Backpacking Week 1

For some backpacking may mean traveling around many cities and countries by foot with nothing but a backpack on your back and a plan to see and experience as much as possible en route. For me backpacking means traveling around many cities in Israel via public transportation (free, if I'm in my uniform) with nothing but a backpack and a plan to make it to base by 9am and leave around 3ish each day. Not so different, I'd say, which is why when people ask me where I'm from, where I'm living, where I'm staying, or anything like this I've begun to answer with the phrase...I'm currently backpacking through Israel. It makes things a lot easier than saying "I don't have a home" or even "I have too many homes." I don't think there are enough weekends in a year to actually stay with all of the people that have invited me to stay with them (almost every girl from the army so far, haha).

Last week I went to the Jerusalem Wine Festival on Wednesday night with Allie and some friends. What amazinggg wine they had there! 70 shekel (<20$) entry and all the wine tasting of deliciously local Israeli wines that your tummy (and BAC) can handle. Thursday morning I went back to the army and Thursday night back to Jerusalem again to go to the Infected Mushroom concert with friends, which was awesome. I love outdoor concerts in Jerusalem oh so very much :). Friday we went on a little tiyul (trip) to a spring near Jerusalem where we jumped off the ledge into really dirty water (shout out to Boston and the Charles). Friday night I had Shabbat dinner at Daniel's with friends of his from the army and his family. It was the first time I had Shabbat dinner with both Daniel and Gadi which was fun, usually I'm at either Daniel's or Gadi's. Friday night we went out into the center of the city and Saturday we went to Gadi's house for a little belated birthday gathering. Sunday morning I went back to the army to find out that I have Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday off this week...not too shabby.

I came back to Nahariya and hung out with Allie's roommates and some people from her work, went for a run, studied some Hebrew vocab (I miss the weeks of vocab lists from Ulpan!) and tonight I'm going to visit some friends from ulpan at a kibbutz outside of Haifa. Tomorrow I'm going to finally play some ultimate, yayyy! I'm going to the Tel Aviv team's practice and I might also play in the hat tourney this Saturday too, which would be great.

Next week will be a bit more regular, I'll probably stay mostly in Ramat Aviv near my base during the week either with my friend Eli and her parents or with my friend Itamar, and I'll probably be in Jerusalem for the weekend. I'm assuming I'll continue like that for most of September. I'm hoping to find an apartment for October 1st, or the middle of October, and Allie comes back toward the end of October.

That's all for now, more later :)