Sunday-Monday 1/9-1/10
Ein Gedi
Wow. What can I say? Ein Gedi is so insanely beautiful. Talia & I tried to wake up to take the super early bus Sunday morning, slept through it, the next bus never showed, so we ended up getting a later start than we intended, but it all worked out. Met this Aish kids on the bus. Hysterical. My favorite quote from them:
"I'm about to explode in an Aliyah frenzy." ~~> Anders (random Aish boy)
Almost missed the stop, thanks to my lack of knowing how to say "hostel" in Hebrew, and the lack of the bus driver understanding the word hostel said with a slight attempt at an Israeli accent, but we made it. Left our stuff at the hostel in a locker, and went over to the park.
On Sunday we did the long version of the Nachal David hike. Beautiful. Amazing waterfalls & springs, not a bad hike, lots of randomness... There was this adorable Israeli couple sitting on a rock that we watched pull a bottle of wine & glasses out of their backpack. Ended up running into Nativ, doing part of the same hike as us (and again at the end of the hike). Saw Hannah, Talia's sister.
There was this beautiful cave next to a waterfall that we chilled in for awhile. So magical. Felt totally secluded, and then random people would make there way over and pop in. Would have liked to spend more time there, but the rest of the hike was incredible to. Strange hiking without a camera (and my disposable camera doesn't really count, since you know the pictures won't turn out that well). A whole new experience for me. But Talia took tons of pictures, so I'll take her doubles.
So nobody warned us about Ein Gedi after 4 pm (when the park closes). There is
nothing to do there. Seriously. The weather was gorgeous during the day, but got cold as the sun set, so sitting on the sketchy empty beach only lasted for a little bit. Went back to the hostel, checked into our room with a random Israeli woman works on an archeological site at Ein Gedi, and that was pretty much it. Ate dinner at the hostel with about 5 other people, watched MTV in German ("Dismissed" is actually funnier when you can't understand the words), and that was pretty much it. Lailah Tov. Man...
Monday morning we set out for the "difficult" 6-8 hour hike up the mountain across the top down the other side to Nachal Arugot. Oh man. The coolest,
hardest hike I've ever done in my life. Amazing. So it started with us not fully finding the path and heading over some broken barbed wire into the park at 8:30 in the morning. Gotta love the sketchy, not helpful Israeli map... Anyways, from the beginning the hike was challenging, but wonderful. We were pretty much alone, quite a change from the touristy Nachal David. Made it to the bottom of the "Ein Gedi Accent" by 9:15 (the latest you can start it is 10). The hike up it was tough, but awesome. Kept looking up this cliff, not seeing a path anywhere, and having no idea how we would make it up. But it ended up not being that tough. Made it to the top, and the view--man... Words cannot do it justice. Neither can photographs. You just need to be there...
At the top we wandered off the trail for a bit, and found this amazing spot where we could see so much. We were totally secluded, no one anywhere nearby. Just Talia & I on the plateau with cliffs around us (and random ATV trails that we couldn't figure out how people got to). Walked across to where we were supposed to descend (about a 20 minute walk), ate lunch, then started down.
Now, the map had told us this part was an "extremely difficult trail," but it had also said the first part we did was hard, so we had figured 'how much harder could it be?'
Man were we wrong. It was basically the side of a cliff, but with lose rocks under our feet.
Insanely difficult. There were multiple occasions where we reached parts that I had no idea how we were going to get down. I was fairly confident that at least one of us would fall and get severely injured at some point, but
Baruch Hashem that didn't happen. The descent took us about one & 1/2 hours. One & 1/2 hours of legs burning holding onto the sides of the mountain, praying that we wouldn't start an avalanche... I'm telling you, it was intense. But we made it and were ridiculously proud of ourselves afterwards.
Man...
Next we hiked over to the "Hidden Waterfall." Totally gorgeous view, so we stopped and rested from our descent. Walked back through Nachal Arugot, running into a Birthright trip on the way. Lots of great waterfalls, and wildlife, including a cute crab in one of the pools. All in all we hiked for about 6 1/2 hours, so we felt like we deserved the 10 shekel ice cream we bought when we were done. Love it...
Tuesday 1/11
Spent the day at Pardes with Melanie Birnholtz.
So nice to see her. Haven't seen her since shiva last year. It was hard too. I was introduced to everyone as having been good friends with her brother... There were a few times that I thought I would lose it and cry, but I held it in. She is so amazingly strong...
It was nice to be back at Pardes. Got there in time for the Rosh Chodesh minyan & once again had the Cohen aliyah. This seems to be a trend... Breakfast was nice, along with the learning during breakfast than I went with her to Meesh's Gemara class. It was all Beit Midrash time, but so nice to be learning again.
Levi Cooper's "Philosophy of Halacha" class was wonderful. The guy is such an amazing teacher. I had him for Torah when I was there. Really enjoyed that... He didn't recognize me without my dreads, which seemed to be a common theme with the teachers there. Funny, I didn't realize how much of my identity they had been...
Went to a lunch lecture that was also great, then "Women & Mitzvot" with Rachel Berkovits, another teacher I had when I was at Pardes that's fabulous. Learned about women & mezumin (as in, the part at the beginning of Birkat Hamazon, grace after the meal). Wonderful.
Started seriously thinking about staying. I know it's not really an option, but man do I want to...
