Saturday, August 6, 2011

Day 12: Death By Dehydration... Shabbat Shalom!

After my jam packed time in Jerusalem I was very excited to have a day off where I could sleep in! I finally got over the lack of sleeping part of the jet lag, and now I decided it was time for my body to get over the "I can't sleep in for the life of me" part of jet lag. Unfortunately that is easier said than done so I ended up waking up around 7 in the morning... Now, the good thing about me is I'm very stubborn so I told myself I wasn't going to get out of bed, put on some music, and fell back asleep until 11! YAY for sleeping in! When I finally got out of bed I looked out and saw that it was a gorgeous day in Tel Aviv, and the day should not be wasted staying inside. I made some brunch, got myself organized, and decided I would walk to the beach. My Suite mate Mara decided that she wanted to join so we both packed our beach bags and headed out. I decided that I wanted to walk to the beach that was closest to our apartments (though it isn't the most popular beach), because I didn't want to deal with busses and it is free to walk :-). Even though the beach is "close-ish" it still took about 30-40 minutes to walk there and it was HOT HOT HOT and HUMID HUMID HUMID... Luckily I had my bottle of water... After about 40 minutes we finally reached our destination, and it was so worth the gross walk in the heat.


The beach was absolutely stunning; there were families, young children playing, people walking their dogs, and young adults gathering on shore with their friends. It was such a fun place to be on a Shabbat afternoon! My suite mate decided that she wanted to walk along the beach, so I took her stuff, made a place for myself, put on my ipod, and enjoyed the sun and open ocean! After listening to my music for a bit, I decided it was time to bust out the kindle and get some reading in. That lasted all of 10 minutes before I decided that nap time was much more important! After sleeping for a bit Mara came back from her walk and we decided it was time to go home.  I said my goodbyes to the beach and then we were off.

Now it is important to note that I didn't go into the water this trip to the beach, but was still soaking wet... Thank you humidity you are slowly killing me... As we began our trip back to our apartment I found that I was without water (since I had finished it on the beach), and stupidly, thinking that I would be fine, we continued walking. About 5 minutes later, as we were crossing the street, I had to turn back to the sidewalk because I was on the verge of passing out... I dropped to the sidewalk and praised God that Mara had an extra water bottle that she had forgot about. I was so dehydrated and losing so much water because of the humidity, I literally thought I was going to die. After sitting for a few minutes we decided to start walking again, and luckily there was a shaded bench near by because I was getting dizzy again... We both decided it would be beneficial to stop on the bench for an undisclosed amount of time and rest until I was feeling a bit better. As I was laying in the shade, trying really hard to get over the fact that I felt like I was going to pass out, I couldn't help but notice just how beautiful Ramat Aviv is (and it must be really beautiful if it still caught my eye amidst my dehydration attack)! I just sat there looking at the beautiful scenery around me, and fell more and more in love with this place and this country.

It's hard to say what my feelings will be months, and even years, from now, but if it wasn't for my amazing family and friends back home I would probably be at the immigrant office in Jerusalem making Aliyah (becoming a citizen) as soon as possible. Worry not family and friends, I am still coming home, but it is tempting sometimes :-) After I got back from the beach, and hydrated, I wrote my page long paper (entirely in Hebrew), made some dinner, and am now spending the remaining hours of being awake going between watching movies and watching the news on the huge protests happening all throughout Israel tonight. It is really a very exciting time to be here with what is going on politically, and I'm so excited to be in the middle of it. If I wasn't so gosh darn exhausted I would probably have taken a bus to the center of town to see the demonstrations, but I have class at 8 in the morning and need to get some sleep. Luckily, I don't think this will be the end of the demonstrations so I'm sure I'll catch the action soon :-)

Well that is all for today. From this week on my ulpan teacher will be conducting class only in Hebrew so that should be really interesting! I plan on going to Jaffa a few times, and finally checking out the street fair and Shuk Ha'pishpisheem (Flee Market). Those will be fun posts to read about :-)

Lilah Tov!!
Jordana Simone

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