Sunday, August 28: It Is Time For Relaxation

I was ready for a vacation. Seeing that I have not written a journal entry in over a week you might be able to guess how incredibly busy I have been over the past week preparing to finish ulpan for the summer. I was racing around trying to stay healthy, I went home sick one of the days of classes because I was not feeling well, and studying for my big final test in Hebrew. That being said, I was in desperate need for a vacation. This last weekend David and I cooked a very chill Shabbat dinner for our friends Jill and Jordana and then hung around on Saturday afternoon preparing ourselves for the trip. Saturday night we were invited to our friend Esther’s birthday party and I ended up staying out very late attending the dance club my friends went to last night. I was back at my place around three in the morning so I was very, very tired when waking up today. Needless to say, I had a fantastic time out dancing with friends, something I have not done in a very long time.

David and woke up very early this morning to do our last minute packing, running to the ATM machine (or as they call it in Israel, caspomat), and then jumping on a sheirut (very similar to a Super Shuttle van) with all of our buddies that were accompanying us on our trip to Greece, to head to the airport for our flight. The people in our Greece trip were: Jordana, Jill, Jordi, Lindy, Matt, and David and I. Seven is a perfect number and we were all looking forward to the trip. After stopping at several duty free shops as I picked up a big treat, a bridal magazine (that cost me ten dollars! Ouch!) as well as a People magazine, we were off to Greece. We arrived in Greece around four in the afternoon and hopped on a bus to take us to our hotel. Little did we know that since arranging our trip through an Israeli tour company that we would end up on a bus full of Israelis with an Israeli tour guide who ONLY spoke in Hebrew. Our group looked at each other and decided from that moment on that we needed a break from Israelis as well as Hebrew. It was time for VACATION!

When arriving at our hotel, the Hilton in Rhodes, we were so excited to have air conditioning and nice bedding. It was a treat for David and me at least. It was really a beautiful hotel with nice rooms, a fitness center, three pools, and directly on the beach. I decided, along with Lindy, that it was time to work out. That was a priority of mine. So, we hopped on the cardio machines and it felt so nice. I know I am crazy, but to work out again after running around for the past week not having a second for exercise was so relaxing. We then rushed to get ready to meet the rest of the group for dinner.

We had arranged to have both breakfast and dinner at our hotel every day included in our package and the meals were pretty amazing. Dinner was better than I expected with a full buffet of beef, carbohydrates, and traditional Greek dishes-mostly pork, grape leaves, samosas, mousaka, Greek salad, hummus, eggplant salad, and did I mention meat?

I went to bed right away because of the exhaustion from the night before.

Monday, August 29: It Feels Like It Is Vacation, That Is For Sure!

The group woke up for a buffet breakfast, again pretty tasty with eggs, fresh omelets, fruit, juices, coffee, and pastries. We spent most of the morning playing by the pool and the beach. The temperature was around 85 degrees or so, not too hot. For the later part of the afternoon, we all decided to go into town and visit the Old City of Rhodes. We grabbed cabs and explored the older part of the island. We walked around and saw many old and ancient buildings, but all realized that we needed to find a tour where we could fully benefit from the history of the town. So, instead we did some Greek shopping, and checked out the Olive Oil products, leather shoes, postcards, and more. Around five in the evening we all rushed home to shower and get ready for our fun evening activity.

Our group decided to attend a Hafla, a Greek party and festivity that was set up for tourists visiting Rhodes. We joined our Israeli tour group bus as means of transportation to the party and stopped at a couple of sight seeing spots on the way. One of these spots was simply amazing and interesting. The group stopped at a Black Widow’s home. In traditional Greek culture when a woman loses her husband she must wear only black and remain celibate for the rest of her life. She has to spend her life serving her dead husband. The opposite is not true of a man who loses his wife. He is allowed to marry and move on with his life after he loses his wife. Many Israelis and Jews from around the world visit this particular Black Widow because she hid four Jewish girls during the Holocaust and is known as one of the Righteous Gentiles for doing so. These four women now live in Israel. Although it felt awkward, our group paid our respects to this woman by visiting her house and touring her home.

From there we attended the Hafla. There were over two hundred people in the restaurant, all from different countries around the world. David was excited because there was big group from Hungary as well. We sat at a long table on the dance floor and were given more wine, ouzo, and food than we knew what to do with. There was hummus, and tzatiki sauce, bread, meat, meat, meat, potatoes, baklava. It was pretty incredible. Not only was the food amazing but there was incredible entertainment as well. We saw Greeks singing traditional Greek songs, and there were Greek dances that we even got to participate in. It was a fun outing and our group was happy we did it.

Tuesday, August 30: Our Day of History

We woke up for breakfast and got to play on the beach a little. Lindy and I were able to work out for two hours which was a treat for both of us since we are always in a rush when in the gym in Israel. Jordi was able to connect with a private tour guide that our group hired to give us a tour of the Old City. We headed out to the Old City in the earlier afternoon with Liana, our tour guide for the day. A two hour tour of the Old City turned into over three and a half hours and it was so UNBELIEVABLE. We were so lucky to have such an amazing tour guide. She was able to show us whatever we were interested in seeing. For instance, she was Greek Orthodox and asked if we wanted to see a traditional Greek Orthodox church. She took us into a very old and traditional church, sat us down, and began to explain to us what Greek Orthodoxy was all about. It was really incredible. The church was beautiful and I learned a lot about a very popular religion in Greece. She showed us many mosques, Turkish baths (we were obviously not allowed in them because they are still used today and tourists are not allowed to just look), and the Palace of the Grand Master. The Old City holds much of Rhodean history. There were knights and counsels and inns were the knights stayed. The Old City is beautiful, much cleaner than in Israel and very well kept. The last place we stopped was the Jewish quarter. Of course, with many rabbinic students in our group we were all most interested in seeing this area. Unfortunately, when we arrived at the synagogue it was closed for the day, however Liana came to the rescue and called the man in charge of the synagogue’s upkeep to ask him to please open it for us. We were so lucky, because he ended up coming to open it for us. The man only spoke Ladino (a mixture of Hebrew and Spanish) and thank goodness we had both David and Lindy who speak fluent Spanish to translate what he said to us. This man, Samuel, demanded that we sit down in the pews of the synagogue as he told us his story. His cousin joined us as well. We learned that Samuel and his cousin are the only surviving original Rhodean Jews that are alive. The Jewish community in Rhodes, currently, has sixty people. The majority of the Jewish population diminished after World War II. He explained to us that he was preparing for his bar mitzvah in the synagogue in which we were sitting but the Nazis took him and his family away to Auschwitz. He decided to have his bar mitzvah in the concentration camp. He told us about the different parts of a Sephardic synagogue (in which we were sitting) and we learned so much from him and his story.

We were all so pleased with our afternoon that we headed back to the hotel, ate dinner, and went to sleep.

Wednesday, August 31: Road Trip!

Today we rented a nine passenger van to take a bit of a road trip. David drove of course! One of our other HUC friends was also in Rhodes with her boyfriend and we invited them along for the day. We picked them up and were on our way to Lindos. Lindos is a beautiful town on the eastern coast of Rhodes. We toured the Acropolis, shopped, and played on the beach in Lindos. It was a beautiful town. Our group also drove to the Seven Springs, home of seven fresh water pools, and to the Valley of the Butterflies. This valley is only open during a few months in the year where you can hike through this forest and see, literally, thousands upon thousands of butterflies. They are brown in color on the top of their wings but different shades of orange on the bottoms of their wings. It was such a sight to see. On the way home, we were lucky enough to see a locally winery where we went to do wine tasting and bought some tasty Greek wines for dinner. We drove home, ate dinner, drank wine, and all passed out from our extremely long and fun day!

Thursday, September 1: Is It Really Time To Go Home, Already?

We were all bummed that we had to leave today. Lindy and I were able to work out a little and we all met for lunch at a small café outside of our hotel. We hopped on the bus to the airport and took an early evening flight out of Greece and arrived home around nine tonight. Our group had a really fun time together, it was great group dynamics, and there were plenty of laughs. It is time to prepare for David’s birthday tomorrow!

September 2, Friday: Happy Birthday David!

I was up early this morning in anticipation of David’s birthday and preparing for his surprise this evening. We both slept in late and our friend Tami Wheatley from California was in the area for the weekend and is spending the night with us. She is on a program here in Israel for the year so we will luckily get to see her often. We all went to sushi and then stopped by a bakery to pick up a large birthday cake for David. We then invited Jordana and Rose to come eat a slice and we sang happy birthday. I then sent David off with his buddy Matt to go play pool and bowl so that I could prepare for his birthday dinner. David thought that Tami, him and I were just having dinner together but in fact, Rose and I were preparing for a bigger surprise. I invited nine of David's and my friends over and they cooked parts of the dinner and showed up early. David came home from bowling and Rose came down crying saying she needed help with her internet because it was broken. When David went upstairs before sitting down to an already set table at our apartment with Tami and me, all of our friends were upstairs and yelled “Surprise, happy birthday!” It was a fun night with lots of food, David’s favorites of course, and nice people. I was so happy that David was mostly surprised and had a good birthday. Now I am exhausted from planning and preparing. It is time for bed!