Israel

First off, let me apologize for not posting earlier, so some of the memories might be a little stale. I tried a couple of times during the Birthright program to write a post, but there was too many things happening for me to ever have time to really sit down and write.

It's been about two hours since the Birthright trip officially ended. What I originally expected to be a kind of cheesy trip with a bunch of random ass people ended up being an amazing experience. I met some incredible people that I will absolutely stay in contact with, had some great adventures, and made some lifelong memories.

The last 10 days flew by, and so many things happened, so I plan on giving a quick-ish recap of the general activities we did in this post, and then having some follow up posts over the next few days which I'll voice more of my personal experiences and opinions.

Part 1: Kibbutz Gadot

My trip started out with a slow start. My 7 hour MegaBus ride turned into a 9.5 ride, due to hitting traffic in Manhattan that was generated from the Pride Parade. After finally getting off the bus, I had to run to the train station to catch a couple trains to get to JFK. I ended up having to get a homeless guy to direct me in the right direction as I got super confused. From there, everything got better. I slept incredibly well on the flight, and once we got our first resting point at Kibbutz Gadot in the northern-most part of Israel, I had barely any trouble at all falling back asleep.

Our first day was highlighted by a rafting trip down the Jordan River. No one really knew what to expect, and people were still getting acquainted with each other, so I my raft consisted of mostly friendly faces. Accompanied by Jenna, Emily, and a North Carolinian named Jacob, we slowly started floating down the river. It took us a while to get going, as the river was very low, and we seemed to be able to get stuck on every rock we passed. Eventually, the river deepened a little bit, and we were shortly thereafter met by a barricade of IDF soldiers who were on a day off to get some relaxation. They seemed to get a lot of joy out of bombarding the silly Americans, so as we struggled to get through them, we got absolutely drenched. By the time we broke through the lines, we had picked up a couple soldiers who had had their raft stolen by their sergeant.

For the next while, we kept encountering more and more groups of IDF soldiers. Every time we passed another group, the two that were on our raft would start wrestling with whoever they recognized. At one point, one of the soldiers on our raft was leaning over the side, and Emily thought it was a good idea to try to push him over the edge. Instead, he was able to save himself, and he turned around to get revenge. Unfortunately for me, the soldier was under the impression that I was the one that pushed him, which awarded me with a quick shove into the water.

The next few days have kind of melted together for me, so in hopes of keeping this post shorter than the Odyssey, I'll keep the recap short.

For the nights that we stayed on Kibbutz Gadot, we went on a few short and easy hikes (too easy in my opinion), got to visit a winery and did some wine tasting, and visited Tzfat, one of the holiest cities in Israel.

Tzfat was a beautiful little town that rested on the side of a mountain. We spent some time walking through the streets there, visiting the synagogues and walking through the small market. The last activity we did there consisted of meeting with an Orthodox Rabbi who gave us a talk about the meaning of Judaism, as well as teaching us about Kabala, a spiritual branch of Judaism. He was a great speaker, and I learned a lot more than I expected from that talk. Expect a future blog post about those talks.

Part 2: Jerusalem

After parting ways with Kibbutz Gadot, we headed south towards Jerusalem. We stopped at a viewing point to take some nice pictures, and then headed to our hotel. I would like to blame that hotel in particular for the absence of posts, since they made you pay for wifi. Fuck that.

While we were in Jerusalem, our group of 39 Americans grew to 47 as we were joined by 8 IDF soldiers. We quickly integrated them as part of the group, and over the 5 days that they were with us, we got to learn a lot of the cultural differences and similarities between people around the same age as us.

Anyways, over the next four days in Jerusalem we visited basically everything you need to see while you're there. We went into the old city and saw the Western Wall, visited the holocaust museum Yad Vashem, went out to experience local night life at a market, and finally went to the National Museum of Israel. Shabbat was also during our stay in Jerusalem, which meant a full day hanging out at the hotel swimming pool. It was a nice way to get to really meet the soldiers that had joined us, as well as a good time to become closer with the other Americans on the trip.

Part 3: Bedouin Tents

The next stop on our trip was a 1 night stay in the middle of the desert. The Bedouins were locals to Israel before Israel existed. They live in tents in the desert, and move wherever they find water. They have an agreement with the Israeli government now, so they will always have access to water. Our one night stay there was probably my favorite night of the program, as we spent about an hour stargazing. I absolutely love stars and space, and I very rarely get to see the stars like I did that night. It was a new moon, meaning it was dark as shit out, and we could see the Milky Way. As we sat in a circle gazing upwards, a lot of people opened up about their thoughts and feelings of the trip. It was really a special moment, and it brought all of us even closer together.

The morning after stargazing we had to get up bright and early to beat the heat as we hiked up Masada. We took the short but steep trail up, and had an amazing view of the Dead Sea and its surroundings. We then took the Snake Path down, which was much longer, and I was happy to finally get a decent workout in.

From there, we went to the Dead Sea, which was as unpleasant as it was when I was there last, 9 years ago. The sea itself was boiling hot, and while it was fun to float for all of 30 seconds, the 30 minutes of burning down under made it not worth it at all.

Part 4: Tel Aviv

The final stopping place was in Tel Aviv. We got to the hotel around 6:30pm, where we were happy to find the first stable wifi of the whole trip. I spend the next hour contacting Talia and Benji (the friends I am currently with before I leave for Italy), as well as my dad so I could send him my flight info for Rome. After that we had a little time to shower before dinner, and then we went to the local flea market for some drinks. While we were out we met up with Benji, who lives nearby, and we got to catch up and figure out the tentative plan once the Birthright program was over. After heading back to the hotel, I decided to stay up for a while with a new friend named Sophie. We explored the area around the hotel for a little, and when we finally decided it was time to go to bed at 2:30am, we discovered we had been locked out of our rooms. Luckily we managed to get into her room after a few minutes of knocking, and we had to share a tiny little twin sized bed for the night. The result of about 4 hours of not great sleep led to a delirious final day of the tour, as we spent the whole day walking around Tel Aviv. We went to a giant outdoor market, and I immediately found a coffee shop to sit in for the next few hours until we got back on the bus to go to the final dinner.

After dinner was over, it was time to say our goodbyes. What started as a basically just a free ticket in the general direction of Europe ended as a lifelong memories with people that I'm sure I will see in the not so distant future. While up until this point I hadn't been nervous at all about my travels through Europe, after feeling so comfortable surrounded by friendly faces, it feels really weird to be on my own. I would like to give a quick thanks to the country of Israel for making a trip like that available. It is something that everyone should have the opportunity to do.

I am now staying at Benji's place for two nights, where we will be meeting up with Talia in a few hours. I walked Jenna and Emily to the train station at 5:00 this morning, and said my goodbyes with them. I really enjoyed their company throughout this trip, and I'm going to miss them a lot as they backpack across France and Spain. If you two are reading this, I hope I mentioned you enough, I'm sure I'll mention you plenty more in some of the follow up posts.

For now, I'm signing off. I have 3 more days in Israel that I will be spending with Benji and Talia. We are going clubbing tonight, to the beach (I think?) tomorrow, and staying at Talia's kibbutz that night. Honestly, I'm only 50% sure on half the stuff we're doing, since I'm letting the locals take the reins on the scheduling.

Expect a few more posts in the near future.

Thanks for reading,

Ben