Doin What We Do Best

Wednesday, August 9

Today was a day once again of just chilling out with the roomies. When we woke up in the morning, we had a meeting with the mayor of Ramla. Before we left I tried to make something to eat. Now every breakfast is pretty boring just because I am either too lazy to make something good or because the food here is kind of strange. I mean yeah I can make eggs and toast and some other regular stuff, but the pots and pans we have, which there are like one of each, and on top of that we are trying to keep kosher in the house, not so much with cheese and meat being in the fridge, but trying not to cook the two in the same pans or eat them with the same utensils or off of the same plates, which I must admit is not working out as planned, but don’t tell Aliza, the one person here who is trying her best to keep kosher. I know this sounds bad but as long as she doesn’t know that when she isn’t looking we are just doing whatever...
So when we got to the mayors office, the camera crew (remember there are 2 highschool students filming us for this 5 months, but its summertime I don’t get why they are doing it!) was there too. We sat in with the mayor and I must admit I felt somewhat important. Not important like I was about to talk to the mayor about some genius idea I had to change his city forever (don’t worry that will come later but for now we don’t really know what we are even doing, or what we can do at that). This meeting was just to meet him and if didn’t know any better, I would say that we talked about basketball more than half the time we were there. In fact, we didn’t really talk much about anything at all. We just sat there and listened to him make jokes the whole time. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a very nice and professional guy, he won over 86% of the vote for the last election and has been in office since ’93. But I got kind of down when Josh (in my group) asked what his vision was for us in Ramla and he responded “to have fun”. I mean guess I want to have fun, but shouldn’t he have said something deep and inspiring that would give us the motivation to go out there and leave an impact on Ramla!? But I was told that meeting was just a “hey how’s it going? You look like a nice person. I like your shirt. Blah blah blah” type thing.
So after the meeting, I came back to the house and did what I have been good at lately, took a nap. But before we got here Daniel and I decided to stop at a corner store to pick up some alcohol. We split it and decided that it would be just our bottle. Unfortunately later that night no one else had any so it was gone within minutes. But relax everyone! We are only drinking this much because 1) we are Americans and that is our roots! We cant forget where we came from J and 2) they actually want us to hang out and get to know eachother because I mean we did just move into a house with 10 people we have never met before! I cant believe I haven’t wanted to throw someone off the roof yet…just kidding, I would probably just throw em through a window. At least its not as big of a fall…okay, im still kidding if you couldn’t tell.

Anyways, when I got back I took a nice nap for a few hours. I woke up really out of it and I don’t even know why. It was weird waking up in the dark room and it being like 5. I walk downstairs and 4 of the guys, Daniel (my roommate, the only one here who speaks fluent Hebrew), Jay, Zeke, and Josh, were all juggling the soccer ball in the living room. I told them that we are probably going to keep doing that until someone breaks something in the house. They all agreed. Then I told them that when something does break we are going to look back at this agreement we just made and be like “wow, we are stupid, we knew that was going to happen” haha. Then they kept on juggling the ball waiting for something to break. I would have joined em but like I said I was really out of it so I just sat and watched in a daze. It was cool though because Daniel was teaching them Hebrew words for body parts the ball was hitting and the surfaces it was hitting. It was a really good idea, we’re gonna have to do that some more for sure. It was even cooler that by just sitting there I also learned about 8 words. 8 whole words! YESSS!! All words that are pretty much useless but still I am awesome! Yeah, thanks, I agree with you, I am awesome.

So we have pretty much gotten addicted to playing soccer here, or “regel gadur” in Hebrew. See I learned that! Movin right along…soon I’ll know know to say dresser drawer and never use it in my life. Yippee… So Jay and Zeke and I went back to where we played soccer the day before and no one was there. So we played with ourselves and just kept yelling as loud as we could “regal gadur tov!” meaning soccer good! We are stupid Americans its ridiculous. But it brought over some people everntually. We played a few games with kids that were like 5 or 6 and maybe 11. They were good. I played goalie and got scored on a few times. They scare me with their moves. Like a ninja on the court. They taught me some Hebrew but I forgot it like I always do. I hope I can remember it better when im actually trying to learn it.

After soccer, which is the best workout ive had in forever, I came home and showered, and had dinner. Oh wait, nevermind, I didn’t. none of us did. Guess it just slipped our minds. But we did go out salsa dancing in a neighboring college type town called Rachovot with a few Israelis that Chava sent over to our house. When we got there Daniel and I looked in and were like wow, this is not our scene and left. Now I can pretty much have fun everywhere, but this was just weird. Tons of guys, a few girls, all speaking Hebrew, bright lights (I need em dim of course), and yeah just not it. So we went to a bar. Like Americans do, you know.

There were 5 of us guys that went and one of the Israeli guys that took us to the dancing. After a few clubs told us we had to be 23 to get in, which is the dumbest thing ive ever heard since the drinking age here is 18, although if u walk into a store with a face and a smile, you can get a drink. So we get to this one place called “Dublin” and if you cant figure it out is an Irish bar. No dancing but drinking, of course. We went in, Haifa was playing a soccer game against Liverpool but lost, but I was told that not too bad. I guess Israelis have the attitude like “You won this game, but only 2-1 you guys suck! You only beat us by 1 you losers!” I think that’s awesome. Maybe cuz they know they suck haha.

So at about 11 pm I found out it was israel’s valentines day. Damnit. I am the cutest guy ever on valentines day but I didn’t know! I would have done something for someone somehow, but I guess the holiday is not as big of a deal here cuz the guys here aren’t very cute. They don’t do anything for the girls. Like I said, a huge difference in culture. One of the guys I saw later in the night was with his girlfriend and was like “oh I forgot about it, I was really busy…” Are you kidding me!? His girlfriend just laughed and so did he. I was like wow, this country is just stupid. I will never get a girl! They all put up with crap and I would be too nice. I would scare em away with my care. Whatever…it was just weird. So I got one of the girls with us a rose. The server was giving them out but I got one for her. I asked her to be my valentine and she laughed and walked away. Just kidding she was like yay, youre my boyfriend for tonight and I thought about it for about less than nothing and agreed. I gave her a hug but imidiately pulled back cuz her brother was there. aaaaaackward….after the bar we came back here, and from there we went back over to the neighbors to hang out for a bit, made some drinks, and smoked hookah again. I went to bed and it was fun. Slept in my cold room again. I like being cold. Better than being hot.