שנה טובה!!

Tonight is the beginning of Rosh Hashannah which means the Israel Service Fellows get a much needed break! Moving to another country is a lot of work it turns out... We had our first Ulpan session yesterday where we took more placement tests and had mini "interviews" with the instructors. Then we had a group meeting to go over roommate contract type issues as well as some Hevruta (small group study) about Rosh Hashannah and what it means and why we celebrate it. 

Tonight I'm going to have dinner with an Israeli family associated with my program and a few other ISFers and hopefully tomorrow I can find services somewhere. We were told the family speaks very little english so definitely getting in some hebrew pracice tonight :). Akko is not a very big place so there is at least one Moroccan schul very close by and an Ashkenazic one pretty far away and thats about it. 

Last night we did our "burnt new years offering" aka bonfire מדורה with the Israeli peers and made more friends! We also discovered that there is a mental institution right on the beach near our flats, fun times. But the beach is really beautiful and at night Haifa is all lit up and very visible! I went back this morning with some of my roomates to watch from the shade as other people get their daily UV dosage. Theres a nice little workout area with new machines right on the beach and we had the entire place to ourselves except for the occasional low flying bird! 

We are slowly learning all of the adorable quirks about the apartment. Our electricity does this nifty trick where it keeps randomly shutting off. Its not too much of a problem because you just hit a button and it is back to normal except that AC units leak when they are shut off suddenly. So my computer is sitting in a box of rice and may need life support. 

While I hope and pray for my computer, I am finding other ways to entertain myself, such as mixing my own henna from the giant bag of powder that the previous tennants left us! 

Shana tova and metuka! שנה טובה ומתוקה! I miss everybody at home so much and am thinking of you! 

Moving Day

 סוף סוף we have moved to Akko! Our apartment is in great condition and very comfortable with a killer view.

There are six of us in our apartment and two other apartments about a 3 minute walk away with ISFers. We had lots of cleaning and organizing to do between the three apartments (or flats as the Israelis like to call them). All of the apartments need to be kept kosher, so we had to kosher a lot of the kitchen utensils and plates etc and I labelled everything with בשרי וחלבי for dairy and meat. Speaking of which I labelled pretty much everythingggg that could be labelled: table, drawers, mirror, fridge, sink, etc. We don't start ulpan until after the haggim so I need to get a head start! The first day was full of running around to the bank where I openned my Israeli bank account and will get my visa card very soon and then a quick falafel break and over to the grocery store. I walked back and forth to the downtown area four times though which boy oh boy was a long way with a lot of sun. Good thing I packed buckets of sunscreen! Everything in Akko is walkable, but I will definitely be walking off my meals doing it. And so far we're eating pretty well! Peanut sauce stir fry a la Hannah for the first night and just tonight had more chicken and penne pasta. We are all shopping and cooking together, family style, which is working out really well so far!

The grocery store called ShuperSal שופרסל is just around the corner, I'm talkin' crazy close! But of course the way cheaper market called My Market is in the center of the city, about 20 minute's walk. More to come on what will prevail: my laziness or my cheapness.

I'm learning new things every day. Yesterday I learned that pigeons are not social creatures, they enjoy solitude from people and finding an empty apartment is like winning the pigeon lottery. So we have been procrastinating the cleaning of the laundry room where we still have friends visiting us every morning. I'm sure once we get desperate enough for clothes we will figure something out. For now, we have brand new sheets and towels courtesy of Ma'ase Olam (very stylish ones at that...).

Today we visited the Municipality building and got a special tour of the security center. And it really was special, we are some of the only people besides employees who have ever been allowed in that room! Akko has cameras on every single corner so they can see the ENTIRE city from a few TV monitors. Seriously, they can zoom all the way up to your window... so living on the fourth floor and I'll still have to close my blinds I guess. But they work with the police department משטרה as well as their own security guard-like people who patrol the area to keep everything safe. They even have an app where you can push a button on your phone and it sends an SOS to them and they call you and send somebody out to help right away, which is really nice to know!

We also visited the Young Adult Center מרכז הצעירים today for a Rosh Hashanah toast with the Israelis which is the place where we'll be doing all of our study sessions and ulpan. It also has computers for us to use and tons of other resources!

On the way back we got rides from the Israelis and Amit drove me around the neighborhoods in my area pointing out landmarks like Pizza Roma, the best pizza in Akko apparently (although I've heard Israelis don't quite understand the concept of pizza as well). Anyways, I got lots more exploring to do! 

Shabas (and our last day) in Givat Haviva

Yesterday? Two days ago? Time is very confusing especially when half of me is still in the United States. Anyways, since my last post we had this wonderful company called Our Nature הטבע שלנו come spend the afternoon leading us through some very creative and entertaining team building games and challenges. Some of them are too crazy/complicated to explain here, but examples where human minesweeper, a blind maze competition, etc that all taught us different lessons about how we do work together and how maybe we should work together. I reaffirmed for myself that I am a much more effective leader in small groups and learned that I really enjoyed activities more when I had more responsibility and with that knowledge I think will be encouraged to step into a suitable leadership role in the future.

Wow, I thought camp was over. My mistake, camp is never over haha. After the team building games we broke into groups to make our own outdoor dinner (not a small undertaking for 70ish hungry twentysomethings since we finally had the Israeli peers join us for a short time). Almost identically to camp, we made indian potatos (hollowed out potatos with broiled eggs an spices inside), pita pizza, homemade cheese, israeli salad, delicious tchina sauce, smores, and chocolate stuffed bananas! What a feast! It definitely made me miss all the friends at camp I made these with only 2 weeks ago. Can you believe its only been two weeks?? 

We were finally given a bit more information about what our normal weekly schedules will look like and with whom/where we will be living. We're going to be pretty busy in schools every other morning followed by volunteering in either Akko עכו or a Druze village until dinner time with Ulpan squeezed between non-school mornings. Sunday's are a part of the working week in Israel, but we will be doing a variety of different things each Sunday including field trips and training days with the Israel Teaching Fellows (ITFers) from Rehovot.

Shabat was a much needed resting day. We had some chill activities and I actually went to services since I probably won't go for the next 10  months, but most importantly I rested. And when I rest, I rest hard. It was so much fun banging on the tables again for birkat with the other girls who had been to jew camp.

Sorry for the late posting! They're keeping us so busy we don't have much time to ourselves much less for blogging :) also I don't fully understand the whole blogging thing yet soooo bear with me. Thanks!