to another good unit. The unit they switched me to though has a horrible mefakedit (commander) and some of the guys are pure jackasses. One of the Russian’s in the tzevet is currently in jail for the week because he doesn’t listen to ANYTHING that they tell him. He clearly doesn’t want to be there, and he makes it very known. Another of the children (and that’s what he is, a child) in the group is named Tal. I would hate Tal even more than Euvgeny (the Russian) but he’s just too dumb to know any better. He clearly either has something wrong with him or he was just dropped on his head as a baby a few too many times…

I remember writing in a previous post that my original tzevet (tzevet tesha) wasn’t that great, but they seem like pure gold compared to this one. I still haven’t fully decided whether to join in the buffoonery or just to be better than them – right now I’m doing a little of both. I’ve sorta joined the ranks of two other kids in Tzevet Chamesh (unit 5), Yaakov and David.

David and Yaakov both know a bit more Hebrew than I do and I don’t understand why they’re in this unit either. We’ve come to the conclusion that they placed us here to “babysit” the others (my adopted dad suggested the same). We yell at the others to do things so that we don’t get in trouble. If one person is late, we’re all doing push-ups. As much as I like exercise, I really don’t appreciate being punished for what someone else screwed up. I’ve begun to drag Tal around, sometimes physically pulling and pushing. He really is just a dumb oaf, he acts like he’s 4, so I treat him as such.

The one high point of the week was when we had “sport time”. We had some competitions with the other Tzevet’s in our Machlakah (platoon?). Let’s just say that we completely dominated the opposition. We ran faster, did better push ups and to put it quite frankly: we kicked their asses. I guess the hard work pays off a little bit. Our mefakedit was actually smiling (we’ve been keeping track of how many times we get her to smile – currently at 37 [that’s for 3 weeks 24/5]).

Enough of that week. It wasn’t worth a whole blog post anyways – no wonder why I didn’t write about it. Onto this week which was a whole lot more interesting!

The first day at Mikveh Alon was a lot like any other, run here, run there, do pushups because we messed something up, eat for 10 minutes somewhere in between. The day after that we left for the “shetach” (outdoors). After checking on my cellphone (thanks google maps!), I found out that we were right next to the Golani Brigade‘s base. It looked like we were in the middle of no where. And we really were. We set up “oileem” (tents) and put all our stuff inside them. We learned a lot about our guns again and finally had time to eat. Our tzevet got handed a small, sealed cardboard box and a loaf of bread. Hmmm, what could be inside this box?!?!

The campsite

Inside that box is what we’d be eating for three meals a day for two and a half days straight. Three cans of tuna, a can of beans, a can of corn, a can of pineapple, a few ketchup and mustard packets and a little bar of halava. YUM! Let’s just say I had the most disgusting farts of my life for two and a half days. gross! It wasn’t great food, but it was filling – and I’m sure that’s what it’s supposed to be. Cheap, nutritional and filling: who care’s about taste?!?!

Our stomach’s all full of this disgusting concoction we headed over to the shooting range. The first time we shot all we did was shoot at a target meant to help us zero (calibrate) our guns. Mine was a bit down and to the left (that’s what she said) and so some guy helped me to reset it even though I already knew how… pretty self explanatory for someone with an above 5th grade education.

After zeroing my gun, let’s just keep it simple and say I’d make a great hitman. Every time I shot I was within a 3 cm spread from 25 yards, and about 4 cm from 50 yards, and that’s with a plain iron sight – no scopes here. All day long we ran around and waited to shoot again. We shot a lot while in the shetach, usually only 5 rounds at a time, but we got to go around 10 times or so. It was a great introduction to the gun. I think I’ve gotten a little addicted to the smell of gunpowder in the air.

Each bullet that exits the barrel you get a little whiff of gunpowder, and I can say from experience that it definitely stimulates that killer instinct within. A slight burning sensation in your nostrils, it’s like injecting a shot of espresso into your veins. Shot after shot, I re-aimed and fired – only after breathing out all of the air in my lungs to stabilize my body. Bullet after bullet hit the target – even though I couldn’t see the bullet holes (my sight isn’t anywhere near perfect) I knew they all were grouped together.

Sharpshooter?

We shot at night as well learning how to use just the end sight and the handle of the gun to aim instead of aiming through the main sight. It’s much less accurate when shooting like this, but it’s impossible to aim the same way as you do during the day due to the lack of light. Even with shooting like this I still managed to hit the target every time – not a nice grouping, but it would get the job done.

After sleeping in our tent for the night packed in like sardines since we had to squish three of us into our tent (there weren’t enough tents for everyone to have two-to-a-tent) we arose to a wet morning. It had rained a bit, not a crazy amount, but enough to get some people’s stuff wet through the tent. Another day of shooting and eating crappy food. It was fun shooting again, we got to shoot from a crouched position and standing instead of just a prone position. Good stuff. Towards the end of the day everyone was getting worried because of the ominous clouds gathering overhead. It was gonna be a storm… and a big one. As our mefakedit’s were wasting time as usual I was getting impatient and telling her we had to run. Sure enough, on the way back from getting our stuff out of the tents it started DOWN-POURING. It was like standing under a waterfall. I sprinted as fast as I could to cover and other people slowly started showing up soaking wet. I was happy I had sprinted as fast as I could since I wasn’t as wet as a lot of people.

it got a little wet...

I wasn’t very happy with the commanders and I let it be known, they had us stacking our wet stuff together instead of hanging it. They had us lining up in formations instead of separating our dry and wet clothes. The Israeli’s don’t get much rain so I guess I can’t blame them for not knowing how to handle it… Eventually the MM (head of the platoon) came and yelled at us and basically called us little girls. Either way, they knew they had screwed up and took us to the Golani Brigade’s base to sleep there for the night. We all slept in the gymnasium.

Golani Brigade's Gym

The next day everything was absolutely soaked. We took down our tents and for the rest of the day we sat around cleaning and reassembling our guns. I’m sure we were supposed to be doing something else if not for the rain because we’ve already learned how to take apart our guns a couple times. Nevertheless, it was just more practice.

1 1/2 minutes to take apart and reassemble - I'm a beast I know.

Finally we got on a bus to head back to base which everyone fell asleep for the whole hour and a half ride. Upon our return I had the pleasure of experiencing some of the thickest fog I’ve ever seen, it was quite surreal. The base didn’t seem like the same place, it was as if we had entered into a fairy tale landscape. Everything with it’s halo’s of light around it and soft tones created a magical view.

Thursday morning we found out that we would be heading home that afternoon! Great news considering we also would be having off Sunday. A real full weekend off!!! We did the same as normal the rest of the day other than one good speech that our MM gave us. We went over basic protocol’s of dealing with a suspected terrorist/enemy. As I’ve said repeatedly, Israel is the friendliest of armies in the world until you get on their bad side. They really give you the benefit of the doubt. We learned that while dealing with someone while on guard duty, you must follow this protocol:

  1. Tell them to stop in both hebrew and arabic
  2. if they don’t stop you say three times in hebrew and arabic “STOP STOP STOP, OR I WILL SHOOT”
  3. If they still don’t stop, you cock your gun twice without a magazine in place which makes a loud distinctive clicking noise.
  4. if after this they still don’t stop, you fire one round into the air.
  5. after this you shoot them in the leg. seriously,  if you’ve been given that many chances you deserve to be shot.

The only time when it’s valid to shoot them before telling them to stop is if they have a weapon. Gun or Knife and they’re running towards you, you shoot them in the leg. If they’re still aiming a gun at you while they’re down, that’s the only time you’re allowed to shoot-to-kill. Hopefully this will dispel any crazy stories that people have of soldiers just wildly shooting.

On a softer note, I’ve had two great nights of sleep and tonight I’ll be heading into Haifa to hang out with a girl I met a couple weeks ago. Tomorrow (Sunday) I’m going to Tel Aviv to buy some things and get my bank card. I’ll also visit the Hayarkon 48, the hostel I stayed at before the army to see the people I know there.

Till next time – peace out homeslices.

p.s. there won’t be a blog update next weekend since we’re not getting off… two weeks on base ugh. Keep updated through Facebook!

Pledging for the IDF

Posted: December 25, 2010 in Mikveh Alon
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So after a little over a week of being in the army and having two weekends off (since we started on a Wednesday) I’ve finally begun to get into the groove of how everything works. Bakum ended up being EXACTLY like what everyone told me it would be like. Four shots of who know’s what immunizations that made my arm sore for two days, lots of pictures, X-rays and fingerprints. All the imaging was for in case we get some random part of our body blown off – which is pretty much the exact words they used when I asked what it was for… very comforting. We received ID card’s and dog tags, but obviously only after a bajillion more questions that I’ve already answered numerous times before. Bakum was just a long day of BLAAHHHHH. Beyond all the tedious tasks, I did meet some cool people that day that I still see around and talk to at the base, so the time there wasn’t a complete waste. The next week, starting on Sunday morning, was when everything really started up.

My Hebrew obviously isn’t anywhere near sufficient to be a soldier but it’s growing by leaps and bounds everyday. Knowing that the little area in my brain called the left temporal lobe is terrible at comprehending language I’ve been surprised by how quickly I’m picking up words and sayings. From a young age I’ve always been terrible with language; I couldn’t tell the difference between a “b” and “d” – true story. The schools also told my parents to stop teaching me Swedish because I couldn’t tell the difference between Swedish and English – true story. Knowing this, I still jumped off the high dive into the Israeli Army instead of the US Army. I’m what you’d call a “mefager” in hebrew – a damned retard.

I'm too sexy... I'm too sexy... I'm too sexy for my beret?

Speaking of the US Army – I realize now that I would completely dominate it. Other than my lack of Hebrew skill I’m excelling beyond nearly everyone else at every other aspect of the Army. Our first physical test I maxed out the push ups and sit-ups. I came in 4th in the 2 km run. 76 push ups, 88 sit-ups and about a 9 minute run later I felt like I could do it all over again. Taking apart our M-16 A1 I had no problem taking it apart and reassembling it in under a minute and a half. Clearly I realize I’m tooting my own horn a bit, but for those of you who know me – that’s not something new. The Army has humbled me quiet a bit however, mostly due to my lack of language skills. I need to listen more than speak and I rely more on my skill of understanding than my skill of smack talk. Smack talk is reserved for Adam – my friend, army pal and blog nemesis. Adam if you’re reading this, your blog sucks – come to the dark side.

The M-16 I took apart is an old piece of crap from the Vietnam War that the US basically handed to Israel during the Yom Kippur War. Apparently the US sold them for a buck a piece. Hell I would have bought a couple hundred myself for that price. We’ve had to lug the old thing around the whole past week – you forget it somewhere and you’re screwed. I like my M-16 though, her names ShaNayNay – she’s big and she’s black (meh, I thought it was clever when we were all naming our “neshakeem” aka weapons). Apparently the “onesh” or punishment for forgetting it is automatic shabbat – basically meaning you don’t get the weekend off. Considering next weekend is New Years – I’m holding onto that thing like a fat kid to his cake this week.

man I wish this was an M-16!

ShaNayNay is heavy and a royal pain in the arse to run with but she/it’s also the coolest thing we’ve gotten our gritty hands on so I guess it’s worth it. This coming week we’ll be doing target practice with lasers??? Whatever, I guess I came to the army just to go to a high tech LazerTron. Apparently we’ll be doing live shooting in two weeks though – I’m really looking forwards to that, mostly because I know I’m gonna be awesome at it and it’ll make up for the fact that everyone else in my unit knows more Hebrew than I do.

ma baby girl

Tzevet Tesha – or Unit 9 is my unit. A bunch of freaks, but I love em. Tzevet Tesha is made up of: a couple of Ruski’s that speak barely any English, a Ukrainian kid Demetri who’s speaks English and quite a bit of Hebrew, a chill Venezualan named Josh who speaks English, Spanish and Hebrew, a Brasillian, and a few Americans. I get along with everyone pretty well even though some of them can be complete idiot’s sometimes. I just don’t think they’ve realized they’re in the Army yet. I’ll update on my unit more as I get to know them better. I’m trying to keep an open mind… key word is trying.

“Trying” is the name of the game during training in the IDF, as I’m sure is the same in most other civilized armies in the world as well. They don’t really care if you’re number 1 or not – they’d rather see that you’re motivated and putting your effort into the game. I call it a game because that’s really all that “tironut” or training is. Tironut is glorified pledging all over again.

I pledged a fraternity in college (won’t name which one, but you can probably guess) which didn’t have an “I’m gonna beat the shit out of you” hazing process – but it also wasn’t all rainbows and sunshine either. Eating gross stuff, push ups, sit-ups, wall sits, running, getting yelled at – that sort of harmless stuff. And I say harmless because although I recognize that it technically is hazing I really don’t think it affected me adversely in any way. What I do believe is that it made me a stronger person mentally and physically. It also prepared me for how I’d be treated during the Army.

All day long we get barked at by 20-25 year old women who clearly have some inanimate object stuck far up their asses. EVERYTIME we move somewhere we have to count down from 10 in Hebrew the last 10 seconds of the time we were allotted. Otherwise it’s pushups and running. Or maybe it’s just running for the sake of running. Or maybe it’s pushups because they purposely didn’t give us enough time to get to where we were supposed to be going. I think you can understand where I’m going with this. If you don’t get it, it’s probably because you haven’t pledged or haven’t served in the Army. I won’t say you’re better off, because I know pledging was interesting and the Army sure as hell seems entertaining enough.

More entertaining is what happened this weekend. This weekend I went to another kibbutz with one the soldiers from my kibbutz called Maagen Michael which is supposed to be the nicest in the country. The stories are true. This place was amazing. It’s made all of it’s money off of some plastic factory that makes toilet parts – random. Whatever they do, they do it right. They’re a 10 minute walk from the beach, there are crazy exotic plants growing everywhere and the food is FANTASTIC. Best thing is, if you live there – you don’t pay for didily squat, it’s a kibbutz. Long story short Elan (my friend) and I passed out cold before we went to the party were were supposed to go to there. We slept around 14 hours – I really needed it. Shit happens, oh well. I met some more cool people though and Josh from my Tzevet lives there so I got to meet up with him. I met a Jewish, Swedish girl who just made aliyah and speaks Hebrew… WTF? For friends of mine, you know It was like seeing myself but in hot girl form. All in all, a relaxing interesting weekend even though I missed out on a party – there’s always next weekend that’s already in the planning…

Maagen Michael

I have to wake up in about 5 hours to get back to the Army tomorrow so I’m gonna cut this entry a little short. I have some other things written down that I had wanted to write about but I guess they’ll either just have to go on Facebook or wait till next weekend. I created a Flickr page for my phone pictures so check that out in the meanwhile (there’s only a few for now). Sorry guys I know how much you want to read about my awesome 19 hour pledge fests, but I have another one to prepare for tomorrow so it’ll have to wait.

“L’hetraot” (See you later)
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