What A Weekend

Oy gevalt. What a weekend I had.

Thanksgiving at my apartment was wonderful. I cooked (all by myself) two chickens, two different kinds of stuffing (everyone agreed that the Liverman family recipe was the better one), two large pots of mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, squash, pumpkin bread, and a pumpkin pie. I cooked literally for two straight days. It was AMAZING. It was a good Thanksgiving even by American standards. There were thirteen of us; we sat in a circle on the floor and ate a ton and then lay around in a food coma and sang This Land Is Your Land. It was great.

Early Friday morning I left Tel Aviv and headed to Efrat to spend Shabbat with some friends from Nesiya. Efrat is about ten minutes east of Jerusalem, just over the Green Line. It's one of the larger settlements in the territories at about 10,000 people: 95% religious, and probably half American. Anyway, my friend picked me up at the bus stop, and brought me back to his house, where I met his colony of turtles and his SUPER fluffy dog. We hung out outside for a while to avoid the dog, and then the boys went to shul so I took a nap, in a part of the house where the dog doesn't ever go. A couple hours later, I woke up gasping for breath. I had already taken my meds, but I used my inhaler and tried to get through dinner, but then I almost passed out because I wasn't getting enough air, so we went to the Efrat Medical Center. The guy there was a medic (not a doctor, a medic) named Mordechai, who was very sweet, but knew about as much as I do about medicine. He gave me an oxyegn mask, and called the real doctor, who was this little American woman who brought me children's Benadryl that she had at home for her kids. Then she put me on a nebulizer of albuterol and gave me 20mg of a crazy steroid called Prednisone. Half an hour later, I could breathe, but I was totally bugging out from all the drugs. I called my mom, who told me it was really important that I get home, because sleeping in any new environment (even animal free) would be dangerous in that condition. Any reaction I could've had at that point would've been ten times worse than usual, and I would've landed right back in the hospital. However, getting out of Efrat on Shabbat is... impossible. One of my friends is not religious, and was willing to drive me to Jerusalem, but the car belongs to his charedi parents, and they were NOT cool with it. I explained to them the situation, and, in a very condescending manner, they explained to me that they would not break Shabbat until I was actually about to die. Great. So I started making phone calls to everyone I know in Jerusalem, trying to figure out how to get out of Efrat. At this point I was totally freaking out; the steroids had started making me hallucinate and hyperventilate, and I was terrified. After failing to reach any of my madrichim, I finally called my friend Neta, who lives in Jerusalem. Fifteen minutes later, she had come to my rescue, and half an hour later, I was in her kitchen getting tea and hugs and little brothers on my lap. That family is made up of saints, I swear.

I ended up crashing at Neta's last night, and came back to Tel Aviv by sherut (shared taxi) this morning. I walked into my apartment to a bunch of very confused roommates, took a much-needed showever, and collapsed in my bed for the next four hours. I woke up around 6pm and remembered that I was supposed to meet up with a bunch of Nesiya friends in Jerusalem tonight. I ran out of the house, and went back to the bus station to get on a another bus to Jerusalem, where I had a lovely evening with some old friends. It's nice and cold in Jerusalem, and I always run into people I know. I love being there. It was a great night, until my friend and I got on a city bus to go back to the Central Bus Station, and he got really sick and threw up on the bus. Poor kid.

I caught the last bus back to Tel Aviv, and ended up at Arlozorov Station (on the opposite end of Tel Aviv from where I live) around midnight, at which point I caught the very last city bus down to South Tel Aviv. The bus map showed a stop right in my neighborhood, but somehow I ended up halfway to Bat Yam and found myself walking up the beach at quarter to 1. I ran into some friends at some point near Neve Tsedek, and then wandered the rest of the way home with them.

Now it's 2am; I'm finally home, in one piece, happy to be alive. And I think it's bed time.

Happy post-Thanksgiving coma/shopping, and happy Chanuka starting on Wednesday!