inconsistency is becoming pretty consistent...

I've pretty much abandoned my blog, and I certainly apologize, so much to do, so little American internet...

It's been months since I've blogged, but believe me...I've been trying to organize some thoughts, find some explanations....and while I've accomplished many things in the recent months, settling my rampant thoughts and figuring out what I'm doing next year is NOT on that list of accomplishments.

In the past months this has happend:

• My Mom visited (hi Lez!)
• My Mom left after a week of me fully realizing my homesickness and lashing out passive aggressively at her for tardiness (sorry Lez...)
• I participated in MASA's week long Building Future Leadership conference with 400+ peers currently on long term programs in Israel (400 of about 10,000 that will come to Israel on MASA, or MASA-affiliated programs this year alone)
  
• I continued to volunteer and live in Karmiel (this is the last week)
  
• Ideas and visions of my own and of my now business partners turned into a reality: www.puzzleisrael.com

So it's been a loaded month and a half...and now it's time to say goodbye to the North. I was SO ready to leave Ashkelon when we did, but I can't say the same about Karmiel. Although I've been dreaming of living in Tel Aviv since I was 16 there's a feeling of unfinished business that leaves me questioning:

when is 3 months too much time? when is 3 months not enough time?

The North is so versitile, so cultural, so VERY beautiful. Every day I leave my apartment saying, "Today is as green as these hills and valleys will get, this is the GREENEST green I've ever seen" and each day...I'm wrong!

What next?

Are we really asking ourselves this question already? Didn't we just get here? Unfortunately we, OTZMAnikim are. When Part II has barely graced the half-point and there a whole Part III that hasn't even started we are still asking ourselves what next.

What's the next job?
What's the next degree?
What job will get me to the next degree?
What's the next city? state? country?

I try to be yogic about it. I really do. I try to say..."stay present Nik" and "Be here in Karmiel not in a decision that will take effect four months from now" But I don't. Most of us don't. We still worry shared worries and let our minds slip into so many different forms of the timeless question:

What do I want to be when I grow up?

The first answer I can remember giving was "Farmer." [WHY] "sheepskin is soft." Maybe 5 (or 6, or 7) year old Nikki had it right. Maybe we over-complicate things. Maybe we need no other decision making solution other than tactile (or any of the other 4) senses. Business school is certainly not soft, nor does it taste good. Smell is dependent on scenario and location but ultimately for most it DEFINITELY does look and sound good.

So we are using our senses after all...

This year has been about a lot of things...but looking and sounding good are not part of them. Touching, smelling and tasting certainly have been a huge part of this exploratory journey.

Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul. (Wilde)

I'm not good at this...

I've only ever blogged for short periods of time, vacations, tours etc and what I've just realized is how incredible it is that the excitement of my blog posts come from what is currently in my life day-to-day reality...I'm quite blessed..now...if only I had time and wasn't so lazy...

Karmiel is exhausting and uplifting in each and every breath. Our weekly schedule boils down to 2 days at Kishurit, 2 days at Kfar Yeladim, 2 days at Psagot High School, 1 day in a Bedouin village and after-school English tutoring.

Kishorit

I have very little experience working in a Special Needs environment but the moment I stepped into the Kishorit offices and watched an introductory video I felt suddenly empowered. I held back tears as I watched parents attest to how incredible of a place Kishorit is, how it gave their children a life, and purpose. Kibbutz Kishor, more affectionately, "Kishorit" is a village and home-for-life for adults with special needs. Almost ever member, "Chaver" (friend) works in the morning and goes to clubs in the afternoon. Kishurit has SO much to offer, a toy factory, plastic factory, dog breeders, horse therapy, goat farm, zoo, and vineyard...just to name a few. We go to Kishurit twice a week to help out in various places. I work in the Mikbesah, or the Laundry, making sure all of the village has clean clothes. I work regularly with anywhere between 4-8 Chaverim, all ranging in broad abilities and covering a wide range of special needs. For more information about Kishurit check THIS out.

Kfar Yeladim

Kfar Yeladim, literally meaning "Children's Village" is a foster-care village for children from Kindergarten until 18 years old. There are 17 Mishpachtonim (families) in the village all together, each Mishpachtonim housing Parents and their own children as well as 12 foster children. Jeff, Michael and I were assigned to one Mishpachton each to spend time there with the children twice a week. I work with the Levi family, and have such a great time with these amazing children. If I'm not helping with homework or escorting kids to clubs and activities we sit and play guitar, talk and sometimes cook. And I thought I grew up in a busy household...It's crazy and even a bit manic but an incredible environment for children who have very little.

Bedouin Village- Ras el-Ein

One day a week we have an amazingly special opportunity to spend the evening in a small clubhouse in a Bedouin village in Misgav (the Regional council that surrounds Karmiel). Ras el Ein is one of the smallest Bedouin villages combining 2 large families, one Bedouin Arab and one Christian Arab who have been living on the same lands for hundreds of years. Working at Ras El Ein has been such an uplifting experience. The children in the clubhouse speak very little English and/Hebrew so Naif, the head of informal education for the village translates from Arabic to Hebrew and I translate from Hebrew to English for Jeff and Michael. They are some of the most warm and inviting people I have ever met and place such an importance on co-existence in Israel and making sure that we feel at home in Ras el Ein.

Psagot High School

Aside from just helping 11th and 12th graders prepare for their Bagrut (standardized testing) exams we each have small projects of our own that we work on. Right now Michael and Jeff are helping students research for a debate on "Whether or not the Tanach (Bible) should be taught in Public schools (it currently is)" and I'm helping a film student, Sagi, with some translations for his final film project. Sagi is working on an AMAZING documentary film on a man David who lives here in Karmiel. David is a 60 year old African American man who has lived in Israel for over 30 years. Despite his religiousness, love of the land and period of time he's lived here he is still unable to become a citizen of Israel (even after giving up his American citizenship). To add to that, David also has a physical handicap, he has very little use of his hands and arms. It's an incredibly interesting story, and when the final video is finished I will make sure you all see it.

That's pretty much what our work week looks like here...throw in some dinners and community events and you've got it all. We love Karmiel, the beautiful weather, scenery and people.

Not only are we far passed the halfway mark of OTZMA...but we're passed the half-way mark of Part 2!!! (how could this be...?)

We leave here mid April, and I'll be moving to Tel Aviv to work with the Israeli Opera and Center for Performing Arts in their marketing department!!!

New Years and Karmiel

Exhausted and no where near unpacked Bec and I decided on the "go with the flow" approach to New Years plans. We spent the day in Tel Aviv catching up with friends and family. I got to see Jesse and the J'Burgh group visiting Israel for a bit and despite having no plans we ended up going with my cousin Shai to see his roommate DJ at a rave in central Tel Aviv. The music was incredible and we danced the night away. There was no lavish countdown, no one really caring that the year was changing at a specific minute. So, from across the room as my watch hit midnight I found my best friend in Israel and we smiled...Happy New Year!

After a few days to relax and seperate our things from a giant pile of sharing (this took forever) we packed up our bags and headed to Jerusalem for our Part II orientation. Some speakers and instructions and meals later we boarded seperate buses and I headed up to Karmiel.

The first few weeks in Karmiel have been incredible. Busy. But incredible. Karmiel is in the north central region of Israel and is a small city of about 50,000 people surrounded by small communities and gorgeous mountainous scenery.

A short tour of our apartment in the Mercaz Klitah (absorption center) in Karmiel

OTZMA has split up into small groups around the country and I'm here with friends Jeff Hast and Michael Schwartz. Here's what Jeff turned in for our weekly "Sunday Letter":

"It has been an amazing and very long first week in the Karmiel-Misgav region. After settling down, unpacking and organizing 'Mercaz Klitah: Part Two," a very exciting and jam packed couple days of volunteer orientation and being wonderfully hosted by friends in Rehovot and Haifa, we came back to Karmiel ready for the busy week ahead of volunteering and a visit by a group from the Pittsburgh federation. Our volunteer experiences have been incredible so far and we have so many opportunities throughout the region. Twice a week, we volunteer at a kibbutz outside of Karmiel, called Kishorit, a kibbutz for adults with special needs. Words cannot describe how remarkable and beautiful the place is in just thirteen years of existence. Nikki volunteers in the laundry room, providing all the members of the community with clean clothes; Michael with the horses cleaning out stables, grooming them and taking them out for exercise; and myself in the bakery helping to make enough bread for the community's daily consumption, as well as cookies, crackers and other tasty desserts. Above all, we get to interact with the members of this amazing community and share with them as much as they share and teach us. It's like one of the members said to me on our first day before lunch, "The worst part about Kishorit is leaving and the best part is coming back." We also volunteer twice a week at a local high school, Psagot, tutoring 11th and 12th graders English...we went into six different classrooms playing 'Ask the Americans Anything You Want' and had discussions from everything from OTZMA, guessing Michael's correct age (no one was ever right, we heard a lot of 18 and 19), to differences in teenagers in Israel and America. We also do evening English homework help with children in the fifth and sixth grades. This doesn't even include the eventual volunteering at the local youth center, the two days a week at a Kfar Yeladim, a foster care village, and the possibility of doing something with the Bedouin community.

Another highlight of the week was waking up and bright up and early before 6am to go on a early morning mountain bike ride through the Misgav region which features, with help of the P2K relationship between Karmiel/Misgav and Pittsburgh, a 23km beautiful bike trail. We went with our guide and one of the members of the visiting Pittsburgh federation. Needless to say, as sore as we are now after the 3 1/2 hour ride, it was an amazing first-week experience as we biked through the trails, muddy fields, riding behind cows and biking and while watching the sunrise. But, yes we are very sore. We also had the opportunity tonight to meet members of the partnership committees from Israel and Pittsburgh as well as teenagers who will be part a ceremony delegation going to the states in April, run by my host mother. Our extremely talented Nikki was front and center, singing and playing guitar during the dinner and proceeding presentation.

All in all it has been an incredibly busy first week here from volunteering, exploring, biking, shuk-ing, settling down in our new home while taking some ridiculous videos...and as the old wise man, Michael Schwartz says, 'Od Sivuv!'"

So with that...Shavua Tov! A good and wonderful week to all!

EUROPE

After getting home from the Desert I met up with Becca after a long-awaited (1 week) reunion. The truth is...when you're living so far from home your friends really do become your brothers and sisters all in one swoop, and of course...dependency is super-normal. So, we spent the day in Tel Aviv running around trying to get the last of things we would need for Europe, doing laundry and packing.

We fit all of our stuff into 2 GIANT backpacking backpacks...in retrospect we obviously packed all of the wrong things...but..it's part of the experience...

the packing mess...

Here's what we did over the course of 2 weeks:

Amsterdam-- London-- Munich-- Prague-- Berlin

During some of the worst airport closings in history and some of the worst snow Europe has seen in History we somehow managed to have no delays or problems with 5 flights, and 2 six-hour car rides, call us miracle women...

When we arrived to Amsterdam it was cold and rainy so we unpacked our things and grabbed some food before Krissy met us at the hostel. When we woke up in the morning there was about a foot of snow on the ground but regardless of the most of the city's public transportation shutting down we spent the day hopping from museum to museum and luckily because of the weather we didn't have to wait in many lines!!!

Krissy and Me standing in Dam Sq. at the iamsterdam sign

For the next few days we walked around in the snow, ate amazing food and explored the museums and culture that seems to be exploding from Amsterdam.

After 4 days Krissy, Bec and I caught flights to London. We did a LOT of shopping, saw everything we came to see and fell in love with London night life.

trying on hats before high tea at Harrod's

Krissy, Me and Bec in front of Big Ben

After 5 incredible days in London we left Krissy off at the airport to return to the states after 3 months of vigorous travel and Bec and I continued onto Germany.

We spent Christmas in snowy Munich, enjoyed meeting fellow travelers at our hostels and even had Christmas brunch at Hofbrauhaus! (and no Pittsburghers...not the one on the South Side...)

Christmas morning menu

Because of the cold weather and the Christmas closings we decided that Munich, although nice, was not our favorite city of the trip so we were more than ready to wake up at the crack of dawn to drive the Audobahn to Prague.

Our little VW rental was only a 5 speed (yes..that's right..I drove stick in Europe...) and we had a little trouble keeping up with the CRAZY German drivers but nevertheless it's still fun to say I've driven the no-speedlimit Audobahn.

We only had 1 day to explore Prague so we got right to it. Having been there when I was 16 on NFTY in Israel's L'dor v'Dor program I thought I might remember a little bit about Prague...but alas..I was wrong...While we did see similar and some of the same sights it was a completely new experience being there on my own 6 years later. Here's an excerpt from an email to my cousin:
"We walked around the old town square, and saw all of the old synagogues and Jewish heritage that has been extremely well preserved there. We also saw the John Lennon Imagine wall, a beautiful tribute to peace. Then we got back in the car and came here to Berlin. There is SO much snow on the ground and it's so cold that we couldn't stay to finish the walking tour outside! We toured the Jewish museum here which is one of the most innovative and creative museums I have ever been to and we saw the main memorial to victims in the Holocaust. Today we'll visit the Berlin wall, and fly to Amsterdam for another day before coming home to Tel Aviv!"

Leaving our mark on the Lennon wall in Prague:
"You can run and you can hide but I'm not leaving less you come with me" -Phil Collins

We woke up early in Prague and searched for the Lennon wall, it was really hard to find but completely worth it. We parked the car and walked through the empty icy streets pretty early in the morning around 7 am and finally found the wall. The pictures are amazing and they'll speak for themselves...It had all kinds of Beatles quotes and quotes about peace, we're so glad we made it. After we made the drive from Prague to Berlin and it was ROUGH. First we got lost in the middle of the Czech Republic because there were signs missing from a detour..NO ONE speaks english and I'm surprised we were able to decipher directions through the czech countryside via hand motions and broken czech. But we finally made it after about 6 hours (including TERRIBLE traffic about an hour outside of Berlin). Our hostel is really cool with a full bar and restaurant in the lobby, very convenient for young people. We repacked our small bag and found parking (theres about a foot of snow on the ground here in Berlin) and we met up with Ariel for dinner and some drinks. We decided to go on a bar crawl and ended up meeting a ton of people and even running into a few people we met in Munich and London...so weird! We didn't finish the Bar crawl because we were just too freezing and headed home to our hostel room that we shared with 6 Asians from Beijing.

In the morning we woke up for a free tour around Berlin...Bec and I lasted about half of the tour before feeling hypothermic and decided to carry on the rest of what we wanted to see on our own. We saw the main town square, The Berlin wall, the holocaust memorial and took a long walk through the Jewish Museum, on of the most innovative and creative museums I have ever been in. We found a hole in the wall vietnamese restaurant where we ordered wayyyy too much food for 10 euros (so much food that our waitress told us..."I think that's too much..")

After our second day in Berlin we caught a flight to Amsterdam for our last day in Europe. The weather was much more temperate in Amsterdam and we spent the last day seeing the sights we missed on the first leg of the trip when Amsterdam was covered in a blizzard.

The trip was incredible. It was fast paced, aggrivating, excting and all kinds of other emotions that make me truly infatuated with travel. We got into Tel Aviv exhausted but excited.

Home at last.

End of Ashkelon and Desert Days

Well, we packed up our stuff, cleaned and said goodbye to Ashkelon which now seems like ages ago and was (real time, about 5 weeks ago). I have to say it was an easy goodbye and I was certainly ready to move onto the next step.

After a day of recuperation, relaxation and repacking I set out for Tzukim, a small development town in the Arava desert, about an hour north of Eilat, the most southern point of Israel. After a four hour bus ride from Tel Aviv I was dropped off here:

So I called Rinat, the supervisor of the project and owner of Desert Days, an eco-friendly alternative solution to the traditional hotel stay.


Once Rinat picked me up we drove to the Desert days campus I put my things down in my Sukkah/tent of a room and immediately began exploring.

With less than a few hours of daylight left I climbed to the nearest peak to take in my surroundings. If you've never spent time in the Arava desert, or any desert you must. There's something magical and humbling about the expansive hills and dunes, something so vast and awesome.

I must preface that I really had no idea what I was getting my self into at all...but I certainly lucked out. I imagined getting to Desert days with a group of english speaking volunteers and when I heard I would be there by myself with 3 semi-permanent workers my stomach completely dropped. But when I met Shachar, Matan and May, I was completely assured that my experience would be nothing less than incredible. Probably three of the most accepting, down to earth, and interesting people I have had the pleasure of meeting.

The first night as we were preparing dinner for ourselves I told them a bit about the program and a bit about myself. Although they are all more than proficient in English we spoke in Hebrew.

May and I worked in preparing the 7 "Biktot" or guest houses for new guests and cooking breakfast for most of the visitors. Because the week I was there fell on Hannukah we were extremely busy and Rinat was happy to have me as an extra hand.

The boys worked with Yair (Rinats husband) on building the foundations of new Biktot. Desert Days is an environmentally friendly alternative to the normal hotel stay. There are compost toilets, all food is composted, many herb gardens and all grey water is drained into gardens. All of the Biktot are made of natural materials, mostly wood, mud and bales of hay.

Here are some highlights of the week:

-Eating fresh and homemade food all the time (Rinat is an incredible cook and even makes her own cheeses, bread, desserts for consumption by all guests...and us..of course..)
-Taking hikes around the outlying Wadis, experimenting and exploring with trails for guests with May
-Being stuck inside for 3 days while riding out a Sandstorm where we cooked, talked, read and played lots of guitar
-Drinking fresh fresh fresh herbal tea at all times of the day
-Cooking with new types of vegetables
-Building mud huts and mud walls in the "Chan" (the main living area for all guests)
-Doing morning Yoga overlooking the expanisive desert

There are so many more...but I couldn't possibly hash out every detail or you would be here for as long as I spent there.

It was such a peaceful, growing experience. The other day May came to visit me up North and I realized what an incredible relationship we had established over the course of just a week, I miss the desert, I miss the serenity, and I cant wait to go back to visit.

Thanksgiving abroad and other fun things

I have NEVER spent a Thanksgiving away from my family and although it's not my favorite holiday being abroad wasn't easy.

Luckily... I have OTZMA, and I have my wonderful OTZMA community and the 33 of us plus some guests (including our star guest Nana, my and Kitah Bet's Ulpan teacher) celebrated an American Thanksgiving in Ashkelon.

Bec and I made a PHENOMENAL squash soup, Amir made a Turkey and everyone made AMAZING side dishes, soups, desserts etc. Hilarious things that happened and made these normal holiday traditions difficult:

1. There is currently an agriculture strike in Israel (to find out more about this read here)and we weren't able to buy/find/order anywhere a whole turkey
2. Our kitchens are small. We only have 2 small burners and a toaster oven. Our soup took 2 days to make...but really...

It took the amazing teamwork and communal efforts to make the evening such a success, but we did it!

November is ending and December (a month of traveling and havoc) is about to begin!!!

For my part 1 1/2 I'll be living and working for two weeks in Tzukim in the far south of Israel helping to build an ecologically responsible village and resort with a team of people my age from around the work. Then for the second half of December, Rebecca and I will be going on a Eurotrip with special guests along the way!

• 12/16-12/19 Amsterdam, Netherlands w/ Krissy and Bec
  
• 12/19-12/23 London, England w/ Krissy and Bec
• 12/24-12/25 Munich, Germany w/ Bec
• 12/26 Frankfurt, Germany w/ Bec and Ariel
• 12/27-12/28 Berlin, Germany
  

______

This week marks our last in Beit Canada and that means moving everything into storage for the month of December. So, I've started to move some of my stuff out and Bec and I took this Shabbat to spend with her family at her Aunt Mira's house in Tel Aviv. After the mandatory Friday afternoon nap, Becca's uncle Yonkel took us out in his 1957 Jeep. It's green, it has no roof or sides, it's amazing. After driving around the heart of Tel Aviv and enjoying the tons of attention a green army jeep cruising through the hot spots of town brings we headed to the northern beaches of Tel Aviv to drive around the sand dunes.

Yonkel is an expert driver and was given several rounds of applause by fellow drivers and sand dune cruisers. We finished the afternoon by watching the sunset over the ocean from the clifs next to the sea.

It's still surreal to me that we're walking around in tank tops and flip flops...but I'm sure Europe will be a huge wake up call.

Pictures to come soon!