To Tel Aviv I go

It's Thursday night, and after a long week in the smelly mirkaz klitah, I am looking forward to spending a couple of days away from here! Tomorrow morning, I'm boarding a bus to Tel Aviv to stay with my mom's cousin and her family for the weekend. Do you know what this means? I'll have a real bed! I'll have food that isn't week-old chicken swimming in rancid grease! I'll be with people who have known me for more than two weeks!

Really, today wasn't a bad day at all. This morning, we had a talk on "Zionism 101." I could only stay for half an hour of it, but what I got to hear was interesting. Then, I had rehearsal for our Yitzchak Rabin memorial service. Basically, it was a process in which about 20 people stood in the front yard of the mirkaz klitah and yelled in four different languages.

After the disarray of rehearsal, we pulled off the real memorial service fairly admirably. Everything was read in all four languages, drawing out a 1o-minute presentation to 30 or 40 minutes, but it wasn't too horrible. I played Hatikvah (Israel's national anthem) on my violin.

After lunch, we had ulpan. Amonth other things, we played with puppets. I had an elephant puppet that I named Dumbo. It was incredibly funny. We all made up the craziest stories for our puppets!

Now, I'm trying to decide whether to leave WAY early tomorrow or just early. More after the weekend.