Finally...

I am sitting in my apartment, under the (functioning) air conditioner using the internet actually assigned to my apartment (rather than leeching off of someone else's network). Who knows how long this crazy phenomenon will last, but I'll take it.

Last time I posted was right before Yom Kippur, which ended up being a disaster of epic proportions. The chag began for me at a hospital, where I was taking care of a friend who had been given some kind of a date rape drug, and then continued to get worse as it went. I woke up on Saturday morning at a friend's apartment to discover that we were LOCKED IN. The apartment is on the sixth floor of an otherwise uninhabited building, with no accessible fire escape. There was no way for me to get to shul, and furthermore, I'd been sick and needed to eat to keep myself from passing out, and there was no food anywhere to be found, inside the apartment or out. We waited hours in the apartment for someone to come with the key to let us out, and just as things were beginning to go all Lord of the Flies, we found the spare key. My one close friend and I escaped before anyone could stop us, and walked home to discover that the power in our building had been out for two days. All the food in everyone's refrigerators had spoiled and begun to stink, some of the faucets had stopped working, and the toilets in the boys apartment in the basement had overflowed, turning the apartment into a LITERAL shithole. It was among the most disgusting things I've ever experienced. My friend and I then left our building, almost in tears of frustration, and walked twenty minutes or so to the beach in Yafo. And thus, the highlight of my Yom Kippur this year was sitting on a bench eating really good shawarma and watching the sun set over the Mediterranean.

At some point during this fiasco, Aardvark decided to move us into a hostel, which is where I've stayed for the past four nights. They have air conditioning, and hot water, and comfortable beds, and, most importantly, FREE BREAKFAST. Thank God everything is working in my building for now, but I thoroughly appreciated sleeping in a hostel for the past several nights.

My volunteering at the school won't begin until after Sukkot, so for the past several days I've been working at a soup kitchen run by an organization called Lasova serving lunch to the homeless community in the neighborhood. It's been really rewarding feeling like I'm actually doing something productive, and also getting to know some of the people in our neighborhood. Now when we walk down the street to go to school or to the bus stop, the homeless people on the street recognize us as the ones who serve their lunch, and they say hello, and start conversations. I like it so much there that I think I'm actually going to work there on Thursdays for the rest of the semester, and work at school only three days a week.

So I'm discovering that Sukkot, while not a huge deal of a holiday at home, is actually a really fun time in Israel. The other night we built a community Sukkah on the roof of my apartment, and tonight we're having a giant "family" potluck dinner and slumber party up there. I'm really excited. :)

Chag Sukkot Sameach!