June 21

Hello to all. Quick update- I am returning July 22. Yup, I'm still gone for another month. Next Sunday we do the army thing. Basically they'll give us army seminars, teach us to put together a gun, the last day we shoot it, one day we're in the field, and I guess we'll have to behave like we're in the army. While we're there we'll be waking up at 5 or 5:30 in the morning, get breaks for meals, a one or two other 15 minute breaks, then lights out at 10:30, I think. In all honestly, I'm not that excited to be going, but in all honesty, I have nothing better to do: they'll feed me and give me somewhere to sleep, whereas if I wasn't going, I'd have to leave the Ulpan the 26th- the day right afte our final test. Its for the experience, I'm sure I'll have an alright time.

As I'm typing this Arthur (a TV show I watched as a kid with the talking animals) is on in the background. I'm very dissappointed they call D.W. Gilly, but watching tv shows for children in Hebrew is suprisingly educational. Someone from the Ulpan once put on a tv program that was for sure meant for 5 year olds, and luckily I understood- they basically were saying "up- down - up - down" as they were going up and down stairs. Interesting show..

A couple weekends ago, David and I took a trip down south to Eilat. The first time I ventured South. We were luckily able to take off two days from the Ulpan, so we left Friday morning, and returned Sunday evening. When I say we left friday morning, I don't mean 8am, 7:30am, etc.... I mean we were awake at 5am to feed the animals in the zoo, which was one of the conditions of us being able to take off time. Driving through the desert was beautiul. It wasn't endless land of sand dunes, but there were mountains, and scattered green, a bunch of date trees that had long cranes going to the top where people were picking them. As you got closer to Eilat the mountains on the east side were almost red. We got to Eilat at noonish, and had time to settle into our hostel- the cheapest place we've stayed in which was surprising since Eilat is purely a tourist city. We decided to invest in some snorkels, and head down to the farthest beach possible where we were told there wouldn't be any people. This was the ebach of a hotel, so by pretending we were guests of the hotel, we didn't have to pay for seats on the beach. This was the farthest beach possible, and we had a nice view of the Egytpian border- in fact we could also see Jordan across the way. So we snorkelled and saw amazing amazing corals, and fish. That night we went walking around Eilat, and through this market that was set up, although neither of us bought anything. We then had a lovely romantic dinner at KFC! As we conntinued walking around all we saw were tourists, shopping opportunities and food.

The next day we went to an aquarium. We saw sharks, exotic fish, turtles, stingrays, and some fish and coral that we had seen the previous day while we were swimming. Unfortunatly I left my camera at the hotel this day because I could have been taking pictures of the view from this tower we were on top of at the aquarium, where you could see all of Eilat, and surounding desert. Also fishies! But yes, no camera equals no pictures of Eilat basically. Sorry mom. After the aquarium we went back to the ebach we'd been at the day before and did even more snorkelling. At one point David thought he saw a barracuda, so we swam away quite fast, just in case. It would have been cool to have some sort of underwater flashlight so that we could have seen in between some of the corals we were looking at. Basically the whole time we were snorkelling though all I could think of was "Finding Nemo" becuase we were seeing all the fish from that movie. That night for dinner we went to this Brazillian place where, when you pay a set price, you get unlimited salads, and they come around with a million different types of meat, and you can eat it all. and by a million I mean 16 different meats. Still a lot. There were these funny drunk guys there who found out that someone at the table enxt to them had a birthday, and so about 5 different points of the night, they burst out singing her happy birthday. One guy even made a speech. It was funny, but then I couldn't get the happy birthday song out of my head.

The weekend after Eilat a number of friends and I stayed in luxury at our friends grandfathers yacht. Thankfully we were able to get a ride down there and didn't have to deal with rushing to catch buses. It is, and probably will remain, the largest yacht I will ever get a chance to be on: 3 floor, 7 rooms (but 16 places to sleep), and a clean kitchen with an OVEN! I thought it was exciting. The only problem is you have so many nosy people walking around the marina looking at all of the nice yachts, so when we would be sitting outside, EVERY body was starring at us. It was nice to just have a relaxing, clean environment to hang out. For dinner we made a huge lasagna, with like 5 layers. We didn't really feel like going to the beach or anything on Saturday since it was nice just to be on a boat, and feel like you were in a home.

Last Tuesday we had our final trip with the Ulpan, up north around the Kineret. Where there have normally been seperate English, Spanish, and Russian speaking, tour guides, this time we only had one tour guide who spoke only in Hebrew. At first we stopped at this lookout point. We looked and were talked to about how the land we were sitting on hasn't always belong to Israel and in those days...etc. Next we went to this reserve of water. There we hiked through a stream that was up to our knees. We then got to climb up a little mountain, still through water, but we weren't on a path, we were stepping from rock to rock to get up. We got to our destination there, where there was a little waterfall, and since it was verry hot out, we all rinsed off in the freezing cold water. It was a really beautiful hike, and there were so many other tourists there. I couldn't take as many pictures as I wanted to becuase I would have got my camera wet.


We then went to this stream to do this touristy rafting thing. There were 5 of us in one of those inflatable rafts. There weren't rapids, just a calm stream, except for the one point where there was a little waterfall that dropped up down maybe a foot. At first the ride was pretty annoying because our boat was going all over the place. I knew that if I was sitting in the back I could stear us a lot better due to my canoeing experience. But after a couple minutes I just relaxed and realised I didn't really care since this was just a fun thing. Since we were in water, and had paddles perfect for splashing people, everyones first instinct was to chase after Ilan, the Ulpan manager, to get him wet, but expecting it, he sped up ahead. We were going down stream beside a group of 8 rowdy men, who kept on harrassing 2 girls from the ulpan. Eventually the men tipped over the girls boat, and they started to freak out. One of the girls was freaking out since the water was really cold, and she thought she was going to hit into a rock. Her boat had floated back, so we helped her into ours, and calmed her down. David had to swim back to help the other one get into her boat, and paddle it towards us. When we were finished the rafting we stuffed ourselves with some fresh homemade pizza, and salad.


This weekend, we again went to the yacht, this time 7 of us went. Again, we didn't really do anything, just relaxed, watched some movies, and ate. Eating's a bit part, since it involves making the food, eating it, then cleaning it up. Since everything on the yacht is white, we have to be very careful and clean up after ourselves any time we've touched somehting. For dinner we made quesedillas, guacamole and and Israeli type salad. And of course we ate a lot of sunflower seeds... I eat a lot of sunflower seeds here. A lot. I've been told by Israeli's that it's their version of popcorn: they sit down, and watched a movie, or TV eating seeds. Its highly addictive.


Maybe a week ago, or 2 at this point, I don't remember, guess who showed up at the Ulpan? None other than Anton, the Russian from the Ulpan who was sent to a psych ward. I guess he gets free time (since the first visit, he's come on two other occassions), and of course being in a psych ward, in free time, you would want to leave the facitities. And where else does he have to go but Na'an? Based on what was translated by the Russian girls, we think he might be getting a bit of shock therapy. He didn't remember my name when he saw me, but it wwas obvious he remembered who I was. He's gained wieght, and his eyes aren't looking as hollow as before, so he's for sure doing better. It's strange to try and talk to him though becuase what can you talk to him about? Not about his stay at the Ulpan (he would get embarrassed about his behaviour), not about his life before the Ulpan, not what he's up to n life now (touchy subject talking to someone about the treatment they get in a psych ward), and also not what his future holds, aince he doesn't even know how long they'll keep him. It's good to see him though, and it's good that he's still a sweet guy.

Work is still work. Over the weekend a new goat was born, and some ducks too. Soo cute! I'll take pictures. The goats don't like me though, they always circle me, and get in my way. The donkey doesn't like me either, he always screams in my face in the morning when I go to feed him. [Is it now in Italics on your end too? I can't seem to change it back. Sorry]Anyways, donkey noises are the last thing I want to hear at 7 am, so sometimes I pretend to go at him with the piutch fork, and he stops.

I guess that's all I have for now. Oh, a couple weeks ago we had our oral test, worth 40% of the final test. I got a 37/40. Our classes grades ranged from 35-39/40, so we can all speak Hebrew. Cool.

Yup, now I'm done (it changed back into normal font. I'm confused, but I'm just going to go with it). This could be my last post before I come home. I don't think I'll have access to free internet starting July 3rd until I get back on the 22nd. If anyone needs to reach me, just send me a call. I miss you all, and I am excited to tell you about everything when I get back!!!