Back in the game!

Well folks, by “Aw Eff” standards it’s been a long time since the last post.

Those of you who actually follow what goes on here (all one of you…..hi Abraham!) are probably thinking, “Wow, I bet Sam heard back from the army by now!”

Well, you thought wrong.

Well, you thought partially right. The army says two things: 1) I don’t need more ulpan in order to start. 2) They are going to give me a few job options based on my health/various tests/etc, and based on which one I choose I’ll know when I start. But they haven’t told me my options yet. So I still have no idea what I’m going to do or when I start or what the hell I’m going to tell my parents. Every two days I call the army people and they tell me that they’ll know in another two days. So I call two days later. And they tell me again to ask again in two days.

So that’s where we stand with the army. Where do we stand with everything else?

Well, on Wednesday I lost it. I was at work and a BUNCH of tables were empty. And Crazy Bitch comes up to me and stands right in front of my table. She says to me in Hebrew, “I want this table.” Very firmly. She means business.

I thought this was a weird thing for her to say, so I figured that maybe I just misunderstood something in Hebrew. Yeah yeah, OF COURSE I probably just didn’t understand the Hebrew she was using. That MUST be it. So I just smiled and when she turned around to briefly talk to a different lady, I continued folding.

Well, when she turned back around she was NOT happy to see that I was still folding on what apparently (even though I’ve been folding at that table for 3 months without problems) is HER FAVORITE TABLE. The table that she needs and wants and whatever whatever. She leaned in closer and said in an even more frightening way, “I. Want. This. Table.”

Clearly this woman is insane. In spite of the fact that there were three IDENTICAL tables available, she made me gather up all of my piles of clothing, my cart full of folded clothing, my personal belongings….and move across the room to an identical but available table. I had had enough though. Why do these woman do stuff like this to me? Because they can. It’s such a stupid thing to get upset over, but there we are….


So I went out to lunch on Wednesday afternoon…and didn’t come back until Sunday.

Instead, on Wednesday—while apparently the Women of the Wash and the ulpan staff were FREAKING OUT over where I was because my sudden disappearance from work was so surprising—I went into Jerusalem. I ate ice cream on Ben Yehuda Street, and eventually I walked over to Hadas’s place (before the whole table incident I had arranged to come over to pick up a book). Over cookies I explained the table story, she was outraged, and I felt a lot better.

Thursday I went to class, and I knew I needed a break. I needed some time alone and some time off the kibbutz. So after class I went up to one of the ulpan staff members and said, “I’m going to Haifa right now, I’ll be back on Sunday.” And I started to walk away. I’m sick of fucking asking for permission. This was not a request, this was me TELLING her that I’m going to Haifa. She started yelling at me that I had to tell my boss, and I said no. She started shrieking at me, and I just walked away.

And so I hopped on a bus to Jerusalem, and onward to Haifa!

For those of you just tuning in, until this past weekend I had never been there but I had wanted to go since I was 7.

Oh man. It was wonderful. Haifa is even more wonderful than I thought it would be. I fucking love cities on mountains. Like, I know Jerusalem is hilly and shit, but since everything around it is hilly, you don’t really notice. Haifa though……..oh man. That is a “FUCK YOU!” mountain. That is, “Ocean ocean ocean ocean…..coast coast coast coast coast, co--WHOAAAAAA NELLY! LOOK AT THAT MOUNTAIN! AND THERE’S A MOTHERFUCKING CITY ON IT!!!!”

So my initial plan (and the plan I carried out) was to be near the port, because I thought that’d be cute because that’s what I remember learning about in Sunday School. I figured the bus would stop somewhere in the middle of Haifa and I could just walk or something.

Hahahaha, how wrong I was. First of all, the bus stop that the bus stopped at was a “central” bus station but it didn’t have the word “Haifa” in it. So I started freaking out that I was in the central bus station of the wrong city. Then I figured out that Haifa has a couple different “central” bus stations or something like that. And then I had to figure out where the fuck I was and where the fuck I was trying to get to….and eventually I figured out at least one option.

So I got on this bus, and holy shit. Holy shit did I love Haifa. All my life I heard, “Haifa is like Los Angeles.” My initial reaction was, “Haifa looks NOTHING like LA (for better or worse).” But by the end…now I kind of get it. I think from now on when I get homesick I’ll just have to go to Haifa. It’s like a humid, Hebrew-speaking version of LA with a Bahai center. Which is kind of cool.

So anyway I’m on the bus, and after a while I started getting antsy. The bus stopped at a place with a lot of bus stops, so I thought maybe my best bet would be to get off here. I pulled out a map, looked up hostels on my cell phone, and I found what I thought was the nearest one. What I did not take into account, however, was that maps do not usually do an accurate job of expressing that YOU’RE ON A FUCKING MOUNTAIN! So I basically (unintentionally) ended up going on a fucking hike down the mountain, with a backpack full of shit and everything.

My journey took me through, what I considered, the ghetto. Everything was run down, I saw Arabic everywhere, I think I was probably the only white person/Jewish person within a several-block radius. I continued to hurry down the hill, and I had two options: 1) walking out of my way to take some stairs down for part of the way, or 2) making a more direct way through what I THOUGHT was just some rubble about the size of a plot of land for a house. I chose option two. So I’m hiking my way through this bumpy, rocky terrain. And I just happen to glance down. Oh, shit. Oh shit. This is not just some rubble. This is what I now believe to be an abandoned Muslim cemetery. Oh Jesus. I ended up turning around and running back –no, not running. Sprinting.--the way I came.

Finally I made it to a hostel, all ended well…

So I rode that little subway thing that goes up the hill. Oh my goodness. I mean this in the best possible way: the Carmelit is the gayest little subway I have ever experienced. It’s petite, and the platforms reminded me of Legos. It was like being in an (only slightly) larger, uphill version of the Paris Metro at Legoland.

You know what else? NO ONE FUCKING SPOKE ENGLISH TO ME! It was glorious! Usually in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv, the second someone hears my accent they switch to English. But in Haifa? Nope.

I also went in a church. Which was weird. I haven’t been to synagogue since I got to Israel, yet I can now say I’ve been in a church in Israel. Not to pray or anything, just as a tourist.

It was wonderful. Most of my time was spent sitting in random street corners/shopping malls/whatevers reading books and just enjoying some time away from the fucking kibbutz. It’s actually quite nice, because when I walk around Jerusalem with friends we always stick out as the tourists because everyone can hear us speaking English. Anyone who addresses us does so in English immediately. But when I go to Jerusalem (or Haifa, in this case) on my own, I get to keep my mouth shut and no one has to know that I speak English or that my Hebrew is total crap (well, if it’s good enough for the army, it’s good enough for me!). I mean, yes I am wearing American clothing and yes I’m always a bright red sunburned lobster, whereas most Israelis seem to be this marvelous tan color at all times, but still.

So on my last day in Haifa I was silently appreciating this to myself as I walked among Israelis on the street…”Haha, I’ve outsmarted the system, no one knows for sure that I’m an American/English speaker!”

And then this weird lizardy-snake thing popped out of nowhere and came towards me. In the middle of a small crowd of pedestrians, I jumped back and, before I even realized the words were leaving my mouth, screamed in my American English, “Eew! Eew! Holy Shit! What in the name of Christ is that?!?!?! EEEW!!!!” And everyone looked at me. Shit. I have to stop blowing my cover.
Anyway. Tomorrow I am calling the army AGAIN. Maybe then I’ll have more information. Stay tuned.

(You know what all this army talk reminds me of? “BE ALL THAT YOU CAN BE!” That was the greatest army slogan ever. I miss it. Much better than “Army Strong.” Though the “Army Strong” commercials are quite interesting and, at times, moving. Disagreements? Shall we continue this talk about marketing strategies of the American Army? It’s so weird. I don’t think Israel has the same sort of thing. Maybe I just haven’t noticed it yet. But in the US, you get ads for the army on TV, in magazines and before EVERY movie. Do they have to advertise the army in Israel? I guess not since it’s not like people really have a choice. I guess if I knew I were to be drafted in the army, and I saw a commercial telling me to join the army, I’d be like, “ALL RIGHT, I GET IT, FUCK OFF!”)