What Happened in Israel

My friend, her sister, and I at the Dead Sea

Israel is described as the Holy Land. A place not to be missed by any Jew, Muslim, or Christian. Being a Jew, Israel is supposed to have a special place in my heart, but, because I'm not very religious, it honestly did not. I expected this trip to be life changing, not because I would finally see the place my ancestors came to after roaming the desert for forty years, but because it was my first opportunity to be independent. I was going only with the company of my friend Hannah, who's family and friends we would be staying with. Being two stubborn teenage girls, it wasn't easy having to stay together 24/7 for three weeks. By the end of our trip, we had managed to refrain from killing each other after a few fights and childish tears (so much for maturity and independence). On the last day of our trip, I was disappointed. Had I become a crazy, but independent, teen? Not really. This was supposed to be my “life-changing” trip, as I called it, and the irony of that name set in on the last day as I had had no “life-changing” moments. On the last day, we made our way back to Hannah's friend Hadar's house in Tel-Aviv, where she would take us to the airport. When we got to Hadar's house, everything seemed as it should be: Shir, her sister, was watching TV while her brother, Tomer, played on the computer, and her father Etan chatted me up about the World Cup. Her mother, Liat, was in the kitchen making dinner when I noticed the TV was showing images of rockets falling from the sky, narrowly being stopped by the iron dome before they hit the ground. Suddenly, the microwave dinged and beeped--so I thought. Hadar, her family, and Hannah stood up and rushed to the door. Hannah urged me in that direction as she tried to stay calm. Momentary confusion quickly gave way to the terrifying realization that it wasn't the microwave that had gone off, but a bomb alert. I hurried down the four flights of stairs, past the other apartments, willing my legs to move faster in order to get to the locked doors of the bomb shelter. That's right, LOCKED doors. The woman in front of me quietly mumbled, “Lo beseder” (no good in hebrew), and all I could think in a slightly frightened yet ironically proper tone was, “yes, very bad indeed”. There was a horrifying silence that I presumed to be fear, but as I stared at the faces around me , time seemed to freeze. I studied each of the Israeli's faces: their somewhat bemused looks with boredom in their eyes. I realized what they were experiencing wasn't fear for their lives, but a momentary adrenaline rush. They weren't worried, except for Shir who lacked shoes and didn't want to get her feet dirty. They were tired. America is not Israel. These people are used to this. No one can hide forever. No one can worry. There's no time for that. Life, even faced with fear, must go on I realized. Life must go on, sometimes oddly normally, in a war zone.

Looking back after four months of being home, the trip was really great. And I truly miss Israel

Independence in Israel during the Fourth of July

Well Blogger-sphere (if that's how you say it), I'm bacccckkkkkkkk. Let's call my month break from blogging a short hiatus from my boring life. I was on vacation, and frankly to tired to charge my computer after using up all the battery watching HSM and HSM 2. So here we have it, my very good excuse for not blogging. I traveled to a place that you should not be going to right now, Israel. There's alot going on in Israel right now, so I want to blog about that later.

My Israel trip wasn't the life changing, coming of age experience I'd hoped it would be. My whole life I've been at home. I mean I've traveled, but I've always been with my family. Up until the three weeks I spent in Israel, I had never been away for my twin brother for more than a day. Naturally, I wanted to get the hell out of my house and be ON MY OWN. I looked up educational and community service programs but all were too expensive. When my friend told me she was going to Israel (by herself), I expressed my jealousy, which resulted in an invitation to join along. The idea sounded fantastic, and by some miracle, my parents agreed to let me go.

So off we went. Before we even left, I had a bad feeling. As I've expressed in this post, I like to be alone. I was sixteen years old going to a foreign country with another sixteen year old. Needless to say, I didn't get any alone time at all. The friend I went with is very stubborn. Long story short, it was an awful trip that I would like to remove from my memory. I realize how terribly rude that is, considering I got to travel at all, but what can I say, it's the truth.

Dorothy spoke the truth when she said "There's no place like home". I had never wanted to return to my quiet abode in the boring San Fernando Valley until I actually left it. Being back feels great, especially for my back, as I had been sleeping on couches. It's still tough to come back though. After being without your parents for a while, you get a sense of what it's like to be truly independent. I absolutely loved it. If my trip had gone differently, or been with a different person, I probably wouldn't have wanted to come back at all, and would go into my rebellious teenage stage. I'm still waiting for that "phase" so I can finally write about something.

We missed Independence day here in America, but I still got my own taste of freedom, as well as a fireworks show, as I was still there when the first missiles were being fired.

I'm not sure what the purpose of this post was, but I'm just trying to come back. Thanks for sticking with me!