Our trip!! ------- !!הטיול שלנו

So! Marissa got back from NYC on Feb 15th and we were supposed to go the next day but we took an extra day and just chilled in the city and did last minute planning. The day before we left I had an audition for a commercian where they needed European looking people and then an interview for an international marketing position. I did the interview in the morning with this guy Ricardo who came to Israel from Bolivia 30 years ago. I decided to be completely honest with him and lay out my cards on the table and tell him that I was here for exactly two more months and while I could really use the money, I understand that running a business is important and I wouldn't want to lie and tell him that I was going to be here for a while and then up and ditch him. On the way to the hotel, these random women stopped me and invited me to go to coffee with them. I was actually sort of bummed out that I was on the way somewhere because I totally would have. Love love Israel because of this randomness. I got to tge hotel and asked for Ricardo. He came and we went into some lobby. He basically started asking me questions in English, Hebrew and Spanish, oh eize kef! What fun. It was cool to communicate in three languages. I laid out my cards and he obviously told me that couldn't hire me for such a short time and told me that from the second he met me he would have given me the job because he could tell I am great with people. All true. It still felt good to get out there and meet with him.

Later that day, I had audition. I didn't listen well to the directions over there so wandered into some industrial area. I went into some auto shop and told them that I was looking for the street and some guy motioned me to come with him and he busted out a map of TLV and was able to tell me right away how to get there. It started pouring on the way over so I had to duck into a mall which actually had a shortcut to the place. When I got there the girl at the front asked me what agency sent me , which threw me off guard and then I told her that I talked to someone from the English speaking website that I look at for everything. I went in and asked if I need to speak in Hebrew in the commercial, to which I got an answer that I don't need to speak at all. The girl asked me if I had acting experience and then told me to pretend that I was on a date and to pretend that I liked the person so I needed to keep looking up and down and play with my hair, etc. Obviously I am not a very good flirter (which I seriously disagree with) but I didn't get the part, at least up to this point I haven't heard from them yet. I met up with Marissa at Aroma (coffee shop) to finalize our tentative plans. We printed directions to our Couch Surfers and some hiking places. We were ready to roll, all we had to do what pack. When we got to the house, Matan, my roomie, had a friend over and she told us to be careful if we were going to hitchhike and that made me uneasy but we were going to play it by ear. We decided that we would try to leave the house at 9AM the next day.

We woke up, ate something, put our backpacks on and were on our way. We were five minutes into our walk and I was already tired and looked ridiculous. It was hilarious. I was borrowing a friend's backpack so I wasn't used to it at all. We got on the bus and because the bus drivers in TLV might be the best in the world, when the bus jerked I almost fell face forward. What a great start. Our journey was tentative to the following: DA NORTH! Ha Tzafon! El norte!

Nazareth
Tiberias
Qiryat Shmona
Akko
Tal El
Haifa
Caesaria
Jerusalem

We got the bus station and bought out tickets to Netzrat. Pretty steep but we were going clearly across the country so it was justifiable....I was nervous because this was one of the few times in my life where I knew that I would have to play it by ear and see where life would take us. Being in Israel is the first experience with that. I feel that being in Israel has trained me to know that I don't know and be ok with that, so with that, along with 20 soldiers we piled onto the bus to Nazareth! And the adventure began!

Two hours later, after falling in and out of sleep, busses tend to do that to me, we were in Nazareth. Where Jesus was conceived. Oh yes. We didn't have a map of the city and the bus took us too far so we had catch a city bus back to the Old City. This was like Disneyland for Catholics and Christians all around the world. Everywhere you went there were signs for something. The Greek Orthadox Churches, Bath houses, wells, Mosques, and the Basillica of Annunciation, which was the focus of the Old City. We walked around for a while and looked at the sites. My favorite was the Basillica of Annunciation - there was something so magical about it. Yes, I am a terrible Jew because I have always loved going into churches and cathedrals. They have a different feel to them. I think I get to say this because I am not connected to any religion at this point in my life so I get to have an objective perspective. In the Basillica there were mosaics of the Virgin from all around the world, inside as well, there were different interpretations of Mary and Jesus. It amazes me and scares me at the same time how religion spreads out around the world, gets a flavor of the culture it is in and then comes back to the focal point. It's intense. The Greek Orthadox Church was beautiful as well, there was gold everywhere and I mean EVERYWHERE. I loved it. I am not going to be attaching pictures because I sent them out, but if you haven't seen them please let me know and I will send you some. So after we saw all the sights, I called our first CouchSurfer, his name was Hilel, oh Hilel. He told me that he could either be home by 3 or 6, so we decided that we would go over there by 6. He sounded annoyed which then annoyed me but I was going to do my best and not let that taint our first experience....

We decided that we would go to Afula, a small town on the way to Ein Harod, where Hilel lived, get dinner and then go to Hilel's. We waited for the bus to Afula for what it seemed like forever, so we decided to go to the tourist office and see which way to go if we wanted to walk and the lady said 10 KM, we thought about it and then returned to the office and asked if there was another bus to take, she told us and then asked, "Lo halachten ba'regel?" You didn't walk? And we laughed and said no and returned to that damn bus stop. Meanwhile, this guy tried to tell us that for 10NIS each he could get us to Afula, I knew he was BS'ing right away but we decided to try, so of course then he started telling us how we have to fill up the car with two more people. We got out - oh Israel, I love the games you play. The bus finally came and it cost 12.5NIS, but it was not sketchy at least.

We got dropped off at Afula and decided to grab some schnitzel, healthy I know. We talked to schnitzel stand owner and he loved that we were speaking Hebrew to him so he hooked us up with more food. After we were done we started walking to the bus, which again took FOREVER to get there. We had to ask someone on the bus where Ein Harod was so he pressed our step and told us to get off. We walked to a gas station where were supposed to wait for Hilel. He called and said that he didn't see as asked me to give the phone to an Israeli who knew where we were. I walked up to the gas station guy and said, cracking up, "Slicha, atah yechol le'agidlo eifo anachnu ki ani lo yoda'at...." Excuse me, could you please tell him where we are because I don't know. How sketchy! Hahaha. He told him and minutes later Hilel pulled up outside the gas station. The gas station guy walked outside and saw us get into a strangers car, I almost died laughing because that must have been so bad. In the car, I think I was having verbal diarrheia. I couldn't stop asking irrelavent questions, I just couldn't control myself. I just didn't know how to act in this situation, it was hilarious. We got to his house and he said to make ourselves at home. We just fell on the couch because we were so tired. He started skyping with his friends and Marissa and I just zoned out to watch TV. He turned out to be ok, he travelled for 6 years and picked up Spanish so him and I spoke Spanish. He didn't stop smokiung the entire time, just kep

Tiberias - woke up ate at the kibbutz and then went to bus stop. Saw a random guy hitchhiking so we both looked at each other and decided that we would start. Oh dear god. After about 10 minutes of pointing right we got one! The guy was great. It was all in Hebrew, he pointing to different things and talking to us. It was great. He dropped us off and we were still 20 KM from Tiberias. Got another guy to pick us up. Marissa talked to him about our volunteering and we had a good convo. Amazingly beautifu  outside, green valleys, flowers of all kinds, unbelievable. Never seen Israel this gorgeous, but then again I have never been to the north. Got dropped off and still had 11KM to get there so we got one more person to take us there. He worked for the army and we spoke just in Hebrew with him because we told him we wanted to practice. We noticed that the people that picked us up were all middle aged men, who would probably kick our ass if we tried to pull anything with them. We were finally in Tveria! It was amazing. Beach town on the Kineret or Sea of Galilee, whatever you want to call it, where Jesus walked on water, even though we heard it actually happened on the Jordan River, but whatever. We walked straighted to the beach, put our stuff down and just laid down, it was incredible. No big groups with us, no rushing, nothing, just doing what we wanted whever we wanted. We agreed that it would be a fabulous idea to go and drink a beer on the boardwalk, so we got ourselves some GoldStars and just chilled. Ah yes, amazing. Just Marissa and me and our backpacks, relying only on ourselves.

The next CouchSurfer was Avi. Marissa said that he sounded really cool on the phone and she felt that they were good friends. Cool, can't complain. We walked around a little bit more and then went to wait for the bus to Yavnel where Avi lived. I told the bus driver to tell us when we got to Yavnel and he started yelling that there are many stops and we need to be more specific. Par for the course. Marissa called Avi and he gave her more directions. Oh the bus we sat next to this cyclist who wouldn't stop talking and said that his mom was American, to which I wondered why he still spoke with such a thick accent. He gave us bananas, that was nice. He told to get off somewhere which turned out to be incorrect so then when we told the bus driver to stop the bus he started yelling that we bought tickets to Yavnel but were getting off somewhere else, blah blah, it really becomes entertaining. I am scared I am going to be an animal when I come back to the states and start yelling at people. Time can only tell right. Anyway, we got off the bus and Marissa was mad at herself because of the miscommunication, so she twisted her ankle and fell, with the thirty pounds on her back. Lo tov. Not good.

Yavne'el - Avi and Har'el chilled with us, drank some beer with them, spoke some Hebrew and then they left, Avi brought us dinner because it was Shabbat and we were in middle of nowhere. We ate, then he left, then came back and then left again, we just chilled again. Total stranger just left us in his house, pretty amazing. We were supposed to wake up to go hiking the next morning so at 4:30AM he dropped off food for us at the door so that we would have breakfast the next day. When we woke up however, Marissa's ankle was in no condition to hike the Golan, eize basa! But it was more important to recover because we had a long trip ahead of us. We got up and started walking out of Yavnel, it was Shabbat so it was a quiet and beautiful Saturday morning. I am not going to beat a dead horse with oohhs and ahhhs of how beautiful it was, but DEAR GOD, WAS THIS REALLY ISRAEL!! That was the most asked question on the trip as I recall. Anyway, it took us about 3 hours, in six different cars to get to Qiryat Shmona. Wow. On the way, we got picked up by this middle aged woman and her friend, totally out of carrier, she had this calm hippy vibe about her, then some other guy got us and we saw horses running in the middle of the road, opposite direction of the cars, then some guy who I thought was a woman got us, and because Hebrew is a very male/female language I was trying really hard to not ask gender related questions, it was hilarious. He actually drive us like 5 minutes because he was dropping Yemenite food off at the some gas station so it was completely pointless for him to pick us up! We finally saw anothe hitchhiker and caught a ride with him to Qiryat S. He said it only took him 3 cars to get there, lucky guy!

QS - Nofar and Rotem, lesbian coupe, totally warm and cool. Our age, a little bit younget than me, college students, travelled a lot, went for a walk around the place with Marissa. Nothing much there, but because we were supposed to hike, that is the reason why we made a stop there. The girls asked if we wanted to have dinner with them. Obviously we said yes. The made pasta with pesto, baked potatoes and sweet potatoes and a salad. Delicious! We had coffee and talked and then they asked if we want to play this game called Brandi Dog, where the instructions seemed ridiculous so we just decided to see how it goes, and it was soooo fun. That was a great way to bond with the girls. The next morning we woke up and it was raining. We drank coffee with the girls and set off to Akko.

This one religious guy stopped. He was weird. He asked for my number and I gave it to him just so I could ignore his calls later. There is a method to the madness, people! I learned how to do this now. And unlike in the States, when an Israel guy asks for your number, HE WILL BE CALLING, AND NOT JUST ONCE! (This weirdo has already called me about 6 times) Anyway he also offered us cookies and just game them to us, they were actually pretty good. He dropped us off at the junction and we decided to take the bus from there on out to Akko.

Akko was cool! The waves were  gigantic because of the storm , I have pics and a video. It was surfers paradise. They were going over the walls and flooding everything. I was hungry so I walked up to a flooded fruitstand and asked how much an orange was, so he told me because I am pretty I can just take it. I wonder if that will work in the States, probably not.....I am getting way spoiled out here, it's not good. Anyway, we walked through the Old City and through the market, my absolute favorite part of Israel, everywhere you go it's so great. The girls told us about this Hummus place that we had to go to, Sayid. We got there and the line, which is never really a line was balagan as always. The host host guy asked if we wanted to get seated earlier by sharing a table with these two guys in the corner so we said yes and basically had to sit on their laps because it was so damn crowded. However, when we sat down the guys started getting up and as they left they said b'teavon, which means......drum roll please......bon apetit! Anyway, the hummus was cheap and delicious, just the way we like it, but I am sort of hummused out so I will not give you more details.

We walked around Akko more and went through the shook, got some candy and fruit, walked up so an elevated area, saw some donkeys and decided to go get some coffee and call my relatives to pick us up. We got picked up from the train station by my grandpa's cousin and he took us to their's and Nina's (my 3rd aunt, who is 13 years older than me) and haticha! Hottie! The house was beautiful like always, I love it. I showed it to Marissa and she loved it. Another thing she loved or maybe didn't love is that no one in the house but David (Nina's husband) spoke English, so the only languages that would be spoken would be Hebrew and Russian. However, Marissa's pronounciation of spasibo and pazhaluyskta were amazing by the time we left the house. We also got to paint with the girls in the class that Nina has every Sunday. It was really fun and took me back to the good old days when I was younger and was actually artistic.

We were originally going to spend the next night at our next couch surfers house but Nina "talked us into" - twist my arm - in staying another night. I love being with everyone, it's such a warm family and it is just a joy to be around them a lot. Very loving and amazing, a great example of how I want my family to be, multilingual and all, even though it's crazy difficult.

The next day we went to the Bahai Gardens in Haifa. Nina decided to play matchmaker for me and called one of her friend's sons to show us around the city. Ay Dios Mio! The gardens were AMAZING! I sent out pics, whoever wants, let me know and I will send again. The guy was cool too. We walked around and then went to get Thai food and went to his dorm because he studies at the Technion, a very good tech school in Haifa. David then picked us up and we went back to Tal El to eat more delicious food. We had more family time and then the next morning we took the training to Haifa and Daviv dropped us off at our next destination, Ein Hod, an artist village. The fire that took place a couple of months ago, reached the village and you could see the damage quite clearly, but the village itself was amazing. It was so beautiful and quiet there. It was in the moutains so the air was crisp and nice, the people were chill and the art was very interesting. We walked into a couple galleries and then had some iced coffee and just chilled and enjoyed the great environment. We finished our coffee, took some more pictures and started descending down to the road back to Haifa. We got down and decided that we don't want to walk all the way to the mercaz and guess what, decided to hitchhike there! We were very successful, as soon as the hand went up, the third person stopped. He was so cool. He knew we were American but spoke to us in just Hebrew. He was a boat builder who lived right on the beach. I learned the word for boat which is sira. He dropped us off right at the beach and we started walking on the tayelet, hoping to reach the center eventually. The walk was so nice, people were surfing, eating outside, just enjoying the coming warm weather, beach weather! Ah yes! We obviously took some jumping pictures and continued on our way. We walked to what it seemed like 10 miles and finally decided to get on a bus and go to the central bus station so that we can go to our hosts house.

Our next host was Adriana. When I called she wouldn't stop talking and told me that she was having other couch surfers over and that we would make dinner together. We were excited, it sounded really nice. We got to the CBS and NEEDED a snack so we jumped into a bakery and grabbed some goods which cost us basically nothing, this is how you travel! The we got on a bus to go to her house. The drivers in Haifa are even crazier than TLV, and with the hills of Haifa it is very easy to get car sick, even if you normally don't. So one of us did and we had to get off the bus to get some air and ended up walking the rest of the way to Adriana's house. It only took like 10 minutes. Obviously. We met her outside the house and went in with her.

She seemed really nice but SHE WOULDN'T STOP TALKING!!! Dear god that woman could talk! She offered us some tea and then told us for 30 minutes why she quit her job, something that could have been summed up in one sentence. We moved over to the couch and she started asking us the usual questions that everyone else has asked us already and every time we would answer she would make it about herslef and go on FOREVER! Marissa and I found this hilarious/suicidal. Marissa went to the bathroom and made a face at me and I almost busted out laughing.

It was FINALLY time to start getting dinner ready. It was a relief because then we could at least zone out and help out. Maris and I were tasked with pealing the potatoes. We banged it out really quickly but then of course Adrina redid all of it. Reminds me of my mom. Love you mom!! She was going to make potatoes, fish and salad, yum! The guests came over soon after and we were soooo happy to see them. They were Spaniards from Granada and Salamanca. Luis and Sara. Such a cute couple and their host Eran, who was a bit strange but super nice! Oh but guess what, my Spanish, the one I studied in school, yeah that on, GONE! I have been focusing so much on ivrit that my Spanish is officially in hiding, and the fact that it's also Castellano, does not help at all because I am used to the beautiful dialect of Mexico.

We sat down for dinner and the conversation was mostly in Spanish, but Marissa understood bits and pieces and I didn't understand all of it because I was zoning out. At one point of the convo Marissa made a comment that she was at my family's house for a few days and did not understand anything because of the Russian, and because Adriana had to put her two cents into everything she said she knew some Russian, such as da, nyet, spasibo and she forgot the 4th word. Wow. Oh it gets better. At the end of the meal, when we were all still pretty hungry she said that she was sorry that she didn't have any dessert. She went to the store and saw ice cream and decided it was too expensive. Then she says this: There are bananas on that table if you really want them, but I was really looking forward to eating them for breakfast....

WHAT??? Insert cricket sound here please!!!

One great thing that came out of that evening is that we made new friends and they said that they would go to Caesaria with us the next day. At the end of the evening, when it was just me and Marissa in the room, Marissa kept repeating "It's free, it's free, it's free" It was hilarious!!!!!

The next day, we were meeting the couple at the bus station at 10AM so we woke up and 9AM and wanted to sneak out but she was already in the kitchen. She offered us some tea and coffee and then the talking commenced. However it was cut short because she realized that there was a bus coming. She didn't even get a chance to finish her sentence because we were already out the door. As we ran out we both yelled "OH MY GOD!!!!!" at the same time!

We met Luis and Sara at the bus station and we were on our way. We got to Caesaria and went to the national park which was King Herod's dream. It was so amazing. It was built at the perfect place, the water was turquiose and blue, the sky was clear, the sun was shining. It was gorgeous. We walked around the park for a few hours and decided to call Shay, our next host in Caesaria. He told me that he was in TLV and would be back in 2 hours. We left the park and said bye to our friends and went to find something to eat. I ended up asking these two guys that were fixing something on the road. I spoke to them in Hebrew and as I started walking away they asked where I was from and said in a smart ass way, "ani me Artzot Abrit, ma atem hoshvim?" "I'm from United States, what do you think?" If I can be a smart ass in Hebrew, I am good to go! Anyway when we started walking back, those guys offered us a ride to the food area. It was really nice of them but not surprising. They dropped us off at the supermarket, we bought bread, cheese and pringles, yes! We went out on the lawn and just devoured our food. I turned to Marissa and said, that at this very minute, sitting on the lawn, eating, with just our backpacks and the clothes on our backs, waiting for yet another stranger to pick us up and take us into his house, I felt like I was in my element, I was ready for anything and she agreed. It was an amazing feeling. At that moment, Shay pulled up, and who knows what he thought!

As soon as he picked us up, it was so easy with him! He was so nice and adorable. He right away asked what we waned to do and where he could take us. He took us to his house but before that he took us to a pond with turtles. There were no turtles but there were beavers! There were also orange trees surrounding the whole kibbutz, it was so nice! When we got to his place, we unloaded our things. He said that he was going to leave for an hour and give us some space to take a shower and do whatever. We did just that.

He came back and poured us some drinks and we went outside to smoke hookah and get to know each other. It felt like we have known him forever. He is Uzbeki and speaks Russian, Hebrew, English and Arabic and works for the army, but right now they gave him time to go to school. Impressive I would say. It was so comfortable with him. He said that his friend was going to come over and they were going to make dinner for us. They made an amazing meal!! I could get used to this, boys cooking for us. Yummy. We drank more and then one of the neighbors came home and there more of us, drinking, laughing, hanging out, such kibbutzniks. They asked if we wanted to go out and we both said, betach! Sure! When we went out, we weren't just some random girls, we were all friends that have known each other for ages. It was such a fun night!! When we came home, Shay gave us his bed and had a matress that he was going to sleep on, wow, what a host!!

I slept soooo well, wow. The next morning was beautiful. He made us breakfast which was granola, assortment of fruitm coffee, tea, whatever we wanted and it was so beautiful! He said that he had a surfing lesson and asked if we wanted to come hang on the beach while he did it. I jokingly asked if I can go to the lesson and he told me that I should try, I didn't say no to that. When we got there, I went with him and stood with the rest of the people, while Maris laid out. No one asked me anything, in fact a couple of guys offered me an extra wetsuit. Oh I love Israelis!! Anyway, it was then time to get our boards. We lined them up and listened for further instructions that I sort of understood only because whatever the instructor did, he gestured. Haha. It was time to go into the water!! I was nervous but really excited. We ran into the chilly water and started attempting. I sucked but a few times I managed to ride the wave by pure luck. Just on my stomach but I flew over some people. The surf instructor was gorgeous. He looked so so so mashou mashou, something something, something gorgeous! I was in love with him. Or maybe with his surfing skills. The girls were really cool too, I told them what I was really doing there and told them to keep it a secret. It was sooo fun. Shay told me that I would have to come back next week because everyone thought that I was one of them. I mean, I totally would!

After surfing, we went back to his house and we made a beautiful lunch outside. Man, eating outside is the best thing in the world! I loved it. He said that being in nature really suited me, he called me Teva Girl, which means Nature Girl. I loved it, and the attention I was getting!We smoked more hookah and looked at the time and realized that it was time to go to our next host, in Zichron Yaakov. We called Adam (our next host) and Shay drove us out to Zichron, another really nice gesture.

On the way to Zichron I was getting really sad, the time that we spent at Shay's kibbutz really showed me how much I loved the north and the experiences we were having. I wasn't ready to go back to TLV. He dropped us off in front of our next house and it felt like a really tough goodbye between some good friends, even though we met him yestderday! Weird. We had his number so I was sure that we would see him again.

Adam showed us around his house. He lived in the center of the city, or another small cute place in Israel. It reminded of something from a movie set, a cute little town in the mountains. His house was nice, he showed us our room and made us some coffee. He lived in the states for a long time, so he barely had an accent. He lived there with his mom and his two brothers visit often. At first he was sort of awkward but then he came around and we went for a walk around the town. Then we came home and smoked more hookah. Yes, we are addicted. It was nice, the conversation was about languages, and usually no one I know talks about it so it was really great to speak to people who share the same interest. The three of us had French, Russian, Hebrew, Spanish, English and some Chinese. Cool huh? We had dinner and then went upstairs and pulle dup random videos on youtube that were in different languages and reminded us of our study/travel abroad experiences. It was great! We were exhausted and needed to be up early to go to Jerusalem the next day.

Adam woke up early the next day and made us breakfast, it was so nice. We ate breakfast and then got our stuff ready and walked out to the bus stop. It was the end of our trip in the north and we were going to get on a bus to Hadera and then catch a bus to Jeru. We got to Hadera and after some usual running around and no one being able to tell us anything, we realized that the only way to get to Jeru would be through TLV.....NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! After some thinking we decided that maybe we would celebrate Shabbat with some friends in TLV and take a day break and then go to Jeru on Sunday. It was a good plan and a good and logical end to the trip. What an amazing experience. When Marissa and I got off the bus in TLV at the Central Bus Station, we gave each other a high five. It was clearly one of the most interesting, fun, random, and exciting trips we have ever been in and I feel like I have grown from it. Can't wait to do something like this again!

Sorry for literally writing a novel, hope that some of this made sense. Much love to all!