Stooped over, sweaty, and with a burning headache do I find myself sitting here on the stoop out front of my room. I’ve finally found my pen, hiding somewhere on the ground. Last night I wrote while smoking cigarettes with some people, and the pen must have slipped out of the journal. I slept through breakfast, but Omri brings me a bun with cheese–what a beauty. I’m currently wearing floral cloth shorts, a black Benny Gold hat, and no shirt.
Last night was a bit of a doozy. With ripped dresses and 3 AM skinny dipping I’m feeling a little exhausted. I giggle when I recall a hammered Zach convincing a 14 year old kibbutz brat to let him drive her golf cart to the bar.
In the morning a group of us decided to go on a little hike up the hill. We climb up 67 flights of stairs in elevation according to someones Android phone. It’s me, Zach, Silver, Jeremy, Devin, Chase, Julieanne, Elham, Emmett, Jeff, and Stef. The wise ones stay behind to nurse their hangovers.
The hike presents us with views spectacular and plain all at the same time–a hill and endless prairie off into the distance. Aquaculture ponds dot the horizon. Rusted out DANGER, LANDMINES signs in English, Hebrew, and Arabic appear on the wire fence occasionally. Over this hill is the Western Bank, which keeps being referred to as ‘hostile territory’.
My fucking head is throbbing from the hangover. Every step up this hill pumps poison through my head. It must be the ‘tubi’ I was drinking with careless abandon. That ginger flavored Israeli moonshine will get you. We see some strange pile of rocks with a bunch of Hebrew names and writing carved into a stone plaque. We speculate that it’s some sort of memorial for dead people. People on ATVs rip past us from time to time.
The group realizes after our photoshoot that we will never climb the whole thing. We head back down the way we came and meet up with the rest of the group. Soon thereafter we get to have a group activity–making skits in Hebrew. We go with “Run Forest Run”, but it turns out pretty awful. Devin does a pretty good one where he’s some falafel slinger, really laying on that thick Israeli accent.
Omri’s skit fares the best. It’s a night club scene where Jonah plays the creep who gets rejected, Omri kicking him out of the bar–the celebrated hero. All the girls shout his name and give him a group hug. He’s wearing his sunglasses in the middle of the girls, throwing his arms up and mock dancing with them all, like the nucleus of a beautiful cell. He’s way taller than them all so it just looks hilarious.
Afterwards, we celebrate Havdalah–the ceremony marking the end of Shabbat. I volunteer to help Mickey with the DVD player so he can show us some Israeli propaganda. The DVD player was broken so I offer to get my laptop. Unfortunately I forget that my Macbook doesn’t have a DVD player, so it’s a trip made in vain. Damn.
We eat dinner, and then have a local popstar perform for us. He was cool and seemed to be super baked. The man tells us he’s what you could call a has-been, surprising me with his honesty. Alex keeps joking around and saying ‘He’s peakin'”. Our friend plays some very famous song in Israel he made, and then a bunch of cover songs. He gets us to clap and sing along with him, proving he still has some spunk. We joke around about asking him for some weed.
He leaves and we all hug and go to bed. We head to Haifa tomorrow.
