Tzfat the F***?

Hey ya’ll! It is Sunday night, and instead of doing work I’m watching 30 rock on Netflix. Oh watch instantly, you are the downfall of all my schoolwork. Back to my favorite subject. ISRAEL. Ya’ll are probably sick about me talking about my trip, but I don’t care because it was the best trip EVER. Now it is time when the trip started to really pick up and we were doing amazing activity after amazing activity. It was like the crammed all the great stuff in the middle of the trip and put the just good stuff on the ends.

The fourth day we went on another hike. They sure do love hikes on birthright. This time it was more of a hike rather than just a walk up a big hill like at the Golan Heights. I didn’t bring my camera with me, so I have no photos of my own, but I just stalked one from facebook. It has a pretty epic photobomb in it too from a soldier.
Also before we went on the hike that morning our Israeli soldiers came to the hotel! We got 4 guys and 4 girls. Seriously some of the coolest people I have ever met. The reason birthright trips do this is because it allows us to understand that people our age in Israel have sort of a different life. Instead of going to college after high school, they go to the army and then college after if they want. Everyone is proud to serve in the Israeli honor because defending our Jewish state is a mitzvah.

Enough with that. Our next activity was going to a winery. Uh oh. College kids and alcohol. Probably not a good idea, but I think everyone handled themselves pretty well. First we got a brief history the Dalton winery and then we had a quick tour of the entire factory. Give me the booze please. I have a deep love for wine, so let me tell you this was one of the highlights of the trip. The chaperones warned us to not get out of control. We went into this smaller room with about 6 tables. My friends and I circled around one with one of the male Israeli soldiers and sat down for an epic wine tasting.

First we sampled a bottle white wine. It was delicious. I seriously should have bought about ten bottles to bring back. Although knowing me, I would have drank all of them before I left Israel. I like my booze. Next we got to sample a red wine. Most people poured their left over wine in the buckets on the table like you were supposed to, but my friends and I chugged each glass down like the classy people we are. Finally, the last wine was a light zinfandel. Delicious. It had a sort of sweet woody taste. I know it sounds weird, but it was really good. Everyone was feeling pretty good, especially because we hadn’t eaten in hours, but no one was drunk or tipsy really.
They did provide these little crackers on the table, but the guys pretty much ate all of them in about 1 minute. Thanks. After the tasting we were allowed to go into the shop for the winery. They had walls and walls with goodies. Not to mention tons of samples. This one man was giving samples of chocolate liquor. Oh god. This was seriously mind blowing. It came in milk chocolate, dark chocolate, and white chocolate. I think I had about 10 shots of it. All the flavors were delicious. Then they had samples of various jams and marinades. My brother ended up getting a pear and wine jam, and I bought some gourmet chocolate. That was eaten in a flash. Unfortunately we had to leave the winery. I was pretty depressed because I wanted to be left there.

Next on the agenda was the old city of Tzfat. The name provided entertainment for the rest of the trip and still going on with people’s facebook album titles. This place was magical. Literally though it is where Kabbalah originated from. Maybe Madonna should visit because that is what everyone associates with it not the actual city of Tzfat. For lunch I had falafel. I forgot to take a picture of it, but it was SO FREAKING GOOD. Although it had tons of gluten in it and I ended up having stomach problems later, but totally worth it.

After we had lunch, we went on a tour around the city. Mainly we looked at old synagogues. At the first one we went to the owner was super cranky and wanted us to hurry through it. An interesting story about it is that during services on Saturday Shabbat, bombs were being dropped on tzfat and a shrapnel flew through the window, but it didn’t hit anyone because everyone was bending over in a specific prayer and it hit the bimah instead. What a miracle. Unfortunately, the next synagogue we tried to go into thought we were loud and obnoxious, so they told us to go away. How rude.

This guy was totally nuts. As we were walking down the street, he started screaming at us. Not mean things, but that he sold the best whatever he made in the entire world. The main reason I took this photo is because my best friend has this exact photo from two years ago when she went on Birthright. However, his food station did smell really good and I am kind of sad that I didn’t try out what he was making. It was sort of like a pizza, but on a pita or naan bread. He provided some great laughs though because he turned on some music and was making all of these funny faces at us and another group that had walked by.

Finally it was shopping time. The shops at Tzfat were so beautiful. I saw this painting in a window and it took my breath away. The colors that the artist achieved are amazing. I ended up buying a hamsah necklace. It is really unique, which is what I wanted because so many people just buy a traditional Jewish star and I don’t want to mark myself like that (not that I’m ashamed to be a Jew, but it just reminds me of the Holocaust and I would rather wear other symbols). All in all this was a really lovely day. We drove back to the hotel that evening, had dinner at the hotel (vomit), and had a special activity planned. We watched a variety of Israeli movies. They were some of the weirdest films I have ever seen in my entire life. One was sort of mafia style while the others were just plain odd. Afterwards, the soldiers had planned a special activity for us where they gave away some army gear through a game. It was pretty funny because people had to do certain challenges, and this one guy had to dance to oops I did it again by Britney Spears. I was in tears.

Have a great Sunday night!

Have you ever been to a winery?
What is your wine drinking etiquette? Favorite type of wine?

Welcome to the Holy Land

Hey ya’ll! Yes I am alive. I have survived two cross continental flights, 10 days with 36 strangers (I knew 3 people out of 40), and a couple of days with my father and younger brother in New York City. To say I’m exhausted is not even giving an accurate description of how I feel. My body is falling apart, but I would not trade the experience for anything. I came back with a bunch of new friends, some good memories, and a love for Israeli food. For the next week or however long it takes me, I will be recapping my epic adventures through the Holy Land and New York City.

Where does the journey begin?
On a nine hour flight from hell. At first, I thought it wasn’t going to be bad, but oh how I was wrong. Thankfully I had a window seat. Although I did not sleep at all. It was expected though because I just have problems sleeping on moving objects. The worst part about flying is how close the seats are to your legs. The seats were cramped and my backpack wouldn’t fit all the way under the seat in front of me. Oh well. Free trip to Israel. Free trip to Israel. That was my mantra. With Horrible Bosses and The Help, I survived the flight. Once we landed, I thought I was going to be fine, but once again I was wrong.

Our group grabbed our luggage, picked up rental phones, and exchanged our money into shekels. We then piled on the bus and drove off to our adventure for the day. WAIT what?!? Yes, the trip planned an entire day of activities for us while we were all running off about zero hours of sleep. Good idea, I know. It was like the worst hangover ever, and I didn’t even get to have the benefits of being wasted. Lame. First on the agenda was the old city of Akko.
In Akko, I felt like I was wide awake and that I had actually slept through the night. Akko overlooks the Knesset, which is a sort of lake in the northern part of Israel. We sat around these cannons listening to our tour guide, Alon, tell us about the history of Akko. It was sort of like a history class, but not boring. Napoleon had come here trying to take the city because it was a port, but the Israeli defense was so great that he was unable to acquire the city and went away. Go Jews. #winning #totalisraelmove. Sorry, but not sorry that I speak in hashtags sometimes. It was a habit formed on the trip. One of the funny parts, at least to me, was when the mosque did its daily call for services. It was one of the most interesting things I have ever heard, and we were all so delusional from lack of sleep that most of us burst out laughing.

Finally it was free time. Free at last. We had about an hour or a little less to walk around the market there. At first we were like wtf, there is no market, but when we wondered through the small alley ways, which are super sketch, we found some hidden treasures.
Tables and tables of yummy desserts. Halva, squares of nuts, and pastries. Sign me up. Yes, I became a sort of fatty on the trip, but then again it was only when we ate on our own because for the most part the hotel food was sort of sketch balls and atrocious. This was our first sight of Israeli food and snacks, and let me tell you I was super stoked for what was to come on the trip. Ten days of stuff like this, oh hell yes.

Oh a spice stand. If only I lived in Israel and had needs for spices because then I would have bought pretty much everything that was available. Another important thing I learned in the market that day was that Israel has access to pretty much everything in the food sense. They have tons of fresh fruit, fish, breads, spices, meats, and CANDY. Did I mention that they have a bunch of stands like this in the market with different food? I didn’t capture everything, but don’t worry I went to a million more markets in different Israeli cities, so I got a little of something something from each one. I would love to live in Israel some day just so I could have all the great food.

Nargila anyone? Oh, hookah in case you didn’t know. Yes, there was a shop in the market that had about a hundred hookahs that came in all shapes and sizes. Personally I liked the one shaped like a tree with a little Abu-like hat on top. If I wanted to blow money on random things, I so would have bought it. Thankfully some other guys bought a hookah on the trip, so we all got to experience some shisha in Israel (although most of us have anyways since it is legal and what not), but it was still fun since it was in Israel. Everything is better in Israel.

Unfortunately market time was over. Noooo. Back on the bus. The bus was evil the entire trip. I swear the air was rigged with some sort of drug that lulled everyone to sleep as soon as they got onto it. Once we loaded up, everyone started getting really tired, but we had to drive to the College of the Western Gallilee to meet some college students and do Tikkun Olam. Normally, I am always down to do a mitzvah or a good deed, but at hour 32 of the journey I’m a hot mess and so is everyone else. At least the drive there was entertaining.
There were tons of round abouts throuhgout Israel, so the cities always filled each one with interesting statues or artwork. This was probably one of the best I saw. One of the weirdest things for me, while in Israel, was that Jews were the largest population and it was reflected in all of the cities. In America or anywhere else, except maybe in New York City, you would never see a bunch of menorahs or Jewish symbols spread throughout the town. I really liked this because as a Jew having a Jewish state is an extremely important thing, but I hate politics and shiz, so I’m not going to get into that with ya’ll. Onwards to the awful experience awaiting us at the college.

We were all starving and expecting some food. Instead we were greeted with a lecture about opportunities to come to Israel and our connection with the students at the college. Normally I wouldn’t be a cranky complainer, but I was hungry and tired, not a good combination. Then to make the situation even worse, they had falafel and no gluten free options, which sucks, so the only thing I ate was a couple of soggy french fries. Grrrr. On to the next one. Probably the most memorable and awful event of the entire trip. The mitzvah project. With the college students, we had to paint a mural for a bunch of delinquent Israeli children held in a facility that was in between jail and juvenile detention center. Oy vey is right.
Highlight of the trip. Obviously. As you can tell we are all so excited to be here painting this mural. A couple of key things happened during these painful hours. A couple of the problem kids walked by, said the mural was complete crap, and were complaining about how we ruined it when they were supposed to be painting it. Another great thing about this place was that two of the kids looked like sisqo. Let me see that thong, thong song, oh yeah. I’m not even kidding. They were like mini-me’s of Sisqo. Weirdest thing ever. Also there was this crazy asian kid with the name of Best. I’m not even going to ask why. Apparently these kids are really dangerous, which is why they weren’t allowed to paint with us, but instead just got to taunt us and insult the fat stupid Americans instead. Best part was probably this blonde girl that wouldn’t allow people to take photos of her because of the paparazzi or something like that. She was obviously on drugs, I guess the detention facility is not doing a good job.

FINALLY. We got to leave and head towards our hotel for the night in Tiberias. Hotel is a nice word for it, but it was more like a run down hostel. Not that I had a problem with it, but don’t call it a hotel when it is anything but that. It was an experience though. Thankfully I had two really great roommates because a lot of people had some issues with theirs, which is something that I did not want to deal with on the trip. We were the first birthright group to arrive, so we had dinner in the hotel with just our group and most of us went to bed pretty early that night from being exhausted.
Hope everyone has been having a great winter break, and I’m so glad to be back.

What was the most memorable charity work experience you have had?
Best charity event? Worst event?

Random educational note: Tikkun Olam is a huge part of being Jewish. Besides the religious aspect to Judaism, doing good for others is a main staple. The phrase means to repair the world. Anyways, I like that Judaism has more a cultural aspect than religious because it sets us apart from others and makes us special.