hospitality and lentils

saturday, 9th june:

i checked the bus times on my way out, and discovered that the website is untrustworthy. i missed the bus i'd needed to switch to and that resulted in me taking the next one, which came an hour later. this caused me to have a little time in the central bus station, and when i bought myself something to drink a shekel dropped to the floor. i leaned down to pick it up and the cable of my really decent headphones looped around my knee without my noticing, and snapped when i stood up.

i was pissed.

my mum called me, we chatted and laughed about my cousin's afrikaans death-metal band (amongst other things), and i milled around deciding who to let rip me off on new earpieces.

the bus wasn't too bad, and i arrived at nystire's extremely south-african home for amarula cream and pudding, and promptly crashed.

10th june:

i woke up to too many breakfast choices. nystire and i had to run to catch the bus. i don't like running for busses. we arrived at the central bus station in jerusalem, met up with rockon (one of the guys from our base) and hunted down some coffee, then made our way to the hotel to meet our group.

our group called themselves the "bang bus", which got us interesting looks whenever we went anywhere shouting it...

we each moved from group to group introducing ourselves; it wasn't the most effective way to meet that many people but it did set the tone for the next five days - i still don't remember anybody's name.

we went off to a soup kitchen to do some community service, which turned out to be quite fun - folding and tossing boxes and peeling potatoes. very grounding.

we bussed off to some strip mall, i had good muesli for lunch and the conversations began. these were going on at all times, until the very last goodbye, and are the main point of having soldiers joining the birthright group. the last two days i'd talked my voice away.

we visited yad vashem, and were treated to a speech from a holocaust survivor afterwards. at some point i opened my eyes to see everyone else nodding off too, it had been a long, hot and dusty day.

we then bussed to the mega-event. about 4000 people all jumping up and down, screaming, and generally having a grand time before the speeches, then jumping up and down for the live performance by fools of the prophecy (shotei ha'nevu'a) which was interesting: them live on stage, with their music but mashed up and with a hard-'n-fast beat.



just before all of that, though, my world caved in - i saw j-girl standing three rows below me. when i caught her eye she screamed, and the two of us made one of those mad scrambles through all the poor sods seated between us for a great, big movie-style hug. we got a chance to chat afterwards, that being the first time we've seen each other since the end of november '05, and i have since been feeling completely apathetic and unemotional as far as vision is concerned.

and that apathy has been stressing me out non-stop.

the party after the event was insane, and we fought with the organizers to stay an extra half-hour that proved to be totally worth it. there's something magical about an enormous group of jews who've grown up quite isolated partying together on such a grand scale. and infected mushroom's new album is awesome.

11th june:

after getting back to the hotel, a small group of us stayed on the rooftop smoking nargila and drinking until 2.30am, and then we were up five hours later for a light breakfast and a great lecture.

afterwards we were off to mount herzl - one of the soldiers pissed me off because he refused to wear his beret. it's not only a military cemetary, but it's the burial ground for some of our greatest national leaders, and he was being downright disrespectful.

we received a talk from a guy whose friends had fallen in the second lebanon war, and that was really powerful.

we had lunch in another mall, and my efforts to obtain decent food were thwarted by the aroma being kosher - it's supposed to be THE place for roast beef sammiches, and they can't serve meat there (T_T) [more anime smileys]



we went caving near beit shemesh, and it was my job to lead. it was a lot of fun, with a really scary moment dangling my feet over what appeared to be a bottomless pit (optical illusion in pitch blackness, forgive me) and pretty much doing the butterfly to crawl out a tunnel on my back using only my shoulders.

dusty work, that ^_^

we had a great time on the bus back, and when we got back to our rooms i discovered that rockon had broken a bottle of araq, a cheap and hard aniseed liquor. so that's what my room smelled like.

i spent a few minutes writing in my hard-copy journal, and then we all went out to some tourist street for supper.

we almost ate at some outside, extremely poor quality and highly priced restaurant that one of the guides had recommended, but after looking at the menu i dragged a couple of guys off to the "grill and beer", which served fantastic food, half the price of the first place, with great atmosphere. afterwards i had a hankering for ice-cream, and had to settle for the regular kiosk-bought stuff when mcdonald's proved too slow.

the birthright crowds took over a cinema theatre to watch bufur, the movie based on that book i've been trying to read for almost a year now, and it was a good movie. highly recommended!

12th june:

the drinking session was moved to the lobby on account of old grannies whinging, and it became a large party which was highly entertaining. about 4am was bedtime, and i'm really glad that i'm not a sympathetic puker because rockon would've had me redecorating our room :P

coffee rush in the morning, crazy last-minute packing and we were off to rabin square. i was sent to take care of a group of kids needing to use the facilities, and after leaving them in the charge of three soldiers and letting two of those soldiers know where i was going, i went home to drop off laundry and pick up a couple of things i'd forgotten.

on my way out nystire called me to tell me that they'd all been looking for me for fifteen minutes; that pissed me right off. when i got back i discovered that that wasn't true - the security guard had waited for me but the rest of the group had moved on. i had a bit of a fight with the guide, but she understood what had happened quickly and from there decided to make me her "right-hand man" :P

we went off to nachalat binyamin, walked through and then had an agadir breakfast - the guys weren't disappointed :)

i took a group to "the third ear" so that they could buy some israeli music, that turned out to be a lot more complicated than anticipated, and we sadly rushed back through rothschild without getting sandwiches for those who hadn't yet eaten :(

but i did get hold of a little green plastic toy soldier to attach to my sat-phone.

we all went to the tel aviv independence museum, to hear some excellent speeches and learn some interesting details of the process of the declaration.



and then it was off to arad to ride camels (extremely amusing) and enjoy bedouin hospitality. after great food and good music, we all went outside the encampment into the desert for an hour or so. i was standing by myself, thinking of the first time i ever sat alone in the desert and how great it is that these kids are given an opportunity to experience that, when i heard scratching behind me and began thinking of scorpions.

we stood in a circle as each person spoke of what they'd been thinking about, and some of the things that came out were quite touching. then we returned to play frisbee, and i got dragged into a sand-hockey match with another group.

i've never played hockey before, but as i took the first smack to the hand i remembered what my mother had told me from her field-hockey days, and got a little more careful. we were using hockey-stick shaped reeds and an american football nerfball, and beers (keeping them out of sight of the bedouins), and it was a lot of sweaty, dusty, dirty fun. i was totally breathless and wasted afterwards, all icky and gross but having had a jolly good time.

13th june:

it was in that state that i entered one of the tents to be caught up in some girl's arms as she taught me some salsa. i was quite impressed with myself for learning the steps rather quickly, and when she left i sat down for a few minutes with the nargila smokers until i realized just how late it was and how smelly i was.

i had a quick shower before putting myself to sleep - i'd say bed, but i forgot to get an extra sleeping bag for a pillow and my neck's still buggered :S
oh, and it was FRIKKIN' FREEZING. my poncho wasn't enough.

without any coffee, we walked up the roman ramp to massada for the sunrise. we had a really sweet naming ceremony for a few of the guys who'd never been given hebrew names, and emotions were running high as we clambered down the snake path singing about death and suicide.

and telling bawdy jokes, of course.

we'd been promised caffeine at the bottom, but all we found was "freshly squeezed orange juice". there's a word for people who hang around obscure places to take advantage of tourists: "gazlanim". the only thing that juice was squeezed out of was a box, and the admittedly large cup cost about four times the amount of the box itself.

we stopped to have breakfast under the trees, where i discovered that one of the girls was running a mini-pharmacy and had lactate pills, so i could handle the dairy stuff ^_^

we then changed into swimming gear, and bussed off to the dead sea. i finally got my cup of coffee at the hotel, although it cost a bomb, and we spent a few hours smearing ourselves with mud, discovering cuts and sores (i'm guessing that going into the dead sea with hemorrhoids isn't smart - the girls were complaining about stinging genitalia) and wrestling in the swimming pool. it was a chilled and enjoyable afternoon.

oh, and some guy got dead sea water in his eyes, so i had to lead him blind through to the showers - it was like one of those team-building trust games, and funny as hell when we both stepped onto the superheated sand and began yelping simultaneously :P

there's a game spot taught me while guarding, called "the next destination is...", and i spent hours on the bus driving everyone crazy with it. that turned into a joke marathon, and i was busy finishing a bar of melted dark chocolate when someone explained "dirty sanchez". i had to - i wiped some of the chocolate over the lip of one of the guys who was sleeping, with hysterical results.

i told him as soon as he got off the bus - i didn't actually want anyone outside of our bus to see, because i wasn't sure if he could take the joke. turned out he found it amusing, so i relaxed a bit (no need to go causing tension).

we stayed in a much nicer hotel, with an incredible view of lake kinneret. i had a shower and channel-surfed until the power went out - apparently the girls and their hairdryers don't mix with israel's grid limits. we went down to eat, and nystire's sister rocked up with biltong >D

i sat in the hall with everyone else, writing in my journal and talking crap, then crashed for an hour. there's a video floating around of me waking up, apparently after they caught me speaking hebrew in my sleep. waking up was a bitch, but then we went outside to the terrace for a notable birthday party for rockon.

14th june:

it was a painful wake-up, and the double-coffee only kicked in once we were already on the bus. after visiting a monument in the golan heights, we went to see a famous bunker near one of the bases i visited in january '05 on the way back from my week of guard duty, then went to meet the other groups for pizza (with more lactate pills) before the hike.

on the way, i was sitting in the aisle of the bus, unaware that i was showing some serious plumber's butt. somebody poured ice-cold water down my backside, and i didn't do it again.

we went on a water hike through one of the jordan river's tributaries, and two of the girls attached their shorts to my back with instructions to keep them dry. one of the guides had brought along a nifty water gun, so i went commando (yeah, that too) and began sneaking up the line from the back, wading close to the water and attacking anything that moved. and, of course, keeping the shorts dry.

this was going well until one of the guys jumped on me from behind, with my knees bent and about six inches from the rocks beneath me - me knees are still swollen and sore >S

the shorts were still pretty much dry, but then i tripped and slid over a hidden rock - that was the end of that.

we pirated badly on the kayaks - rockon and i only had one oar to begin with, which made things a little tricky. when we finished the course, someone accidentally tossed the frisbee into the river, and the groups kayaking past were bastards and didn't return it - sucky people.

we had our closing / goodbye ceremony on the grass, and it was nice. only rockon and i were staying on, so it was disappointing for the other soldiers who had to go home. for the two of us it worked out great, because the party on the shore of the kinneret was fantastic!

in addition to partying, though, i had a couple of long conversations with some of the organizers, which were both enlightening and productive.

15th june:

when we got back to the hotel, we showered (although rockon had issues with the hot water) and went to the afterparty. i was hit on badly by an incredibly sexy girl from one of the other groups, then creeped out by a crazy girl (also from another group) talking to me about monogamy, and then rescued by one of our girls who sat chatting until we went upstairs at 2.30am.

it took forty minutes to get out of bed, and we said our personal goodbyes at breakfast. once everyone was on the bus the two of us got on to say goodbye more formally, and then walked off to find a bus south. i got home and did a quick shopping with the kid. we had a long discussion, and spot has finally struck out - this is upsetting, but as much as we love living with him we simple can't anymore.

i tried to catch up on net stuff, but passed out and woke up messed up and dangerously close to missing the bus to herzeliya. as usual, i took the wrong bus and had to walk for over an hour to get to ze germans' place in pituach. i'd intended to nap immediately, but that turned into watching the news for the first time in years - specifically covering the weapons training of small palestinian children, and sam and max - the animated series.

oh, and speaking awkwardly to vision on the phone.

16th june:

then i rested, waking up to watch one of the crappest movies ever (even samuel l. couldn't rescue this one) with a bunch of friends, where none of us was willing to say anything until we neared the end of the film.

ru55's self-built ipod amp is amazing.

i snuck out early (i slept about four hours) and taxied to herzeliya for her grandfather's second barmitvah - once you've had one you repeat it every 70 years. it was the first time i've been in a synagogue in about a year, and it was actually a really good experience. it was all very emotional.

i went to her place afterwards, then with her sister to pituach. i was going to go with the guys to mmf's birthday party, and had forgotten that they don't drive on the sabbath and so weren't going. this put me in the shitty position of being stuck in pituach with no way to get to jaffa, so i made the most of it and sat with her sister and friends on the beach, smoking nargila and get terrifyingly sunburned (but i used cream!).

i got annoyed with the lifeguard, and had to walk about 200m just to dip into the water - the girls didn't see me move, and thought i'd drowned... leading to general hilarity.

when they went home, i went and sat in the coffee bean over super-iced-coffee (four espressos) and panini, producing

and accidentally turning my little toy soldier into a combat engineer (his hand broke off). oh, and a poem, too:

Eggtiming
Here I stand
ankle-deep in the rising sand,
sand pouring through my hair,
down my back, soft and warm

I know not to look up
but I look around at a world
all warped and skew
my own reflection alien,
menacing

I sign to the outside world,
and I think I see them signing back
Half trusting, mostly hopeless,
the response confused and wasteful

Here I will stand,
buried,
wondering if they understood

i walked back to ze germans, watched a lot of seinfeld with them, then walked to the highway and waited for a shuttle back to tel aviv. on the way i realized that my sat-phone was missing, i'd left it on the table :$

i showered, and the kid and i went to the lizard, where i've finally seen and had a drink with the mongoose as a civilian (no big difference, but it's symbolic), sat chatting with nystire's sister (who didn't realize that i wasn't kidding when i said i would only be there for an hour or two), and then took a taxi home with the kid.

17th june:

1am, and we stood in the hallway informing spot that he's leaving, and then had to argue with him about it. i went to bed, and woke up at 6am to start a day of confusion.

i've been so wasted, so stressed over all the things that happened to coincide this week - army work, vision, the austrian girl getting back (great timing), spot, and hosting a few people from the birthright program who're staying here an extra week.

wonderful.

it took a couple of hours to clear my mailbox, i ate way too many cookies that turned out to be pure sugar, and half the morning was spent explaining birthright to everyone individually.

after lunch we were provided with fruit and meringues. i had a meringue, then decided to do the healthy thing and have some fruit - it was so bad that i had to wash out the taste with another meringue after throwing the rotten peach away :S

i spent the afternoon studying, working, experiencing mini-death and planning the evening. vision called when i was at the verge of passing out, and after waking up a bit i called her up to explain myself.

my god, i came out so bloody whiny and pathetic, but i told her how i feel and we've agreed that i'm going to take a few days to think about it all. do i suck, or do i suck? i'm convinced that it's all part of a subconscious trick to keep me away from a good, healthy relationship (because that's not something i'm used to), or a fear of commitment, or that i'm simply an asshole.

i finished up what i was doing, and then nystire and i took the shuttle back to tel aviv. after coffee, i went home, changed, and began writing this post. then i skipped off to meet some of the remaining birthright group at rabin square, and we went indoors (i told them we're not doing that again, this is tel aviv in the summer) to eat italian (i totally wasn't in the mood for italian).

we sat over coffee for a while (outside), then i came home to finish this post (and struggle with the images), shower, and now go to bed.