The 4 hour bus ride was way too long for me to handle. The bus couldn't have puled into the station sooner, and my heart was pounding in my ears as we boarded the packed tram making the all too familiar journey back to the Etgar flat and, to what feels like, the most like home to me here in Israel.
Thursday:
Molly is one Jordy's best friends who came to visit her, here in Israel. She has long straight dark hair and spends most of her time being cool, making faces and silly noises. It was her last night in Israel and out first in Jerusalem since we left. We all went out for a night on the town of food, drinks and some dancing. We started off with some Hummus for Hummus Ben Sira and for dessert we had the best waffles from Babettes. Sophie and I shared a waffle, one side being Hot Chocolate sauce, that was creamy and bitter and Cookie Crumbs. The other half was Dulce Deleche that coated the entirety of your mouth with the pure sugar-y goodness topped off with some ground white chocolate sprinkles.
We went out for some drinks at Zollies, a classic shnattie Bar in Crack Square and ran into all the Aussies in the world. A guy just passing by noticed their Aussie Drivers Licenses and joined our table. It turns out that all his family is from Australia and that they were her for a Family Event that was, coincidentally, being held at the building where we were staying. Jordy an him hit it off immediately and we spent the night dancing with all his cousins in Kings, another one of those Sdhnattie bars that I promised I wouldn't go into.
We ended the night with some Hot Chocolate at the Karaoke Bar at the top of Ben Yehudah, Molly, Sophie and Jordy taking to the stage, and blowing us all away.
We walked home in the cold wind that made me miss all the night on Etgar when we would make the same trek to our flat in the unexplainable wind of Ben Yehudah at 4am.
Friday:
We slept in.
That afternoon a few friends of mine arrived in Jerusalem. They're from a different youth movement. We walked around the Old City of Jerusalem for a while, exploring the Shuks and the sights of the city before heading back to the apartment for a 'Special' Shabbat dinner. We bought a whole bunch of Chips, Pizza Flavoured Pringles, Bamba and had ourselves a Shabbat Picnic in the Windmill Park.
We went around the circle and everyone had a turn to say why their bag of chips represented something about their Shabbat, and why Shabbat is special to them.
My friends went off to see thoe Kortel and we hung out with the guy from the night before. \Back in the flat we lit up a hubbly and talked to the interesting people that have been living in the flat for the past two months since we left.
Joe: I've never seen anyone play the guitar like him. He's here working with Arab people who live in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem. He's really interested in all the politics of Israel. He is the reason that we're not allowed to rent cars on Shnat because of the time when he was here and happened to steal someone's car. He was kicked off after four months.
Joel: He looks like Andrew Garfield and has a cool blue shirt.
John: When we spoke he looked at us like: "Why are you still talking?" "Who are you?" "Why are you here?"
Lizzie: She changed her out fit at least six times a day.
Saturday:
More Sleeping in! It was beautiful! In the afternoon we went to the Shuk in the Old City and on a short tour of the Christain Courter and to the church of the Holy Seplica.
My two friends headed off home and the three of us girls that were left made some ravioli and tomato sauce for dinner and hung out on th balcony. We streamed some ridiculous movies and ate ice cream until like 4 am in the living room. It was so great.
Sunday:
Jordy and I were supposed to go shopping for comfy pants, but we ended up not going and so I complained vitterly to her until she hugged me better (:
Lol. It was funtastic.
That afternoon we all hopped on a little bus off to a Kibbutz for NetzFest.
I spread out on the back seat of the bus and leaned on my arms looking out the window. We drove past the scenery that had been the backdrop of my life for so long and there was a sinking feeling in my stomach because we would be going back to the terribly broken and sad apartment in the heat of Karmi'le and back to all the negativity and bad vibes that manifested in it.
The bus driver played good music and before I knew it we were off the bus, back into the heat and humidity of the real world and thrown into 24 hours of intense camp vibes. It made me feel better to know that we were doing something real with life though.