Awesome two weeks

I just got home from the end of an amazing but exhausting 2 weeks. As I told you, I spent Chanukah volunteering at an IDF base. We started off the first day with a 3 hour drive to the northern border between Israel and Lebanon. The base we stayed on was about a mile south of the Lebanon border. I think the best way to describe the setting of the base would be to compare it to summer camp. The base was in the woods on top of a mountain with tons of bunks everywhere. Some of the bunks were sleeping quarters and some were for working. After we arrived we went to another bunk where we were given our IDF uniforms to wear for the week. In Israel, you see soldiers everywhere you go and I always thought that the uniforms look uncomfortable but they were surprisingly not too bad. However it was about 60 degrees, I wouldn’t want to be wearing it during the Israeli summer. After we got our uniforms, put our bags down and relaxed for a little we went to the dinning hall where the Chanukah candles were lite and we got to eat as much as we could at the buffet (the food was a lot better than I expected). The next day we started our volunteering, we took a 30 minute bus ride each morning to an outpost on the Israel/Lebanon fence. The work consisted of filing boxes of sand on top of the concrete walls so we made lines and carried sand bags from one person to other until the last couple people took the bags and filled the boxes with sand. It might not sound that exciting but wearing the uniform, being on the border fence and doing tough manual labor while helping to secure the outpost was a blast. We spent the evenings doing an activity related to the IDF such as a game where we learned all about the structure and the different infantry units. Some of the other kids in my program and I spent the rest of the evenings playing soccer with the soldiers. The army plays such a different role here in Israel than it does in the U.S. You can’t go anywhere in Israel without seeing soldiers dressed in their uniforms while carrying huge machine guns around, and not help being interested in the IDF. In the U.S. the wars are being fought really far away and as sad as it is, the current wars have very little impact on the everyday life of Americans. In Israel everybody joins the military and the wars are fought on the borders and unfortunately sometimes inside the borders. It’s that and all of the success the IDF has had which makes the military so interesting to me. Hopefully and thankfully this is probably the closest I will ever get to having to fight in a military.

I got home at about 2 PM from Sar-el last Thursday, watched the awful Ravens/Steelers game, (I didn’t check the internet or ask anyone what happened the whole week) repacked and hoped on a train back to northern Israel to start a 4 day hike. The hike I was planning is called the “Sea to Sea” hike because you start the hike at the Mediterranean and walk until you reach the Sea of the Gaililee. I’ve been in Israel for almost 4 months now and have seen rain for maybe a total of 5 minutes so it never occurred to me to check the weather. When we arrived in Akhziv the night before the hike we were told that a terrible storm was coming through and we probably shouldn’t hike. We were already there and the storm wasn’t supposed to start until the evening of the next day so we decided to go on with the hike. We woke up really early, and followed a river bed through a banana farm for about 4 miles until we hit the Nahal Kziv nature reserve. We then hiked for about another 10 miles in the nature reserve. We misread the map a little and ended up walking up a huge hill/mountain towards the city of Maalot when the storm was just about to start. We stopped and asked a police officer driving by where the camp ground was and he told us to get in because by this time the thunder had already started and the sky did not look happy. After confirming we were Jewish and realizing we had no where to go for Shabbat he said he would take us to the yeshiva and we could spend Shabbat there. The yeshiva gave us a room, dinner and lunch which I was very grateful for because the storm went on for 4 days and according to some Israelis was a once in a 10 year storm. I’m planning on finishing the hike but will definitely check the weather next time before I leave.

The last 2 days Oranim took us on an overnight trip to the Golan Heights. The Golan Heights are very interesting because it was not part of Israel originally and only became a part of Israel after the 67 war. Like everything else in Israel there is a huge dispute between Israel and the Muslim countries over whose land it is which makes for some incredible views, interesting lectures and of course Israel war stories. The highlight was probably the hike in the Banias today which is a stream with beautiful waterfalls, as well as ancient ruins dating back to the third century BC.

I’m getting ready for tomorrow because Aubrey is coming to visit me! I’ve got a lot of really fun things planned while she is here. Aubrey has been here twice before and both on organized trips so I’m hoping she can get a better idea of what it’s like to live here on top of having a great time which I know she will. Check out some of the bananas growing while I was on the hike, me today at a waterfall in the Banias and my favorite pic me at the Golan Brewery where i tried 4 of their microbrews.