its time to let go of everything we used to know

i took the test, we'll see how i do. after the test, most of the ulpanists hopped into taxis and said their goodbyes. some even left before hand. sad. atzuv.

as for me, i stayed until sunday morning. on thursday, i went out with my friend from the kibbutz, lior. we made dinners together most nights. i also went out with my friend andres from the ulpan. we went out to haifa one last time.

on friday, nothing much happended. at night i went to the kibbutz pub one last time with the few remaining ulpanists. we said goodbye to our bartenders our pub friends, and pretty much anyone we could get our hands on. then we went to ultrasound, the club on the kibbutz, but it wasnt quite the same without the whole group so we went home relatively early.

on saturday i had a mini freak out when i realized i hadnt finished packing, and i didnt like the way i had packed, so i unpacked everything, and repacked. (i know think i still didnt do a good job and want to repack when i get to tel aviv.) i also forgot that the ulpan is over, thus no saturday night ulpan dinner. so i was quite hungry.

sunday i woke up early, and packed up my last little bit, had my last heder ochel breakfast - a salad of cucumbers and tomatoes, a little red pepper, a very little bit of lettuce, some cottage, and some cheese. then corrine, the den mother of the ulpan checked my room, gave me my deposit of 400 nis (abt 100 $) and my friend sarah and i struggled like no other to the bus stop. thank god some nice old man in a wonderful van saw us and took pity. he took us to the road where it was only about 1/4 mile to the bus stop. so we probably saved about 1/3 an hour and a lot of energy. i came to israel with a medium sized suitcase and a backpack. i left with an EXTREMELY STUFFED medium sized suitcase, 2 backpacks, and a large tote bag. where did all this stuff come from? lo yodea!

so we finally made it to the bus stop, read some very strange graffiti, and shoved our stuff on bus 960 to jerusalem. my ipod stopped working on the bus, about 30 seconds in. sad. atzuv. about 2 hours later, we arrived in jerusalem, and took a taxi to the Jerusalem Hostel, which is on Jaffa st, right next to ben yehuda st. great location. we dropped our stuff and headed to lunch, and then off to Yad Vashem (the holocaust museum). we got there around 1pm. at 5, we were about 1/2 way through, and they told us it was closing and we had to leave. after that, we made our way back by bus to our hostel. the bus cant go too close to our hostel because of all the construction, and we wanted to window shop a little as well, so we got off pretty early and wandered all around. we went to a little shook and looked around for a bit, then continued on our way back to ben yehuda. we ate a nice dinner at spaghettim, and then headed to bed.

this morning we went back to yad vashem to finish what we started. i tried to look on the computer in the Hall of names for kalkstein from hannover, but there were no results. after that, we headed to the old city where we had a tour of the tunnels under the cotel (western wall). it was pretty interesting, and the tour guide really liked me cause i was the only one who could answer the question of why we pray at the western wall (its the closest we can get to the holy of holies). then we walked back to the hostel, and sarah left to go to tel aviv. her flight is at 730 tomorrow.

so now i am alone in jerusalem. tomorrow afternoon im gonna struggle with all my stuff to the bus station, and travel to tel aviv where tuvia will pick me up thank god, and i can stay with him.

as for today and tomorrow, i hope to meet my friend later tonight after he gets off work. but well see. i kinda doubt it will happen, especially since i dont have a working phone anymore- i ran out of minutes and i have to give it back to the guy who gave it to me tonight anyways. frustrating.

oh and mom. you know how you always meet someone from umass? well, of course my friend sarah on the ulpan just graduated from umass. but then we ran into the father of someone from umass at the holocause museum, and then, there are these girls who are staying at the hostel in my room, and one of them went to dearfield academy, and used to live in amherst, so she knows all these kids that i know. crazy.

יש לי היום מצוין yesh li ha yom metzuyan

today is the end. in 3 hours i am taking my final exam. im not freaking out about it at all. no matter what i get, i get a certificate that says ho many hours i did. and i should either get a kita bet or kita gimmel score. definately not an alef score. in a bit i will study up until the test, and it will be great.

Tuesday was my last day of working with the kindergarden. Karen, the head woman who organizes the schedule and stuff came by my class, Gan Oren, to give me a present (chocolate) very nice. There was a birthday that day too. (Hen)חן turned 5. the way they do birthdays is really cute. they put a little paper star medalion under one of 5 plates (because he is 5) and then play music and he dances around the plates. when the music stops he looks under on of the plates, and goes again and again until he finds the medalion. his family comes to be with him too, even his grandma (cause they all live on yagur) then he and some other kids hide under blankets and someone in his family taps a head and asks if it is Hen, and the kid makes an animal sound, and the family member says if it is or isnt Hen, then continues until they find Hen. Then he gets a card from everyone in the class, and they all give him a hug, sing happy birthday (the hebrew version of course) and sit down to have cake. first they get bamba and chocolate. bamba is what all israeli kids grow up on. it looks like cheese puffs, but isnt quite. then they sing this little rhyme that goes something like 'today is your birthday and you get chocolate cake. how does it taste? YUM!' and he sticks his finger in and licks it. then they cut it up and give it to all the kids.

after that, i had to leave! i was sent to another gan- they were 2 years old. i was kinda pissed that they moved me on my last day, but the kids were soooo cute it was okay. and as soon as i got there, we went on a tiul ( a walk) to the kolbo (convenience store) and hung out there on the grass. on of the kids, Ila, LOVED me. she kept holding my hand and grinning at me, and later when we went back to the gan, she ran and jumped on my lap. i played trot trot to boston with her and she couldnt stop laughing. it was realy cute. they had lunch about 1/2 hour earlier than gan oren does, so i wasnt really hungry yet, but the teachers like forced food on me. after lunch, they said i could go back to gan oren, so i did, and guess what. it was lunch time! so i sat and had lunch with the kids, and then i left, and went to the heder ochel to have lunch with my friends. (by have lunch, i mean i sat and talked with them while they ate)

on tuesday night, we had an end of the ulpan party at a nice restaurant in Tichon, the town about 15 minutes east of yagur. it was nice. everyone came and we had food, and each class did a little performance. my class sang backstreet boys You Are My Fire and threw in a few hebrew words every now and then. kita gimmel gave everyone in the ulpan awards. they did really stupid awards, and i got 'most likely to not pass through the security at the airport' cause i have so many piercings. ha. ha. not that funny. then they gave us little packets with a cd full of photos of our time here, ulpan yagur t-shirts, and a little paper that says stuff from ari and our teachers. you know when you are in kindergarden and your teacher writes your personality report on your report card? like, 'ella is very social and likes to play with all the other children. she especially likes to play with blocks.' stuff like that. thats sort of what this was. my teacher, Batia said i was brilliant (woot woot) and the ulpan director Ari said i was awesome too. pretty cool.

yesterday was wednesday, and i got up early (7:30) to go to Gan Oren, to say goodbye to them. it was kinda sad cause it was just a regular day for them, they said goodbye and the teachers made me a card and gave me more chocolate and hugged me goodbye, but they have 2 ulpans per year, so im not that special. and i just started working there as well. but it was nice to say goodbye. then i went to my teacher Batia's appartment, where she had made breakfast for our class. it was awesome. she has a really nice apartment. we had salad, and toasted pita, and some other food that i dont know what it is but was really good, and cake, and all this stuff. we played games and said goodbye. it was nice.

pray pray pray, pray i make pa

i got my test results for my oral exam. i did okay- i got a kita bet score. i was hoping to get a kita gimmel score, but its okay. i feel pretty good about the writing and reading test. i took a practice test today, and it was great cause i sped through it, so i got some really long breaks. then when we went over it, i got all the kita alef and bet stuff perfectly, and some of the kita gimmel stuff as well. so i feel pretty good about that.

i have a week left of the ulpan, then i am off to jerusalem on sunday the 29th. im gonna spend a few days there, then go visit tuvia and his family in tel aviv before heading....HOME!!!!!!!

yeah im a bit excited, although feel really weird about leaving the kibbutz. its been my entire life about for 5 months. thats a long time. it will be sad, but im still soooo excited!

Whenever I feel afraid I hold my head erect And whistle a happy tune So no one will suspect I'm afraid.

yesterday we went on our last tiul. we left at 7:30 like always, and headed to this huge cave filled with stalactites and stalagmites. it was pretty cool. the tour guide would point out ones that looked like moses, or snow white and the 7 dwarves, or people on a mountain, or some kind of food, or a hedgehog. it was pretty cool. really really humid and warm tho.

after that, we went to my favorite spot. we went to these limestone caves where jews hid from the romans during the great rebellion. in the first cave, there were small tunnels underground that we had to crawl through and it hurt our knees, and there were a few sharp turns that were hard to do. it was also pitch black and every other person got a flashlight. when we got into the room, it was really big. and we could walk around for a bit. then we crawled back.

the second cave was huge. it was a series of tunnels and caves, all man made. the tunnels were even smaller, and it was harder to get through them. but it was sooooo cool. i got really dirty but it was soo cool. i was lovin it hard core.

after that we had lunch, and drove on to the negev where we stayed in a beduin camp. as soon as we got off the bus, we hopped on some camels and took a nice little ride. i rode on one with raf. we named it kendra. the one behind me kept getting a little to close to me, and i heard they bite and stuff so she kinda freaked me out, but she was nice and we named her bumblebee.

after the camel ride, we went in and got settled in our huge ass tent. then we went to this welcome ceremony for just our group where a Bedouin man talked to us and told us about the Bedouins. they have to be hospitible to people who show up to their tents. when you come to a tent, you have to cough to show your presence (3 times- 3 is a magic number) then you are offered 3 cups of coffee, because coffee is expensive in the desert, so it shows respect. 3 cups because 1 is for welcome, 1 is for security, and 1 is just for fun. they gave us Bedouin tea and coffee and then made us bedouin pita stuff, which was....amazingly good. then the man played music and this huge russian guy alexey (previously alexey gadol cause there was another alexey who was smaller, so he was alexey katan-which means small and gadol means big- but sadly, alexey katan left us to go to jerusalem where he got a job in a furniture store making furniture. sad) got up and started dancing and singing all over the place. it was funny.

after that, we had some free time where we just hung out, and then had dinner where we sat on the floor, 4 around these tables and they brought out meat and rice and their special pita and veggies and tehina. it was SOOOO yummy!!!! oh man. i wish i could eat like that all the time. they russian guys next to me ate so much they could not sit up and ended up spralled all over the dinky little mattresses we were sitting on.

after dinner we had a drumming circle. it was really cool. we all sat around with drums, and this guy came and taught us how to play them, and we got some tunes going, and i was all into it until these stupid dati girls came and crashed our party. there was a huge group of them and they jumped in and started dancing and stole a drum and started screwing it up and just pissed me off and i didnt appreciate their presence at all, but what are you going to do. it was fun before they came.

after the drumming circle, we sat around a fire and talked about what we liked about the ulpan (in hebrew of course) and where we were going afterwards. it was sweet, but i was soo tired, after a long day of climbing and crawling, and not having had my 4 hour afternoon nap. my friend sarah and i took a walk outside the compound a little to see the stars. there were soo many. it was beautiful. when i went to sleep, i didnt move an inch until the morning. i slept so soundly.

we woke up around 630 and packed up, and then went to breakfast at about 7. then we got on the bus and drove to masada. that is where king Herod build a huge beautiful palace. then a hundred or so years later, it was used during the rebellion against the romans. they built over some of herod's beautiful artwork to make more practical additions and whatnot. the romans built a seige wall around them, and one day broke into the palace. by the time the did, however, it was night. so the romans decided to wait till morning to fully defeat them. by the time they arrived the next morning, they found everyone dead. the soldiers had killed their wifes and children, and then picked clay tablets with names on them from a pot as to who they had to kill. then the last soldier killed himself. 2 kids and a woman survived and were found hiding in the northern palace. crazy. its also the place with the first synagogue.

sadly for me, we went down from masada on the Snake Trail. i had a little bit of a panic attack from the height. i t was terrible. i couldnt decide weather to sit and cry or run. and i couldnt really talk to anyone cause i had to concentrate on controling my breathing and walking, and i was shaking all over. my friends tried to talk to me and were kinda pissed i just blew them off until we got down and i could talk and they saw i was still shaking and were all concerned and nice again.

sadly, our program organizers have no time planning skills. so we didnt have time to go to en gedi like we were supposed to. im kinda pissed, but i guess ill just have to go their with birthright someday. but we did have 3 hours to spend at the dead sea. pretty cool! pretty fucking cool. we went in for about 20 minutes, had our fun, and then i lay in the sun and passed out. i didnt do the mud, cause we had to buy it and it was expensive, and mia said not to buy it cause it encourages the destruction of the dead sea. so i didnt. then we went back on the bus and watched sex and the city the movie on the way home. a pretty good trip.