The End of the Trip

This is probably my last blog entry for a while. Next time I go on a trip like this, I will start this blog again.

Saturday:
Saturday was an awesome and relaxing day. I started with sleeping til about noon or so, it was great- I hadn't gotten 12 hours of sleep in ages. After that I did some housework and then walked to the beach to meet up with people. It was really nice to chill and relax. About 10 people from the trip went to the beach as well. The water was nice because the jellyfish have gone away. After that I went back to my apartment, showered, ate dinner, napped, and then got ready to go out. Some friends and me tried to go to a club at the port, but it was too crowded so we went to a bar near by and just chilled.

Sunday:
Sunday I went to work and we got a new intern. She is from Germany and just decided to spend two months in Israel. I spent a lot of Sunday working on the reports for USAID- as the quarterly narrative and the PMP report were both due during the week. After work I went back to apartment and took a nap (for those who have been reading this constantly, I’m guessing you have started to see a pattern, work then nap ☺). Then I got ready to go to dinner with Marisa, Ellery, Gali, Avia, and Lauren. We wanted to go to this Indian restaurant but then it ended up being too late and instead we went to this really good Mexican restaurant in South Tel Aviv. Oy, do I miss Mexican or more like Chipotle/Moe’s. After that I went back to Bat Yam because I was so beyond exhausted. Lauren and I waited for the bus for about an hour and it never showed up so we took a cab back to Bat Yam.

Monday:
Monday after work I went near the Shuk to a shoe store to get a new pair of Naots. I bought 2 pairs of Naots in Israel, but they are the most comfortable shoes I that I still find cute. I then went back to Bat Yam, where we had a mandatory meeting talking about the final few days and then I went back to my apartment and napped before going back into Jaffa for Natascha’s birthday dinner. A bunch of us went to this really good kabob place in Jaffa. They gave us so much food, we were all full before the kabobs actually came. After that we all went to the beach in Tel Aviv for the night to just hang out. It was a lot of fun, even though the beach was filled with annoying high schoolers trying to get into the bars.

Tuesday:
Tuesday was my last day of work, which was extremely bittersweet. I worked on the Bat/Bar Mitzvah letter, some more of the report, the website (which should be up soon!). At the end of the day Emily gave me one of the embroideries, which they sell as a gift and Emily, Larissa (new intern), and I went to Max Brenners as a little good-bye thing. I am by no means ready to be done with the internship; Windows is doing such amazing things and learned so much working for them. It was my first internship, and before this summer I had no idea how an NGO really worked, how to write a grant, and many other things associated with NGO/grants in general. After Max Brenners, I went back to Bat Yam to start packing my stuff up, and then later that night I went back into Tel Aviv to meet up with people at Bloom Bar for a concert. Even though I had no idea what I was being sung, I still really enjoyed the show. Music in Israel is a little different from what I listen to at home, due to the fact that they aren’t as progressive and don’t have as much indie music here. But the rock music is really good here. After Bloom Bar we al went back to Bat Yam because we had a hike to go on the next day and were all really exhausted.

Wednesday:
So Wednesday was my last full day in Israel- an extremely bittersweet feeling. We had to get up extremely early to go a hike near Jerusalem. We went on the fountains hike where we saw a bunch of fountains that used to be used as a water source during the Crusades period. Israel is so full and rich of history- it’s such an amazing country for thousands of years of history. There were many young Israeli children on the hike as well and at one point we started singing Disney songs and they started singing with us in Hebrew. After the hike we went to this Arab town near by to go to this really good restaurant for lunch. They had salads, pita, hummus, and falafel. It was טעים מאוד (very tasty). We then headed back to Bat Yam to pack, work on cleaning the apartment, and then headed to our final meeting/wrap up. The meeting consisted of filling out an evaluation, discussing the program in details, thanking each other, a slide show, and getting our t-shirts. After that I went back to my apartment and made dinner with Gillian before we all got ready to go out to the Namal (port) for our final night. We tried going to a club, but it was way beyond too crowded. You couldn’t move in the club, and it wasn’t fun at all so we left and went somewhere else. We all ended up at an extremely chill outside bar and we all just hung out until we started heading back to Bat Yam.

Thursday:
So today, I had to get up at 7 am to finish packing and cleaning before I headed to the airport. Packing was terrible, I have way too much stuff and my suitcases are basically packed to beyond capacity. I said goodbye to my apartmentmates and went down to get a cab. The cab then went to get Rachel Heidling who is also on this flight. We went to the airport, checked our bags (one of my bags was overweight, but they didn’t charge me, we’ll see how it goes in Newark). We then went through security and while we were waiting in line for security I saw a guy wearing a Seeds of Peace t-shirt. We got to talking and he was telling me about Seeds of Peace and how he was a seed and then was a counselor there. That camp is something that I would LOVE to work at sometime in the future. It is very similar to Window. We then went to exchange money and there ran into Jamie who was also going to be on our flight, but took a different cab to the airport. We got breakfast and then went to our gate. I am not on the flight writing this and I will post it when I get home and have internet again.

This trip has been something unlike anything I have ever done before. I have never lived in another country, which I did for two months. This was my first internship. I had never gone camping with just friends before. And so many more things that I can’t even begin to explain. While I don’t think I could live in Israel permanently ever, Israel is such an amazing country and I hope to be able to go back at some point in the future. Get another internship, hike/camp throughout Israel. Go spend more time in Jordan, go to Egypt, and go to the West Bank. Two months was nowhere near enough time to live in a country. I would love to spend more time in the North, which is my favorite place in Israel.

“It’s not good-bye, it’s until next time.”