At baggage claim, I met up with Carolyn, her friend Sam who is the WUJS program in Tel Aviv, and a whole bunch of other WUJS Tel Aviv participants. At the currency exchange, Ethan, joined us after realizing we're all probably on the same program. Carolyn, Ethan, and I decided to venture to Jerusalem together on the Sherut (shared taxi/van service). We waited quite some time until they assigned us to a sherut. There were tons of Chassidim taking over all of the Sheruts who had apparently just returned from their annual Rosh Hashana pilgrimage to the Ukraine to visit the grave of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov.
We finally got on a sherut and as it turns out, we were the very last stop. It seemed to us that the driver went all over the city to make the stops in a very haphazard order, but what did we know? The driver did not like us because we had so much luggage and he even charged us extra for it. Had we arrived at the airport about 30 minutes later than we did, we might not have even received our luggage. During the ride, we heard on the radio (well someone translated for us) that a strike had just begun at the airport. Anyone who was arriving would not get their baggage. PHEW! We had just missed it, but people in our program who were arriving later were probably going to have some problems! Despite being extremely exhausted and really wanting get to our new home, we passed the time by getting to know each other. "Where are you from? "Where'd you go to school?" "How many times have you been to Israel?" Why did you choose to come on this program?" If the rest of our fellow WUJS participants turned out to be as awesome as Carolyn and Ethan, then I knew we'd have a great group.
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| Our Neighborhood Sign |
Once we arrived at Tsipora 5, I met Yonit, our program counselor and internship coordinator with whom I had exchanged many phone calls and emails prior to arriving. She told me to go to Apt 6 where I met Dafna and found out I could have my own room as one of the single rooms had not yet been claimed! In case you didn't know, the one thing I was not particularly looking forward to was that according to the program website, I would be sharing a room with someone. For someone who only shared an actual room for one year of my life (besides temporary situations like camp and previous Israel visits), this was going to be an adjustment. While walking around, I noticed the names listed on the door and discovered that I was in the wrong apartment. It said Rachel G, not Rachelle B. So I went back down to Yonit to find out what my correct apartment was. Yonit had mistakenly thought I was Rachel G because she thought I pronounced my name Rochelle (thanks mom). So down to Apt 3 I went. Luckily I wasn't the one who had initially brought up my luggage all those stairs. It turns out I was going to be sharing an apartment with Carolyn who had claimed the last remaining single room. I had to claim the huge double room and re-adjust to having thought I was getting a single room.
I met some other people: Denise (we go waayyy back to a blossoming facebook friendship from a week before), Avi, PJ, & Isaac. The four of them and the 3 of us who had just arrived (Carolyn, Ethan, & I) decided to take a walk around our neighborhood to find a place to eat lunch. We stumbled upon Ba-cafe (a cute name because our neighborhood is called Bak'a). Luckily they had a menu in English (as do most places) but Denise and PJ knew a good amount of Hebrew to help us get by. The food was delicious; I think we'll definitely come here often.
We returned to the apartment and I met another apartment-mate, Nicole, who had been napping when we first arrived. Soon after, our 4th apartment-mate Olivia arrived. Though our shared room was pretty huge we weren't thrilled with the fact that we got stuck with the double room instead of a single. We then found out that we could re-arrange the apartment so the common room (with couches) could become a single room and the double room could become a single room/common space. Olivia agreed to keep the big room and to share it with us periodically and we all agreed to respect her space as well. Then the ladies of Apt 3 became movers and moved all the furniture around! I attempted to get settled a bit, but unfortunately I had to sacrifice having a closet/dresser as the closet in the big double room was meant for 2 people. So I was gonna be living out of my suitcases until I could find some plastic drawers or something.
Anyway that night the entire group met up with each other. We met Nir who is our program coordinator, went over some logistics, and of course did some icebreakers to get to know each other. They even gave us pizza for dinner! I bonded with Suri who is also a social worker. Neither of our internships were finalized due to the difficulty in getting social service agencies that are willing to have us intern for only 4 months (not good for the clients to form a relationship with a social worker who then leaves them in a few months), so we were both in the same place. I will update you all more about the internship situation in future postings. We had some time to meet just as an apartment and discuss how each of us are as roommates and our expectations for each other. Olivia, Carolyn, and Nicole are GREAT! We really have a lot in common and seem to be a good match for living together. The night ended with us getting our Israel phones.
And that, my friends, was my first day in Israel. The next posts will try to summarize what has been going on since then. Thanks for reading! I look forward to your comments!
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