Sunday we had a busy day of packing and cleaning the house for our preparation to move out of the house. Our room was decently big but apparently not big enough to let six girls pack their bags at the same time so we kinda packed two at a time it was very stressful. Also to make matters worse it was unbelievably hot outside therefore our room in the highest place in the house was similar to a sauna because of the heat rising to our room unfortunately we were all too hot to move and the packing process went much slower for that reason. After our "packing time" everyone had a job to clean something in the house like the floors, cabinets, dishes, my job was to clean the disgusting toaster oven which had about four months of food residues that I know who know when the last time anyone cleaned that thing was. After the daunting task I finished my packing and cleaning. The next morning we had a bus to Qiryat Arba to a place where we would have our group Seder. Once we got there we had lots of free time which we all spent napping, getting pretty for the Seder and snacking. Finally the time to go to shul came around so we all waited a little longer in shul and we were all starving. We got to our Seder table finally, got our group haggadahs that we all contributed to. We started the Seder with some letters from the Chief Rabbi and our rakaz, then followed by the seder which throughout people prepared games, skits and dvar torahs within the Haggadah which made the whole thing really fun and also made the 8 hours that it took much shorter. After the Seder at 4am we all naturally went to bed. In the morning we had some breakfast after shul and lunch with the Australian Bnei Akiva group which was nice, then we were really bored for about a century because we had all this free time that we had nothing to do with, so we played cards, hung around outside, just waiting for dinner to come around so we could eat and then leave to go to our Pesach break. Annoyingly, they decided to take us to Tel Aviv Arlozorov station at around 10pm, when they know that buses stop running at around 10:00pm-11:00pm so therefore we didn't have much time to catch a bus to our destination, even worse in my case I had to get to Rehovot or Nes Ziyyona to stay with some family but of course just my luck, no buses at all go to those places from Arlozorov, only at the New Central Bus Station (biggest bus station in the world, 7 floors/ 7 rings of hell) awesome news for me seeing as the bus station was a bus ride of around 15-20 minutes and the buses stop running at 12am so I'm in a time crunch. I get on the bus to the New Central Bus Station at about 10:30pm get there at about 11:00pm, there's still another ten minute walk to the station itself,because the bus stop was around the corner. So now if you can do 2nd grade addition, it's 11:10pm, I still have to wait in the line for security which seemed to take around the time it takes to watch paint dry, so once we get in to the bus station in the line of about a thousand people, thankfully I met an Australian on another youth movement year program, so I had someone to chat to. So now after the security line and helping this girl find her way to the Egged ticket counter to go to Eilat, I'm now at 11:30pm so I walk up to the terminals where the buses to Rehovot and as I walk up the bus I need was driving away, so I'm in a pickle, I could wait until 12am the next and last bus and get to my destination at like 12:45am which would upset me seeing as then my family would have to come and get me at around 1am which I believe is rude, and completely blame the awful scheduling of Bnei Akiva for this dilemma. Besides it being rude to have them pick me up so late, and as a result I would feel very guilty for, 11:30pm is still pretty late so I would feel bad either way. So I call my family, tell them the situation, and to my surprise they say we'll come fetch you, I feel almost worse but also it's better to drive a little bit longer about an hour earlier than to wake up an hour later to drive for five minutes, so I'm stranded until they come and get me,which I'm relieved because I despise the New Central Bus Station. In the security line some people from America and Canada who were also in Israel for the year they seemed pretty nice, so I go down to the bottom floor aka the 7th ring of hell and they're hanging out there snacking and waiting for there bus and one of the girls who heard the conversation I had with the Australian girl in the line about me living in Canada and having Canadian citizenship called to me when I walked past like "Hey, Canada! Come chill" and I used my gut feeling which told me they seemed chill. I went to sit with them for a while, waiting for my family to call to say they'd arrived, learnt about what they were doing for the year, where they were from, whether they were gonna make Aliyah, then I get the call which was a huge relief because I just wanted to get to sleep and get out of the 7th ring of hell, did I mention that there were stray cats roaming around inside the bus station, and there's trash everywhere and the public bathrooms have no toilet paper, soap or paper towels, yes it is my personal hell. Finally I get the call from my family that they had arrived, Hallelujah! So I say farewell to my friends and head to the car which is like a beacon of light, a halo of freedom from the New Central Bus Station, I told my family thank you about a million times just for picking me up and then we head to their house. I'm so tired I fall asleep pretty much immediately, wake up pretty late I the morning, I had a chill day doing my laundry, watching TV, sleeping and eating. After I finished my laundry and watching a movie on TV, I went to bed. Got up the next morning a little earlier to go to Jerusalem to meet with my boyfriend to stay at his family friends for Shabbat. When we both got to his family friends we watched a movie, ate and then my boyfriend had to go to the airport to pick his mom up who was coming to visit from Kansas City. So while I waited I was babysitting the family friend's kid and we watched a movie. Everyone got back from the airport and the family friend came back from the grocery store. Lots of catching up and shmoozing for my boyfriends mom. The next day being Friday we went around Jerusalem, going to the Mamila Mall, Machane Yehuda (the shuk) to get groceries for dinner, after a long day we went home to make dinner and relax before Shabbat. I cooked some of dinner, green beans, helped make vegetable soup and some strawberry sauce, which was fun because I hadn't cooked in a long time. Saturday nothing is open in Jerusalem so we pretty much just stayed home all day and relaxed because thats what Shabbat is for. After Shabbat went out we made fried matza and then me, my boyfriend and his mom went to the "Night Spectacular" at the City of David which was really cool, it was cool because in lights and projections it shows the history of Jerusalem. After the show we went to dinner in Mamila which was delicious even for a kosher for Pesach restaurant, we went home after that. Sunday afternoon I packed my stuff and went to the Central Bus Station in Jerusalem to go to Rishon LeZiyyon to see my cousins for second night of chag, in Israel they have one night of Seder unlike outside of Israel which have two nights of seder instead, they have a another night a week after that is kinda like our second Seder night but not a Seder, like Shabbat. Sunday was erev chag so it was still chag on Monday, I stayed home and relaxed watched some TV, ate, napped a bit, Tuesday early I had to go back to Lod because firstly people wanted to go to Lod in the morning and I had the key and also because my cousin couldn't drop me off any later than at 8am, so I took the bus to the train station in Rishon LeZiyyon and then took a train to Lod and got there at 9:00am so I had time to do laundry, take a hot shower, relax and be happy. Later that morning I got call from my boyfriend that him, his mom and one of our friends are going to Max Brenner (restaurant that has unbelievable chocolate and desserts) in Tel Aviv, that sounds fun so I say ok cool I see you there, I forgot about the whole transportation thing, I took the train to Tel Aviv, took a bus was still a little too far, took a taxi and then got to the restaurant, but of course I'm on time a few minutes early my boyfriend and his mom are kind of lost so I go get them and then we got to Max Brenner, my boyfriend's mom treated us, which I thought was really nice of her and I had an amazing dessert with waffles, caramelized bananas, vanilla ice cream, chocolate sauce, sprinkles basically a bananas foster on steroids, it was incredible. After the treat we all went our separate ways, I back to Lod, our friend to his grandparents in Tel Aviv and my boyfriend and his mom to Herziliya. I get on the bus which I had to wait for about an eternity for to go to the Train station, so I get on the train and get call from my friends who are apparently back in Lod and they want to go to dinner so I say when I get back from Tel Aviv, so it's now 9ish I'm somehow hungry again and then we go to dinner. Then I suffering severely from overeating and am very tired from it so I hit the hay to get some shut eye. The next morning I go to the mall with the Dutch girls I need to pick up some things so I get my errands done, they had some summer clothes they wanted. We got back to our Lod house to make sandwiches for the bus trip to the Kibbutz up north, we had to move all of our stuff to the bus which by some miracle everything we had fit into the bus. We got to kibbutz near a town called Bet Sha'an, which has the world record for hottest temperature which in other words means the kibbutz even in the the beginning of summer is super hot. We got off the bus and the the complaining started with how hot it is, how are we going to carry all of our stuff, blah blah blah. The person who organizes us while we're in Kibbutz took us on the grand tour, to see all the different things that the kibbutz does. After that we moved all our stuff to the volunteer houses, which is where a huge argument begun and didn't end for about 2 hours because me and another girl didn't have a room because we never have a room when the girls organize them, so two girls wanted to be with certain people in a 4 person room but then there was a request by the madrichim to out the girls who were in the 6 person room in Lod to be in a 4 person room in the kibbutz, so it was a huge fight because the 2 girls who wanted to be in the 4 person room was intent on that and then one girl felt bad putting me and my friend in a 6 person room because we were in it in Lod. So eventhough me and my friend didn't really care what room we were in anyways it became this huge drama. Thankfully it got resolved and we could all start unpacking, we had dinner and then after dinner we requested what jobs we'd have for the rest of the week, I got the job in the chicken coops, just like my dad did. Little did I know that it would be like working in the movie Food Inc. Thursday morning, first day of work, wake up early at 6:25am to get ready for work and then to go to breakfast at 6:45am and then we eat and go to work at 7:30am, where the job boss picks us up at the bus stop and we drive to one of the coops where there was water pipe that bursted so there was a big wet spot in the coop. Our first job was to shovel out all of the wet sawdust and then lay down new sawdust. After we were done with that we go to the big coop and he says to us "Alright, first thing I do here in the morning is pick up the dead." my friend and I look at each other in horror. So he hands us a bucket, a face mask, plastic booties, gloves and a clamp thing that they use to pick up garbage. He says so start this row and go down this row and back up the next row and watch out for dead chickens and put them in the bucket. I picked up 5 or 6 and my friend picked up more. I don't think chicken will be easy to eat anymore. He let's us off early because he needs to fix the pipe for the drinking water for the chickens. We get our first Kibbutz lunch which after that point has become the highlight of all of our days, the. We have free time until 7pm which is insane because we have 7 hours and nothing to do, so we sleep, watch movies etc. Then dinner comes which is identical to breakfast yogurts, vegetables, cheeses etc, I'm always still hungry after that. Then since we have nothing better to do we go to sleep or watch more movies and TV. Friday we didn't have work and had an group Shabbat on Kibbutz, the lunch on Fridays is different than the rest of the week usually it's chicken and meats food but Friday is dairy so there's all different pastas and sauces, macaroni and cheese, it's definitely the highlight of my week. Shabbat was very relaxed lots of free time, Friday night dinner was good and Saturday we went to a kibbutz family for lunch, me and a friend went to a Yemenite family that made an amazing meal with mushroom blintzes, Jerusalem kugel and halva ice cream which was delicious. We relaxed and then went to bed anticipating the early morning work. Sunday I worked with the chickens again, so we started the morning with picking up the dead chickens and then we helped the boss vaccinate the chickens which made me laugh because my job would be tom make sure the cord didn't get tangled for the sprayer so I stood there watching the cord and the all the chickens got curious about me being there and were looking at giving me the one eye, pecking my shoes, they're such funny birds. So since we were just in three coops filled with chicken vaccine the boss let us off early to go shower which I didn't complain about. We ate lunch, had another boring afternoon, then dinner after the madrichim talked to us about our jobs and things about Yom HaShoah, then we watched the ceremony the kibbutz was having for Yom HaShoah the next day we left in the middle because it was all in Hebrew and then we started watching Schindler's List, we watched half because it was late and we had to get up for work early the next morning. Monday at we worked with the chickens again, first picking up the dead and then we laid down new sawdust over the wet spots in the coop. There was a moment of silence in the morning indicated by a kibbutz-wide siren, and in the afternoon we met a holocaust survivor who escaped the holocaust because his parents sent him to England with his siblings for protection. Tuesday I was feeling really sick, nauseous, headache, sore throat etc, so I didn't work with the chickens, the day went as usual I went to lunch, chilled all afternoon, dinner, sleep. Wednesday I wake up and my eye feels weird like swollen at first I thought it was just a sleepy eye buy then I saw it in the mirror and realized it wasn't sleepy eyes it was definitely pink eye, my eye was red, bloodshot, swollen almost shut, itchy, painful to close, crusty and pus around the edge, great luck. So I go to breakfast looking like I'm giving everyone the evil eye because my eye was swollen almost shut. My madrichim tell me not to go to work, to see how it is the next day, had a boring day of eating, sleeping, watching movies etc, dinner came around eye still looking shitty one of the boys even said jokingly "Hey, why are you giving me the evil eye?" which was pretty funny. Next day the group went on a long tiyul that was apparently hard but I didn't go because my eye looked awful still and I was waiting for the doctor to come and check it out for me. The doctor didn't even arrive until after the group came back so then the house call doctor gave me inconvenient news that I had to see an ophthalmologist which was annoying because that meant I had to go all the way to Afula to go see an ophthalmologist to tell me I have pink eye even though I knew that in the first because it was textbook pink eye. Thankfully since it was a free weekend there was a bus organized to Afula for the group from the kibbutz so I got a ride with my madricha who had to take me to the clinic, we waited at the clinic for an eon for the ophthalmologist and finally she calls me in examines my eye with the special drops, the eyesight test etc. Then tells me that I have pink eye like she was preaching to the choir, prescribes me drops for the symptoms and we're on our way back to the kibbutz. We got a bus from Afula to Bet Sha'an but my madricha met a girl on the bus with a mutual friend and got us a lift to the kibbutz. We got back to the group having a barbecue, only some people stayed the weekend. It was a really relaxed Shabbat, for the Americans it got stressful Saturday night with the packing for Poland began. Sunday morning we had to get ourselves to Jerusalem from Kibbutz, really convenient with all of our stuff for Poland, thanks Bnei Akiva, your're such great organizers. Our bus ride was weird because there was a rest stop for ten minutes which kind of ruined our timing, the bus was late too, we had to get to Jerusalem to the hostel where the Australian group is staying by 11:00am so we were late. We got cabs from the bus station to the hostel, called a our madricha to tell her we got there and then she gave us the number to the madrich of the Australian group who was being a big asshole about it because we were gonna meet his group and go to Yad Vashem on their bus with them, but they left us there so we took more cabs to go to Yad Vashem so we got there late to the class that they were in about Jewish life in Poland before the holocaust, we had lunch and then a tour of Yad Vashem, my third tour of Yad Vashem. I think that every time I go I need to focus on something else in the museum it's so vast and filled with information it's hard to absorb everything so I tried reading the captions and listening to the tour guide. After the tour we went back to the Australians hostel for dinner and then we had a ceremony at the kotel that we were going to, apparently the madrichim of the Australian group have a huge issue with people being late because they'll just abandon you, so I was running behind one of the Australian boys to get on the bus and his madrich said we're only waiting for you even though I was literally half a foot behind him, he got on the bus and the madrich closed the door on my face and they drove, the American girls on the bus felt bad leaving us so they waited for us to get on the bus. So the australian madrich officially made an awful first impression. We got to the kotel with more than enough time even if the madrichim were going nuts that we were late but we had more than enough seats to watch the ceremony. The ceremony had all of the army units, lots of people talked in Hebrew that I couldn't really understand. So we went back to the hostel after begot our madricha who we were ecstatic to see. She told us the plan to be at the hostel by 1:30pm to work on our ceremony for Poland at one of the sites. Then we had free time until we had to be at the Kotel again at around 7pm for a Bnei Akiva ceremony for Yom HaZikron (Remembrance Day), then there was a prayer at the kotel which I used to talk to my German friends. Then we had dinner provided by Bnei Akiva from Burgers Bar but it had ketchup which I hate more than anything so after I wiped off the ketchup then it was good. After that we had free time until 2am so we went bar hopping, we went to our favorite bar in Jerusalem where we're good friends with the bartender so we caught up on everything with him and relaxed. Then we got on the bus and went to the hostel where the Australians are staying and went to bed. Next morning was Independence Day and in Israel everyone goes on a tiyul then has a barbecue, like 4th of July without the hike. We hiked the Burma Road which was a road that was randomly discovered that the Israelis could use to take supplies up to Jerusalem, after the hike we went to Independence park to have a barbecue but poorly planned they didn't start the barbecue for the 70 of us all together with the Australians while we were on the hike so we would've had to wait for like 2 hours for the food so we decided to get some shwarma instead. Apparently independence day is just as dead as Shabbat so we couldn't decide what to do with all the free time we had. So we decided to go to the biblical zoo for a while which was awesome we went for like 3 hours and then I had to take a shower and go to my boyfriend's family friends to get my stuff for Poland. I showered, got my stuff, took a nap and then we went to the hostel to make sandwiches for our first day in Poland. We got a bus to the kotel for our ceremony before going to Poland with the directors, after the ceremony we headed to the airport to begin our next adventure in Poland.
