Top Ten Things I Learned During My Trip To Israel

10) Israeli gum is absolutely delicious: I brought back about fifty, perhaps sixty packages of gum, none of which are available in America, all of which are delicious. Anyone wanna go into the importing business with me?

9) I would be ultra skinny if I lived in Israel: Those hills are killers. ‘Nuff said.

8) Don’t ever attempt a ten hour plane ride without music: This is self explanatory. The plane ride there was about fifty million times more pleasant, simply because I turned my ipod up to the highest volume and drowned the world out.

7) I found Feivish! I couldn't believe it! All of these ads asking where the little fella was, and all along he was sitting on the side of a bus in Israel!

6) I can get a tan! : I shocked myself. Just one day at the beach and I have more color than I ever got in years on sitting under the American sun.

5) When in Israel, push as the Israelis do: This was obviously most evident in Meron, where pushing was the name of the game. But in general, I never found myself to be a pushy sort of person, until I found myself in a country full of people who’s mentality is simply: push.

4) Israelis don’t drink enough coffee: I stepped off the plane, and immediately wanted a coffee. Over the course of the following ten days, I went into countless stores, hoping and begging for a proper sized cup of American coffee, but to no avail. In Israel, a large cup of coffee would barely be a tall! Sigh. I could never live there.

3) I can, apparently, speak Hebrew when absolutely necessary: One of my travel companions speaks a fluent Hebrew, so she acted as my translator the entire trip. Again and again, I insisted “I don’t speak a word of Hebrew.” I shouldn’t admit this in a public forum, so as not to highly embarrass my former safah and dikduk teachers, but I really didn’t think I could speak a word. Then, one day, my Hebrew speaking friend couldn’t come with us. And that left me. To talk to non-english speaking Israelis. With no help. And shockingly, I really managed. Take that, Rebbetzin Dikduk!

2) Souvenirs kill vacations: My sister in law made a specific request for a present (something which actually made me really upset, fyi.). I ordered her present, then realized that I had a problem. I now had an obligation to purchase something for every family member, lest someone get insulted… The night before I left found me prowling the streets of Me’a Shearim, muttering “but what should I get her?” under my breath. I hereby declare that I will purchase no gifts for anyone, on any future trips I take.

1) The best way to find out if someone speaks Hebrew is to say something bizzare in front of them: I found this out when I was walking in the street with my friend, trying to find someone from whom we could ask directions. Instead of asking if people speak English, I merely said some weird, nonsensical things and looked around to see who was staring strangely at me.

Anyway, jetlag is nearly better, so perhaps some posts will emerge one of these days...