Barbara’s Blog

Archive for March, 2009

Cassie’s Birthday

WOW!!! Cassie (My roomate) just turned 16!!!! She has been telling everyone and has been really excited!!! So we (Ariela, Sofia,Karen, May, Naomi, and I) made her a huge card and had everyone sign it. Plus, we bought her cake, and food to make her breakfast in bed. And we wrote on the windows, “Happy Birthday Cassie!” and we made her bed and put balloons on it and confetti on it. Plus we bought stickers and stuff and made her another small sign. And we got everyone (Like everyone!!!) to come to our room at midnight and sing for her and celebrate with us. It was so fun!!! People were dancing on the desks and chairs and it was pretty cool! Today she got dressed up and had breakfast in bed. Then everyone has been saying happy brithday to her and she got a huge balloon basket from her parents. Its like 8 feet tall and has a basket full of candies. Its so cute!!!

Holocaust days and Weekend in Jerusalem

Wow, today has been an emotional rollercoaster! Not in a good way. We have felt depressed, angry, sad, sorry, guilt, pride, acceptance, awe, fear, happy, horror-struck, tired, overwhelmed, and a ton more things. Today during class we learned a lot about the war and stuff leading up to the holocaust. It was interesting and I learned some stuff that I didn’t know before-hand. But we were just leading up to one of the worst things, or maybe even the worst thing that has ever happened in the history of the world. We felt depressed when we learned about all the horrible things that happened to the Jews. The disgusting things they had to go through and how most of them perished. Plus when we learned about the other countries and how no one would help them! We felt angry when we learned about Hitler and how mean and terrible he was. He organized the systematic murder of millions of people. We felt sad when we heard about all the families and young people that died. All the innocent civilians that were killed. And how bad Jews had it before and after the war. The horrible treatment they got. We felt sorry for about the same reasons. Sorry for the mothers and fathers that watched their children get murdered. Sorry for the starving people and sick elderly and weak. We felt guilt for how good and well off we are and how unaware and indifferent we are. Horrible genocide is taking place in Darfur right now, every second more people die. And we Jews have turned our backs on them, and barely make an effort to help our fellow Jews!! How are we any different from the non-Jews who stood idly by during the holocaust? And we are fellow Jews, so we have an even greater obligation!! We felt pride for the Americans and good people who did help and stopped the war. We felt pride for how we, the Jewish people, survived. And for how we have raised awareness and taught the whole world not to ever let something like that happen again. We felt acceptance for how people stood idly by when we compared then to now and Darfur. We felt acceptance when we realized that our part is not to try to relive what they did, but live differently.  We felt awe about how systematic the killing was and how powerful the Nazi’s were. Plus the vastness and horror of the tragedy. We felt fear when learning about the Nazi’s and how inhuman they were. They were truly non-human monsters. We felt happy when we met the survivor and learned about how he made it through the terror. We felt happy when the war was finally over and I know this sounds bad, but when we got a break from class and didn’t have to learn about all the depressing stuff anymore. We felt horror-struck when we learned about just everything that happened. We were tired because we had been learning all day and everything is really depressing and heavy. We were overwhelmed with numbers, and death. We just don’t have enough sorrow to mourn properly every person who perished. It’s just impossible. We felt lots of other emotions too. All together it was a bad and depressing day. But very educational and important in the understanding and history of the Jews.

                The guest speaker today was really amazing. He was in Auschwitz, the worst death camp ever, and he survived. 1.4 million Jews were killed there during 6 months, and yet he made it out alive. Today he is a very mobile and independent person. He is a journalist and lives in Tel Aviv. He came and spoke to us about his experiences and how he survived because of so many miracles. He is truly thankful of the fact that he survived. Plus, he was the only family that everyone made it out of Auschwitz alive. So he told us about how he was deported in the cattle cars and given a number. (We saw it, 172345) He lived there with barely any bread. He was forced to join the boxing team, and yet that kept him alive. He got extra food and he made friends there. (People were on a boxing team to entertain the officers at Auschwitz) He was French and so he made French friends there who helped him survive. They stayed together and stayed strong united. He had a French friend who worked in the kitchen and who smuggled him out extra food. Plus on the march of the dead, they all walked together. Once when they stopped for a few hours, one French friend found a bag of bread. He tried to give it to his friends, but they had already started walking. The officer said he would be shot if he tried to join them. But he did anyways, and he died trying to save his friends. He had told the person who spoke to us, that he only wanted to help others, and that was his purpose. Then our speaker told us about a few other things. He had a really good memory. The odd thing was that he did not explain the really horrible things he suffered through. He talked about some stuff and then told us jokes about random things. That was really the center point of the emotional rollercoaster. Because at any one point we did not know what to feel. He could be talking about how retarded Americans are for saying soccer and using feet, inches, and yards. But the next sentence would be about his friend in the camp who was really tall and died there. It was just confusing, but very good. We have met a person who is a survivor. If ANYONE EVER TRYS TO DENEY THE HOLOCAUST I CAN SAY THAT I MET A SURVIVOR FROM THE WORST DEATH CAMP EVER. HE HAD A NUMBER, AND HE SUFFERED. NO ONE CAN EVER SAY THAT THE HOLOCAUST DID NOT HAPPEN. NEVER AGAIN!

That was an interesting class. Not many notes and stuff which was nice, but there was a really serious and for me, shocking discussion.  We have been learning about the holocaust for a while now and so we had a class from 7 to 9 at night where we talked about whether we were surprised that the Unites States did not help the Jews in the holocaust. The US knew what was going on, but many people did not want to help. Were we surprised? The general answer was no. Many people used the present day example of Darfur and the genocide to prove their points. In Darfur, Jews are getting killed everyday and the Jews of America are just living their lives. We have a stronger connection to them because they are Jews like us, unlike the non-Jews in the holocaust. Many non-Jews did not help the Jews because they were afraid of Hitler, dying, and did not like the Jews. So they did not help, just like people nowadays are not helping. Other people said that they were surprised that the Jews were not helped because nowadays people are helping Darfur even if right now it does not have the desired effect. Also, they thought that in Darfur troops should not be sent in because then it would become like the Iraq war and genocide. I personally do not agree with this point. But anyways, it was a fun night class. People showed up in their pajamas and it was a chilled class.

A few days ago we went to the kibbutz, Lochameh hagettahot. We got up early, drove for like 2 hours, and then got to the Kibbutz. We were going to go to the museum there, but there were a ton of army people there learning about Jewish resistance in the holocaust, so we had to skip a few things. Plus, one of the core teachers (Rona) wasn’t there so we had Yossi fill in for her. He is a really good teacher who has been at Muss for around 30 years!! So firstly we learned about the death camp Treblinka. We looked at a model of it and saw where millions of people were killed. We learned about how Jews tried to resist and how many of them were unsuccessful. We then went through the museum. Sorry, I should give some background about the Kibbutz. It was founded by survivors of the holocaust right before Israel was established as a Jewish state. They made a huge museum about Jewish resistance in the holocaust because before the trial of Adolf Eichmann in the 1960’s, many Jews and Israelis thought the Jews in the holocaust were weak and pathetic. They said they were sheep who walked to their death. But the trial of Eichmann showed the world how the Jews were too weak, (physically and emotionally) depressed, and did not know enough to know that they were about to be slaughtered. So the Jews could not resist. So back to the museum, we were shown a video about the Warsaw ghetto uprising. The video was really good, and the uprising was amazing!! I don’t understand how the people there did that!!! They smuggled guns, food and used guerilla warfare to scare away the Nazis. Then the Nazis burned down the ghetto. But the Jews held them off for over six weeks! That’s longer than it took the Nazis to conquer Poland. (Around one week) Then we learned more about small uprisings and how people escaped death camps. After that, we all sat in front of the actual bullet proof glass case that Adolf Eichmann sat in and we learned about his trial. I thought the coolest thing was one of the police officers that sat in back of Eichmann. Israel chose a non polish German or eastern European Jew to be his police officer so that they would not have personal connections and want to get revenge on Eichmann. So one of the officers was Moroccan.  And one time (like ten years ago) when Yossi was teaching about the trial, one student was talking a lot. He would not shut up! So Yossi asked him what was so important or interesting and he got up, pointed to the picture of Eichmann and his two guards, and said, “That is my father!” I thought that was pretty cool! His father had been an Israeli police man and he had been a guard for Adolf Eichmann, an evil man who killed millions of people.

                After the museum we had lunch, and then went to a hike in the Carmel. It was not the same hike we did on Har Carmel, it was MUCH easier! We walked with the teachers and I was FIRST up the mountain, it was only about a 45 minute hike. Then at the top we heard stories of great heroes that saved Jews and helped Jews during the holocaust. There were some pretty amazing stories. Then we hiked down the mountain. That was the annoying part. I wasn’t tired at all and could have easily been first but there was this girl who would not let me get in front of her!!! She even went in front of the teacher and we are not allowed to do that, so I am counting it as a win because I was the first person the mountain after the teacher. (The first person down who followed the rules, otherwise I would have been second) At the bottom we all bought ice cream from an ice cream truck. In Israel those things are everywhere! I’m telling you they follow us and they get so much business from the Americans. When I say everyone bought, I mean that like 58 out of 60 people bought! They surround the truck; I am amazed it doesn’t tip over! They are like everywhere!!!

Yesterday we went to Yad Vashem, it is a really amazing holocaust museum. I really liked it, it was very moving. Many of us ended up crying. We were walked through the history of the Jews in Europe from 1933 to 1944. It was really tragic.  I thought the most moving part of it was the children’s memorial and the room of names. It is said that around 1.5 million Jewish children were murdered in the holocaust. And the memorial was a room that you walk through, it has candles everywhere and they are reflected by mirrors to become 1.5 million candles. While you walk through it there is a recording of someone reading the names of children who were killed. It was just their name, age, and where they were from. Not really anything about them, but that is all we know about many of them. I heard the name of a little five year old girl and just burst out crying. A little innocent and defenseless five year old was murdered by the Nazis. They were truly heartless evil robots. There were so many names, none of us could even remember one after we walked through!! Not a single one! How are we supposed to remember 1.5 million? Plus, many names we do not even know! We were in the room of names and we saw tons (I mean like thousands) of books with just names. That was only like 3 million names they said. We will never know all of them. How horrible is it that people were murdered and we cannot even remember their names!! Just a name and we cannot do that. From a death camp called Belzik there was one survivor. Just ONE! How in the world can we expect him to give us the names for the 250,000 people that died there? He can give us a few names, but the other people are lost to history. That was sickening.  Also the whole museum was just everything the Jews had to go through was utterly terrible.

We just had a really fun weekend in Jerusalem! On Friday after Yad Vashem we went to an outdoor market called Machaneh Yehudah. It was HUGE and had EVERYTHING!!!  Plus it was super cheap and you could haggle. I bought some candy, a kilo of strawberries for 5 shekels, a scarf, two tablecloths, and a lafa with zatar. (Food!!!) I bought the tablecloths for my family at home, they asked me to buy one of the amazing Israeli, indestructible tablecloths. (But of course they are not indestructible because they broke one) I went to the Super Sal but they did not have. And at the shuk they had tablecloths that were really cheap and looked exactly like the ones we have. Plus every store has the same ones, so I assume they are the same. The first one I got for 50 shekels, which is about 12 dollars and fifty cents. Not bad for a tablecloth! (I forgot the dimensions, so I bought the biggest ones they had, I figured we could always fold them if necessary) Then I was thinking that I had just missed a perfect opportunity to haggle, so I decided to buy another. I went to a different store and they practically gave it away to me!!! I got it for 35 shekels! That’s fewer than nine dollars! Go me! Don’t worry, the tablecloths have different patterns. I went with white for both of them. Everything I bought that day added up to a total under 30 dollars. That place was so fun!! Then we went to our hostel. My roommates were Ariela and Naomi. Everyone got dressed up Friday night and we went to the Kotel. Pretty fun, tons of Jews. The usual. Then we went home, had dinner, and slept. The next morning we had a choice of four acitivites. A walk, yoga, hang out with Nitzan, or do nothing. Most people did nothing. A few went on the walk, no one did the hanging out, and Cassie and I did yoga. It was fun! Then we had lunch, and hung out more. At four we all went downstairs. We were split up into our core classes and we played Jepordy!!! Of course our class, danny’s class otherwise known as AP Core won! Really we are the best, smartest, and coolest. And we are the closest. We are just the best class to be in. Sorry other inferior classes, but we have the most fun. The catagories were Judaism, Israel, Israeli culture, Alexander Muss, About the Madrichim, and Random Facts. (The random facts were hard!) The questions were pretty good and easy but the most interesting question for me was name the twelve tribes. So easy!!! Any first grader at Maimonides Academy could easily answer the question! But interestingly, the group that got that question could not answer it. (Phil’s class) Then Rona’s class could not answer it either!!!! So I answered it easily, Revuen, Shimon, Levi, Yehudah, iisacar, Zevulan, Dan,Naftali, Gad, Asher, yosef, and Benjamin. It was so easy!!! It just shows the difference from all of our previous schools and educations.

                                                Then we did havdalah and had DOTS!!! On Ben Yehudah street. (again!) but it’s ok because it was fun! Then we drove back to school.

 

 

Night Class about Holocaust

That was an interesting class. Not many notes and stuff which was nice, but there was a really serious and for me, shocking discussion.  We have been learning about the holocaust for a while now and so we had a class from 7 to 9 at night where we talked about whether we were surprised that the Unites States did not help the Jews in the holocaust. The US knew what was going on, but many people did not want to help. Were we surprised? The general answer was no. Many people used the present day example of Darfur and the genocide to prove their points. In Darfur, Jews are getting killed everyday and the Jews of America are just living their lives. We have a stronger connection to them because they are Jews like us, unlike the non-Jews in the holocaust. Many non-Jews did not help the Jews because they were afraid of Hitler, dying, and did not like the Jews. So they did not help, just like people nowadays are not helping. Other people said that they were surprised that the Jews were not helped because nowadays people are helping Darfur even if right now it does not have the desired effect. Also, they thought that in Darfur troops should not be sent in because then it would become like the Iraq war and genocide. I personally do not agree with this point. But anyways, it was a fun night class. People showed up in their pajamas and it was a chilled class.

Holocaust Day and Speaker

Wow, today has been an emotional rollercoaster! Not in a good way. We have felt depressed, angry, sad, sorry, guilt, pride, acceptance, awe, fear, happy, horror-struck, tired, overwhelmed, and a ton more things. Today during class we learned a lot about the war and stuff leading up to the holocaust. It was interesting and I learned some stuff that I didn’t know before-hand. But we were just leading up to one of the worst things, or maybe even the worst thing that has ever happened in the history of the world. We felt depressed when we learned about all the horrible things that happened to the Jews. The disgusting things they had to go through and how most of them perished. Plus when we learned about the other countries and how no one would help them! We felt angry when we learned about Hitler and how mean and terrible he was. He organized the systematic murder of millions of people. We felt sad when we heard about all the families and young people that died. All the innocent civilians that were killed. And how bad Jews had it before and after the war. The horrible treatment they got. We felt sorry for about the same reasons. Sorry for the mothers and fathers that watched their children get murdered. Sorry for the starving people and sick elderly and weak. We felt guilt for how good and well off we are and how unaware and indifferent we are. Horrible genocide is taking place in Darfur right now, every second more people die. And we Jews have turned our backs on them, and barely make an effort to help our fellow Jews!! How are we any different from the non-Jews who stood idly by during the holocaust? And we are fellow Jews, so we have an even greater obligation!! We felt pride for the Americans and good people who did help and stopped the war. We felt pride for how we, the Jewish people, survived. And for how we have raised awareness and taught the whole world not to ever let something like that happen again. We felt acceptance for how people stood idly by when we compared then to now and Darfur. We felt acceptance when we realized that our part is not to try to relive what they did, but live differently.  We felt awe about how systematic the killing was and how powerful the Nazi’s were. Plus the vastness and horror of the tragedy. We felt fear when learning about the Nazi’s and how inhuman they were. They were truly non-human monsters. We felt happy when we met the survivor and learned about how he made it through the terror. We felt happy when the war was finally over and I know this sounds bad, but when we got a break from class and didn’t have to learn about all the depressing stuff anymore. We felt horror-struck when we learned about just everything that happened. We were tired because we had been learning all day and everything is really depressing and heavy. We were overwhelmed with numbers, and death. We just don’t have enough sorrow to mourn properly every person who perished. It’s just impossible. We felt lots of other emotions too. All together it was a bad and depressing day. But very educational and important in the understanding and history of the Jews.

                The guest speaker today was really amazing. He was in Auschwitz, the worst death camp ever, and he survived. 1.4 million Jews were killed there during 6 months, and yet he made it out alive. Today he is a very mobile and independent person. He is a journalist and lives in Tel Aviv. He came and spoke to us about his experiences and how he survived because of so many miracles. He is truly thankful of the fact that he survived. Plus, he was the only family that everyone made it out of Auschwitz alive. So he told us about how he was deported in the cattle cars and given a number. (We saw it, 172345) He lived there with barely any bread. He was forced to join the boxing team, and yet that kept him alive. He got extra food and he made friends there. (People were on a boxing team to entertain the officers at Auschwitz) He was French and so he made French friends there who helped him survive. They stayed together and stayed strong united. He had a French friend who worked in the kitchen and who smuggled him out extra food. Plus on the march of the dead, they all walked together. Once when they stopped for a few hours, one French friend found a bag of bread. He tried to give it to his friends, but they had already started walking. The officer said he would be shot if he tried to join them. But he did anyways, and he died trying to save his friends. He had told the person who spoke to us, that he only wanted to help others, and that was his purpose. Then our speaker told us about a few other things. He had a really good memory. The odd thing was that he did not explain the really horrible things he suffered through. He talked about some stuff and then told us jokes about random things. That was really the center point of the emotional rollercoaster. Because at any one point we did not know what to feel. He could be talking about how retarded Americans are for saying soccer and using feet, inches, and yards. But the next sentence would be about his friend in the camp who was really tall and died there. It was just confusing, but very good. We have met a person who is a survivor. If ANYONE EVER TRYS TO DENEY THE HOLOCAUST I CAN SAY THAT I MET A SURVIVOR FROM THE WORST DEATH CAMP EVER. HE HAD A NUMBER, AND HE SUFFERED. NO ONE CAN EVER SAY THAT THE HOLOCAUST DID NOT HAPPEN. NEVER AGAIN!

Zionist Seminars

A few days ago we had a Zionism seminar. Basically, all classes were canceled that day. We were divided into five groups with a group leader in each. They were not based on classes or alphabetically, it was just random. I was in a group and our leader was David M. Each group got a great Zionist thinker who founded a type of Zionism. There was religious Zionism, cultural Zionism, political Zionism, labor Zionism, and revisionist Zionism. We had revisionist Zionism with Zeev Jabotinsky. Each group had to create a biography of the persons life, a poster, a song about the person, and a skit. Each thing had to cover different information. So basically, we were given the assignment in the morning and then we had until 1:30 to finish everything. It was plenty of time. It sort of turned into a competition. Each group wanted the best grade. I worked on the bio with Cassie, and Karen. We finished it early and then helped write our skit. Our song was AMAZING!!! And really informative and accurate. So at 1:30 all the groups went into the Beit Kenneset and we performed!! First someone read the bio, then a few people presented the poster, and then the whole group performed the skit and sang the song. We were so good!!! I honestly thought we were the best group. And I thought the worst group was religious Zionism. Their skit was very uninformative and no one could even hear their song. Plus it had nothing to do with religious Zionism! Just cooking in the kitchen! But anyways, they got a 97 and we got a 94. Both very good grades but it was not fair. Plus, the judges, (Teachers) were very clear that they wanted ALL THE INFORMATION about the person that is written in the source book. Well, our group had more than twice as many pages of reading as they did. Really NOT FAIR!!! But I don’t care……The best part of the seminars was that we were done at like 4:30. So we were done with school really early!!

Weekend with the Israelis

Last weekend we had to stay with an Israeli family over the weekend. It was SO fun!! I stayed with Ofir. We are really close and we had a great weekend. We hung out around town after school and then had dinner with her family (who is SSOOO NICE!) Then later on everyone came over to her house and we hung out until 2:00 am. I was so tired but it was worth it!! We bonded. Then we slept until like 10:30 the next morning. I love sleeping. When I was little I didn’t like sleeping, but ever since high school all I want to do is sleep!! So anyways, then all of us, (about 13 of us) walked to a really far but pretty park. We had a picnic there and hung out. We had wheelbarrow races, played Frisbee, and just ate and talked. Very nice and relaxing. Then we went to Avichai’s house when it started raining on us. (All of our cupcakes got wet. L) We thought of ideas of a music video that all of our friends could do sometime, Because our friends make music videos so we could make our own. We decided that sometime we will make a music video to the song All Star.  Then after Shabbat we went out into town and went to dinner. It again was very fun! Good food and good friends. Till The end.

Trip to Kefar Giladi, Tel Dan, Kineret Moshavah, and Zichron Yaakov

We just went on a really long day trip to Kefar Giladi, Tel Dan, Kineret Moshavah, and Zichron Yaakov. It was pretty fun and educational. We are learning about Israel and the first and second alyiah. Plus about the different types of Zionism at that time. At Kefar Giladi we sat in the sun for like 2 and a half hours and learned about lots of stuff. About how very few people came to Israel on the first and second aliyahs. And 2/3’s of the people that came went back. Plus, Jews had a hard time here working the land and so in the beginning they hired Arabs to work for them. But later on they worked themselves. It was part of labor Zionism. There was also religious, political, revisionist, and cultural Zionism. After we learned about how the people in the place where we were were being attacked by Arabs. So Joseph Trumpeldor came and told them to go away. Trumpeldor had started Jewish defense groups and helped Jews become people who could guard their own land. However the Arabs killed him and all the people left Giladi, but they came back 6 months later! Because “Where the field stops, the border begins.” Basically they farmed and lived there so it would be a part of Israel nowadays. It was really beautiful. There was a valley full of trees and grass and it was all lush and alive. Plus it was a sunny day so it was clear and beautiful. We learned a ton more but it’s not important to the story of what we did there. So after we were done learning we went inside and watched a video by the museum we were at. However the video contradicted what our teacher taught us (This happens a lot. So who is right?) And then the video screen went up during the video. Plus then it turned off mid-video. So an Israeli that worked there came to fix it but it didn’t work. Oh well. We then went outside again and learned some more. The first thing Danny said was, “WOW, that video sucked!” It was really funny. Our class is just funny in general. People write down in their notebooks so of the funniest quotes. Whenever we need a good laugh we just read the quotes. WOW I love my core class!! So after learning we got on the buses and went to Tel Dan. First we had lunch, (which is the same on every trip…) and then we went on a “hike”. It was a nature walk. Completely flat but absolutely beautiful!! At the end of the hike we saw an old Tel and gate from the biblical period. It is said in the Tanach that, “Two altars were built, one in Dan and one in Beit El.” Well, we saw the one in Dan!!! It is still there after 2,000 years. Jewish history never ceases to amaze me! Plus we saw a Solomonic gate exactly like the ones in Gezer and Megiddo. And they were built by the same person, SHOCKER! Jk.

            After the walk we went to Kineret Moshavah. It was a cemetery where a Jewish settler from one of the first aliyot is buried. She was a great person who helped a lot with farming and agriculture. We learned more about her and other things and how people were heroes. Then our class had a really nice bonding moment that the other classes didn’t. We could not go see the grave because Danny is a Cohen, so we all went around and said how we (ourselves) are heroes. Then other people would say more stuff about the person and how they are a hero. It was so nice!!! Everyone had such great things said about them and by the end it was just say nice things about everyone. Our class is so nice and close, I love it!

            Then we had dots in Zichron Yaakov. I had shwarmah, it was good!!! Then we went home. The end.

Pi day!

I just want the whole world (or anyone who reads this) to know that today is pi day!!!!

Happy Pi day!!!

3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592307816406286208998628034825342117067982418…..

Purim!!!

Wow!!! That was like the most fun Purim ever!!!! We had so many events and things. Firstly, there is our secret Santa/mordechai’s, plus we had an awesome party last night, and we went to Cholon today for a really cool parade! (Plus we had megillah readings)

                So firstly, on Sunday night we were told that we were going to have a secret Santa thing, and I was not excited at all. Because it seems that I always get my person really good things and then get something not nearly as good in return. But anyways we drew our names Sunday night and then we have to get something for our person/do something nice for them on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. I got ****** as my buddy. (hahaha, you don’t know!!!) So I bought a bunch of stuff for the person on Monday and they really liked it. Plus, on Tuesday (Purim day) we were supposed to get a bigger thing for them so instead of just candy I bought them a few little things too. On Monday my buddy gave me a bunch of stuff, I honestly have no idea who it is. Because the person had like 4 people deliver me different stuff, and today my person gave me more stuff. There had been like 6 different people that have given me stuff, it’s really fun! JOn Thursday I will find out who it is.

                Yesterday we had a really fun Purim party. My whole room dressed up! I was the anti-Barbara, Hanna was a devil/angel, Ariela and Sofia were movie stars, and Cassie was a Greek goddess. We were so cute! Then we went to the party which was with our group, HSI (high school in Israel), JDS, and the Israeli kids from Mosenson. There were really cool lights, and good music! (In English and Hebrew) It was a long party but we just hung out with our friends and time flied!! We danced and just had a great time. It was so fun! Plus there was a costume contest in the beginning and two people from JDS won. They were “blind” dates. They had walking sticks to make them look blind, and sunglasses, and they had signs on them saying “I’m with him/her”. I think they were good, but Sofia and Ariela were matching movie stars and they should have won! Oh well.

                Today we went to a really cool parade!!! It was in Cholon.  All of us had the option to either go to a parade in Cholon or go shopping in Tel Aviv. I chose the parade because we go shopping all the time and we could go shopping in Cholon. So we got on the bus and drove, and drove, and drove. What should have been a 30 minute drive turned out to be a 2 hour ride!!! It sucked because I didn’t bring anything to do! Oh well, but I am really glad that I went to Cholon because the other bus had a little car accident, REALLY little. They just tapped a car at a stoplight, no one was hurt. (And lately I have been paying attention to our bus rides and today our bus took forever to stop and starts to stop really late and never stops before the line! Thank god there were no cars in front of us! Plus, the bus still slows down a lot and jerks really hard!) So anyways, we got to Cholon really late and it was packed!!! I am willing to bet there were at least 10,000 people there. And that is just as far as I could see. It was really hard to see the parade but what I did see was really cool!! It was just an awesome feeling to know and see so many Jewish people like me celebrating the same holiday of Purim. Hanna and I went around to a bunch of places looking for a good viewpoint. The best was just on a little mound next to a tree. I climbed the tree a little but was in a dress (STUPID!) so did not go that far up. Did I mention that the weather was perfect??!!! It was hot and sunny, but not unbearably so. But it was really sad because we got to Cholon really late so the parade ended like 45 minutes after we got there. So then Hanna and I went shopping!!! I bought the CUTEST pair of boots! They are brown and tall and were only 18 dollars!!! I bought them first, and then after I had paid Hanna asked to try a pair on and she ended up buying them too. Just for the record, I bought them first, I saw them first, and I found them!  Hehe, just clarifying. So after that we bought ice cream and then hung out and talked with a few other people.

                Then we met at the place that our madrich told us too. And he found some foam and put it on people’s faces! It was gross! But luckily I stayed clean!  Then we went home, it was the weirdest thing! It took us 2 hours to get there and under 30 minutes to get back. Oh well. We got back home and chilled. And that was my awesome Purim!

Free Weekend 3

We just got back from Aunt Judy’s house and it was really fun!!! On Friday night Hanna and I went to shul with Ezra, Sarah, and Uncle Aaron. It was the first weekend in their new shul!!! It was really nice! (But not completely finished..) We then walked back home and had a very yummy dinner!! Afterwards, we played cards with two of Amichai’s friends until like 11:30!!! It was so fun!!!Then we slept until 11:00 am the next morning! So nice, I love sleep!!! We then had lunch at 12:00 and there was sssoooo much food!!! There were two families that came over for lunch and it was nice. We ate a TON of food and talked a lot. Then Amichai’s friends came over again, (but there were more, and they arrived in a shopping cart…..) we played a bunch of games and walked around for a while and had a fun time. Very relaxed Shabbat afternoon. Then Shabbat ended and we went home a while later. That’s it, just an awesome and fun weekend. And now we have to go to school tomorrow!!! BOO!