Day's here all kind of blend together, so I'm not sure if anything I will type on this post is in any sort of order. During the days I'm still working cleaning the toilets. For one ady I had a friend doing it with me since he didn't ahev a job yet. Herky, frmo New York, jsut came to the Ulpan last friay, a few weeks into the Ulpan, but he's settling in alright. He's rooming with the crazy Russian Anton. I don't think I've written about Anton yet. Basically for the first week he was evry quiet, kept to himself, and avoided being social. We all assumed he didn't know any English and then one night he got drunk, and just went crazy. It turns out he understands english very wello, but he just have a sorted past. He said he was in the navy when he was 14, and was in it for 8 years. We think he may have been addicted to drugs for a while, and now he's here. He's a nice guys, but when he drinks, he goes crazy, and runs around ni his boxers, with his covers on his head yelling random things. He'll probably be kicked out soon since he's never been to class, and he hasn't been assigned a job/done anything sine he's gotten here. Even though he's crazy, we're all such a family here that when he leaves it will be sad.
It's now been about a month sine I've been here, which is really crazy. I think everybody is starting to feel a little too cooped inside. We are close to Rehovot, which is a good sized town, but it costs money to get in and out of there most of the time. Yesterday though no one had class or work in the afternoon so everyone tried to get on the one free bus gonig into Rehovot. The bus maybe fits 20 people at most. Probably 20 people from the ulpan were waiting for the bus, and kibbutz teenagers, and adults, and the kibbutzniks told some of us ulpanists to get off the bus so they could fit. They don't really see us as equal sine we don't live here all year round, which I can understrand. But at the same time we work, we pay to be here, and we put in our share, so it can get kind of obnoxious.
Sometimes fun things will come up. The other night a few friends and I went to a birthady BBQ of a friend of ours on the kibbutz, and they fed us meat, beer and hummus, and this dip that was kind of like hummus but a lot better. Usually most nights/free time in general, we like to hang around in people's rooms and listen to music, and sometimes dance. One night me and my Montreal friend, Blake were left alone in a room with speakers, and we both just started dancing. We were dancing in the halls, where we realized the video cameras probably saw everything. A girl in the Ulpan's sister was in town and she saw us doing this and probably thought we were crazy. There might be some truth to her thinking we're crazy though, since we probably are all a bit crazy as a result of being cooped up on our isolated community.
It is finally warm again, and after 3 weeks of cold, I think I heard we're having a bit of a heat wave. Yesterday after work, me, 3 of my ulpan friends were driven to a beach just 20 minutes away by our kibbutz friend Offer. We got to swim and lay down on the beach and relax. The beach was quite the sight, there were cars parked on it, people driving around on 4 wheelers, and when we first arrived there was a car stuck in the water being pushed out. Offer told us this is common to see at a beach, people like showing off there cars. What was also different about the beach was the fact that it was pretty much all young people, and you didn't see old men with their big bellies hanging over their speedos like you normally see at a beach.
Last night I got to have a nice home cooked shabbat meal with a family on the kibbutz... family of Dina's old friend Avidan. It was very nice. She was born in Canada, and moved to Israel after she did the same Ulpan I did, many years ago. I took it easy after that, and didn't go to the club since I've been a bit sick for a few days. It was nice to have a relaxing night.
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