ani ella

so today was my first day of class. it was a little crazy, but hopefully it will all work out. there were too many ppl in the class, and we're all at different levels a little, but in a week or so it should calm down. but i learned some hebrew, which is good. and we get off at 12 this week so after class, some of the girls and i went to carmel beach. i fell asleep and it was lovely. then we went in the water, and the waves were going crazy. it was a lot of fun. we also went to the store cause i needed a towel and the girls needed other stuff too. i met my kibbutz mother. she invited me to her house on wednesday at like 5. she has 3 boys and a girl i think, and a dog and a parrot. so it will be crazy but fun i hope.

love love

wouldnt it be nice

so my work assignment is helping out at the ulpan. basically, today i cleaned the three ulpan dorms- mop the floors and clean the bathrooms. i also get to help fold and sort the laundry and help corrin go shopping if we go on a trip or something. i work from 8-12, which is really nice cause its not that long. but i do have to work helping set up dinner and helping clean up. its not the most glamorous job, but it is bearable. i wish i could do something that interacts more with the other kibbutzniks. but its not too bad. and its only the first day. now i'm waiting for ari to get back here so i can get couponim and go to the store.

easy as life

today was 'orientation' if you could call it that. they told us to clean up after ourselves, be respectful, and do all the work expected. they also said that we are going to go on trips, and if we are good then they give us 50 NIS every month as a 'bonus', which will be really really helpful.

corrin, the ulpan mother said they do these 'adoptions' in the kibbutz. what that means is a family would spend time with me, maybe invite me over for friday dinner, and just be another connection to the kibbutz. corrin said that her friend who is really nice, i forget her name, but i think that woman may adopt me and she has like 4 kids, so thats nice.

so, they placed me in my class today. i am in kita alef 2 which means i know the alef bet, but not much else. i have class on monday, wednesday, friday. the bar is open on thursday and friday, and is really cool. they have wii, and this awsome swing thing instead of some chairs. it was cool. its weird because the bar is an old bomb shelter which is under the playground. we went there yesterday, and hung out with all the israelis, which is nice. i met two guys who work on this film crew thing, and they said there is a chance i could work with them. the boom spot is full, but i could do something else. i get my job placement on sunday. the guys i met said they would talk to their supervisor, so i'll see what happens.

oh dad, you will love this. i was going to get a cell phone today, but before i went, a guy on the ulpan named chris (who is a computer magician btw) said he had an EXTRA cell, so he gave it to me. and guess what. its a smart phone like yours!!! so i have this really nice phone that works in israel for free basically with skype and whatnot.

well you started out with nothing, and you're proud that you're a self made man

so. there are a whole bunch of russians here. or i dont think they all are from russia proper, but they speak like only russian. some know some hebrew, but i dont, so thats no help. some of them know a little english. but maybe i will learn some russian here as well, which would be pretty cool. one of the girls is so crazy but cool. she is mad funny. her name is лена and i think she is 24.

funny thing! there is a guy on the ulpan from northampton. his name is john webber, and he just happens to be good friends with trav- so thats pretty cool. then there is a girl sarah who went to umass. she just happens to be the roomate of a girl katie who i used to work with- so thats cool too!

yesterday, a whole bunch of us went to the beach in haifa. fml it was so gorgeous! the water was warm and crystal clear. the beach was hot and crowded but in a kodac kind of way. the only bad thing was that there were jellyfish and most of us got stung a little. but it was still a pretty damn good time.


today i went to nesher, the town right near by, with my roomate melisa and another girl named alexis. we had to find a bank for alexis to cash her travelers checks, and i needed to take out some more money from the atm. we tried a bank, but they were trying to rip alexis off and wouldnt let me use my debit card, so that sucked. but then we went into a community center (which we thought was a post office) and a really nice woman gave us water and walked us to an atm and showed us where a post office was to cash travelers checks. so she was really nice and we really appreciated her help. she also showed us where a small shopping plaza was, and we found a bookstore that had english books. i got an english to hebrew phrase book. then we went back to the kibbutz for a tour of the kibbutz. now i'm in the office online

and god it is so hot! but there are worse things than staring at the water on a sunday

Arrival:

So today, which is actually yesterday, for both of us by now but way yesterday for me, I got up (momma too) at 5:30 am and headed to the airport. There was no trouble, and momma and I shared one last hot beverage before i said goodbye and headed through security. Can you believe it I went through without a hitch. My first time in probably 6 or more years. My gate was easy to find, and I thought to get a big book of sodoku for the plane flight. There are several hundred puzzles, but I’m plowing through them one by one.

On the plane, I sat next to a couple that was a little cranky, but I had the isle seat, so I survived. It kinda sucked because our TVs did not work at all. So I listened to my ipod and watched Spider man 2 off someone else’s TV who was in front of me. Of course, I couldn’t hear any of the sound, but it wasn’t that bad. They fed us twice- breakfast and lunch. The food was absolutely disgusting. Apparently vegetarian means I eat super healthy, and mostly eggs. For breakfast it was warm nasty yogurt, some fruit (which actually was good but only about 6 pieces of it) and egg wrapped in a crepe thing. The crepe thing was not so good, but I was pretty hungry so I ate a few bites. The non veg. meals got cake. For lunch, there was a role with egg salad (I think) it was absolutely disgusting. There was a oatmeal raisin bar thing that was maybe an inch long. That was good. The non veg. got turkey cheese sandwiches and a few kit kat bars. Grrr.So that was 5 ish hours of my life.

Then we landed in LHT airport and it was a little confusing cause I had to go through a series of hallways just to get to the terminal, then a series of escalators and elevators to get to another part of the same terminal. I also had to go through security again, which was no problem except the belt which slides all your stuff like bags, computers, shoes, ect. Was automatic and at the end it went into a little hole so it could go back to the beginning. I had to rescue all my stuff from the machine. It was a little weird. By that point, I had about 2 ish hours before they announced the gate number and started boarding. There were a few shops, with food and alcohol and sunglasses. I wandered around like a lost puppy for a while unable to decide where to get food. There was no meal place; it was all more snacks and whatnot. I was really hungry cause I hadn’t really eaten all day, so I had a smoothie and a nutrigrain bar.

On the flight, I sat next to a very nice woman (maybe 24 ish) and we got to talking. She is a history and English teacher to deaf kids. Ever see Children of a Lesser G-d? Julia? That’s what she does. Anyways, shes going to Israel to study for a few months. But whats really cool, is that the girl sitting in front of me (I was eaves dropping on her and the woman sitting next to her’s conversation) is going to do the ulpan here at kibbuz yagur! I forget what her name is exactly, but it sounds like the name Ari (the director of the ulpan) said my roommates name is. So maybe I know her already. She is 25, and was worried everyone will be younger than here… Which might be true. She’s spending the day in Tel Aviv, and will be here tomorrow. There was a lot of traffic in the air at LHT so it took a while to get in the air (but we did arrive 15 minutes early, at 5:15 am). Lucky for me, my tv worked. It was really cool. You could pick to watch a movie or tv show for free and it just started for you personally, none of that flipping through channels hoping for something good in the old days of airplane tv. I was hoping for twilight, cause I’m not gonna spend money to see it, but I think I should at some point, but it wasn’t offered. I ended up watching He’s Just Not That Into You, which I know mom thinks is a stupid movie, but I have decided I actually really like. It is a silly chick flick feel good movie, and you, mom, only like deep heart breaking emotional films. so yeah. I tried to sleep, but it was night and my main time to be awake and active. I nearly went crazy not moving. Now, though, I am really fucking tired. Its almost 3 am at home, but here its like 10 am. Tuvia didn’t want me to go to sleep, but I might have to.

When I got off the plane in tel aviv, the first thing you gotta know, is that it is a beautiful airport. Its just really pretty and new. There is a loby food area and in the center there is a little pool thing, and normally there would just be a fountain in the middle, but this one had a circle of water dripping from the CEILING! It was mad cool and very pretty. I didn’t get too close to it cause I was a floor above looking through the glass wall. They also had a lot of those escalator walkways, you know where it looks like you are waling super fast- I like those. I had to go through customs, and that was fine and easy. Then I had to find my bag. I went to the baggage claim belt that said London. Mainly though, I was following people I had noticed on my flight. I waited and waited but my bag didn’t come. I was about to freak out, when I noticed another belt a ways down that looked like it said London too. THEN I noticed that the sign said London BD3roi3 or something, as opposed to London BA163 or whatever. There was a woman who seemed to have the same problem and realization as me at exactly the same time. We walked to the other belt, and I got my bag no problem. Then I went out the exit, and Tuvia called out my name right away. So we left, and I got to see the highways of Israel.

Its very pretty here. I am really excited now, I think i’m gonna enjoy myself. The kibbutz is really big, but the ulpan program has its own buildings, and is pretty close to the important things (dining hall and post office and stuff). Ari, the director is very nice, and there is a den mother of sorts, though I forget her name, but she is also nice. I have my key for my room (#3) and my laundry bag with my personal number (12) . so now I have to put 12 on all my clothes, which kinda stinks, but I figured that was somewhere in the plan, so its not so much of a surprise. Laundry is don’t every Tuesday and returned on Wednesday. My room is very simple and modest, but it does the job. They weren’t kidding when they said limited closet space. They didn’t say that closet was the ONLY space. I fit all my stuff in fine, and my suitcase is under my cot. Yes cot, not bed. It is the smallest size, but I’ll get used to it. there is a cork board for each of us by our beds, we each get our own closet, and we each have a little cube shelf thing attached to the wall. There is also a fridge and one desk and chair. There is ac in the rooms, except right now, there is something going on with the electricity, so the power is off from 9:15 until I think about 2. Its 10 ish right now.

The internet is not wireless everywhere like I thought, but it is wireless in the office. I still don’t know how everything works, but I have a feeling I wont be just chilling on the internet for hours and hours to talk online, dad. Like right now, I am writing this entry in word, and I will later copy and past it onto my blog for all of you to read. I will also attach some pictures of my room.

I think I may get to work in the kindergarten! Ari asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up or something, and I said I wanted to be a teacher and I was going to major in education in college, and he said he would check to see if I could work in the kindergarten! Yay. They want us to work in places where we have to communicate and talk to the kibutzniks, because they want us to improve our Hebrew.

Well I think that’s all for now. I am well, I am safe, I am on the kibbutz and they are very nice. I love you,

Ella

P.S.
So the girl who will be living with me is not the one I met on the plane. But its okay because she is really nice. Her name is Melissa, from Brooklyn. She is 18 too. shes a lot like me- vegetarian, likes soccer and all that stuff.

And the weather is HOT. Its sunny and hot and dry.

its alright ma, i'm only sighin

so yeah, i found my passport. it was at the israeli consolate and the man there talked to me as if i was stupid for thinking i lost it (which i dont blame him for i do feel kind of foolish). but on the bright side, that was probably a big enough scare so i never will forget to make sure i have my passport again. so thats a silver lining.

these past few days have been pretty busy, and they're only gonna get busier. i leave in 12 days (!!!!!) and i dont quite feel ready yet. well, off to bed i suppose, its 1:30 am now. btw, my clock for this blog is set for israeli time so it will probably say the wrong time for right now.

oh, and if you older folk have trouble with my abreviations like btw (by the way) just let me know.

love ya

check 123, check 123. This is Ella on the dispatch

So! just to see how this all works. i leave in two weeks (hopefully) and i have a lot left to do. first thing is i have to find my passport which i cant believe i cant find. hopefully it is at the Israeli consulate (?) but I'm not 100% sure and Im freaking out a little bit. but it will all work out. it has to, right? right.

other than that, i still have to pick up my visa, see everyone for the last time, see my last broadway for 6months (!!!) not to mention pack, freak out, get on a plane, and fly half way around the world all by myself to a place i have never been where i dont know anyone and dont speak the language.

thanks Tuvia who is supposed to pick me up!!!!

for those of you who will be reading this after i send you the link, (all you grandmas and grandpas, and other relatives of course) i will be living on Kibbutz Yagur. they say:

Kibbutz Yagur is located in Northern Israel near Haifa, Israel's 3rd largest city and borders on the Mount Carmel National Park. The kibbutz is surrounded by a green and hilly landscape covered with pine and oak trees.


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so thats it for now, ta ta