Name Games, Getting to Know Each other and Ice Breakers...Oh My!

Arriving in Israel on September 1^st was a lot like visiting a distant family member for the first time. I can just imagine the hustle and bustle of the third cousin twice removed as they endeavor to make you feel welcome. So it was with my introduction to Year Course. Everyone I met was friendly and all Year Course administrators and counselors tried to make me comfortable. But, just as a third cousin can never immediately feel like family, my new life in Israel, over 5,000 miles from my much beloved abode in the United States, couldn't have immediately felt like home.

Fortunately, things inevitably got easier. That night I met my roommates and the rest of the people on the Sports Track with me. I met the tzofim, the Israeli scouts who are taking a year off before their mandatory army service to do community service in Holon and Bat Yam and live with the chanichim on Year Course. I met Abby Gruber, my madrichim for the next three months. I got an idea of what I would be doing and how I would be doing it. And I got unpacked.

So it was, that first night in town, lounging on the couches in my slightly small and dingy apartment in Bat Yam with my four other roommates, eating room temperature pizza, and chatting, I finally relaxed a little.

The next day the group immediately jumped into Orientation activity. And, you know, it was the proverbial "blah blah blah." No offense.

So that means the next activity of note wasn't until Wednesday Night when all of Section 2 took a bus to Yaar Bereshit, an outdoor training camp with a "Bedouin tent" (what we would call a pavilion) to sleep in, a climbing wall, and various team elements to complete. We rotated through the different outdoor training stations in groups, so I did all of these activities with the Sports Track. It was fun, but you know boys when they get together to do physical activity; they inevitably brag and show off. Plus, the fact that all these guys were on Sports Track and had been labeled as jocks exacerbated the situation a bit. So, we were forced to run around yelling "click clack," the Sports Track motto, and display our supposed athletic prowess. I hurt the team a little, seeing as it took me almost four minutes to climb up the wall that was taking everybody else 45 seconds to ascend.

After dinner, we had free time to get to know other people on Section 2. It was a little daunting, considering there were over 200 kids and I am not as outgoing as I would like to be. Nevertheless, it's impossible to get a big group of teenagers together with little to no adult supervision and not have fun.

The next day all of Section 2 traveled to Ein Gedi for a gibbush tiyul, a bonding hike- also known as a painful walk in 100-degree heat. Suffering is the best way to unite a group. Anyway, we hiked up the mountains a ways, stopped at a spring to cool off and splash around a little, then continued up to a waterfall. I guess at this point I'm supposed to say it was really wonderful and gush about Israel's beauty. Unfortunately, all I could think was that the Colorado Rockies are just as nice and 20 degrees cooler. This would be an appropriate time to explain that the heat has been the hardest thing for me to adjust to here in Israel and that I am not actually as cynical as I seem.

There have been other difficult transitions though. Learning how to use the public transportation was a bit of a challenge, especially because I don't speak Hebrew. Then, just as I thought I had the hang of it, I had to get used to not having public transportation during Shabbat. Then, of course, there is the big issue of living on my own, without my family, which was surprisingly easy in some ways but then cripplingly difficult in others. Cooking, cleaning, and grocery shopping I've got down pat. But I miss people way more than I thought I would. And I don't have a mother and father to blame things on anymore. Finally, there are some of those more luxurious comforts, such as Rockband, the Xbox 360 game, which I am basically obsessed with and miss terribly.

Other than that, the transition to life in Israel and in Bat Yam has been fun, entertaining, occasionally embarrassing, and altogether enriching. I've got my volunteer placement coaching little fourth graders soccer in the afternoons, I've got my gym membership to the very nice and expansive country club in Holon, a perk that comes with the Sports Track, and I've got my Hebrew Ulpan placement in Level 3 of 6. I'm ready to go and excited to be here on the Young Judea Year Course.