Whirlwind

I'm not even sure where to begin this blog. These past few days have been so incredible and so crazy. I'm afraid this post is going to be rather long. Please bear with me.

I suppose I should start with the rest of my trip. My instincts were correct and the El Al check-in was not actually on the second floor of terminal B. Indeed it was on the fourth floor. C'est la vie. I eventually found my fellow OSP-ers. We met and checked in. People have told me that Israeli security can be scary and they weren't lying. I was very brusquely interrogated by an El Al security guard for about 10 minutes. This was all coming after I had gotten almost no sleep the night before. I was feeling fairly low and not so certain about my decision to travel to Israel. The rest of my layover passed in a jet-lagged daze. Right before the plane took off a minyan of Hasids Jews gathered to say their midday prayers. It was quite a sight to see such a large group chanting and praying in front of a 777 in Newark Airport. Perhaps seeing such devotion to HaShem made me feel more secure about the safety of the trip. Nevertheless, it was interesting. I would say about 70 percent of the people on the plane were Hasidic.

The flight itself was fairly uneventful. I sat next to a girl from the OSP who was born in Israel so she and I talked a lot about Israel and she was able to answer a lot of my questions. When I wasn't talking to her I was journaling or re-reading Crime and Punishment. Finally at about 8:00 Israeli time we landed in Tel Aviv at Ben Gurion Airport. The airport was beautiful. It had grandiose limestone foyers everywhere. Being my father's daughter I was able to appreciate the use of limestone. We battled a HUGE line at immigration and finally boarded the bus for Be'er Sheva. Having not slept more than 2 hours on the plane I tried to sleep on the 90 minute bus ride but was too interested by the landscape to sleep I suppose. What surprised me most about Israel was the multitude of flowering bushes and trees that dot the landscape. They're seriously everywhere and I have no idea what type of plants they are. Finally we arrived in Be'er Sheva and got our first taste of the Negev's heat. I'm fairly certain everyone was sweating within minutes of stepping off the boss. We met outside the Meonent Gimmel dorms to get our room assignments. I was assigned to suite 4 of room 387 of dorm 87. The dorm complex is rather large. I then proceeded to lug my 120 pounds of luggage up 3 flights of stairs in 100 degree heat. It was not as exciting as you would think.

My roommates were not in the room but came to the room eventually. I talked to them briefly but I was mostly interested in sleeping and unpacking. Nevertheless, they seemed like nice girls. I threw all of my possessions into the drawer and proceeded to fall into bed and sleep for 5 hours. I was a little shocked when I first saw my room. Israeli dorms are just SO simple. There's a tiny twin-sized bed, a closet, and a desk. I had pre-ordered a set of sheets to be delivered to me in Israel. I opened the set and found a pillow, a fitted sheet, a down comforter, and a duvet cover. There was no flat sheet, however. Because I definitely don't need a down comforter I've been using the duvet cover as a flat sheet. My alarm clock has a thermometer and I've seen that my room is pretty consistenly between 84 and 86 degrees.

I have to run but I'll be sure to relate more later.