Ch. 2

When i first arrived in Israel, the only thoughts that plagued my mind were, "please God, let my luggage not be lost." As i remembered correctly, coming here for the first time with my family, we lived luggage-less for the first three days, and as anyone with a family might know, somethings can get a little tricky ie. lack of underwear, toiletries, clothes and so on. A big difference between traveling alone or with your family is the ability to afford all new items and replace the old ones. Unfortunately for me, every dollar was stressed and accounted for, as my father so usually reminded me.

Fortunately, my lovely ginger coloured suitcase and generic red one, showed their bashful faces, and with struggling grunts, and awkward positioning, i finally loaded them onto a cart and pulled them away. Breathlessly, i ran into the bathroom to change into a more religious looking dress, pushed passed the white signs with family names written on them in bold, and searched through the crowd for a face which looked familiar. I had come a bit late, and was worried my aunt had missed me, but low and behold, there she was, smiling and walking towards me, and though i could count the number of times i had seen her before on one hand, she was family, and looked like it too, so we embraced like i had known her well my whole life.

She helped grabbed my luggage and together we tried to figure out where to take a Sheruit (taxi van) back to her home in Jerusalem, but not before we exchanged Canadian dollars to Sheckles. Between the two of us, it took about half an hour to figure out the Hebrew translations on the electronic debit-like machine, and i knew Auntie Tamara's Hebrew was not going to be a skill i cold comfortably lay back on.

After what seemed like forever, we finally boarded a sheruit full of people going seperate ways, and made it safely back to Auntie Tamara's apartment. The familiarity of her neighbourhood ran up and hugged me. This i recalled, the haphazardly created tree-house, nailed together in a "Dr. Seuss-like" fashion; the religious people dressed from neck to toe; the small spaces and loud mouths. I dragged my body into her small, floor-level apartment, and opened the front door. "Surprise!" There, sitting at a carefully decorated table were 5 out of my 9 cousins, their faces big and smiling.
Behind them on a white wall, was a large and quickly scrawled poster reading, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY NETANYA!" I laughed and waved, i was over taken by the plastic cups with the blue and white napkins poking out the tops, and the large home made cake in the center of the table, but with the 9 hour time difference weighing on my shoulders, and the heaviness of sleep deprivation, i apologetically excused myself, and collapsed onto a hard bed. The flight there had killed me, and that sleep would be the best i ever had. When i woke up, i had expected it to represent the rebirth of my new life, but what it really represented was my jet-lagged bodie's inability to sleep and eat at normal times for the next 2 days.

In approximately 24 hours from that first sleep, i would start my program in Israel, and nothing, not the anticipation or excitement of the new year, would stop me from closing my eyes this time.