Jack took the day off and we went to Jerusalem. The drive took longer than we expected because of traffic and more importantly because they don’t believe in street signs in Israel. When you get to an intersection you will see signs that point to the neighborhoods that a road may lead to and conveniently not give you the name of the street. Since the maps have street names, the signs are very little help. Also, Jerusalem is built on hills so there are no streets that are straight, parallel of take you directly from one major point of interest to another. We had planned to go to Yad Vashem first, but before we know it we were heading to the Old City. We parked at the Damascus Gate which is between the Christian and Muslim ... read more

Our day started out uneventfully. As I had been warned breakfast was pretty sketchy. Since so many soldiers leave the base for Shabbat, the food in the main dining room becomes scarce by Thursday. We had a short work morning and them went back to change into civilian clothes and pack. At 11:30 we regrouped in the warehouse for a departure ceremony. All the veterans commented that this was the first time they had ever participated in a departure ceremony of any type. The solders set up tables in the warehouse with tablecloths, fruit, cookies and small glasses of what I think was wine. The officer responsible for administration at the base came and gave a very touching speech thanking us for coming. He stressed that the soldiers on the base value our visits because ... read more

Israel Day 4 Today was a mixed bag. I’ll start with the high point which is the evening entertainment. Our two junior Madrichot were again in charge of the evening. We started with number games translating numbers in to Hebrew. We then moved on to a game in which each team had to put post-its on the various body parts. The teams tied (not thanks to me) since each team missed the word for eyebrows. Moving on we had to play act skits with little cue cards with English phrases and the Hebrew transliteration. The first skit was the contentious father-daughter combination cast in the roles of a buyer and seller in the market. I was picked for the second skit and I was a customer trying to negotiate with a taxi cab driver for a ... read more

It was a hectic morning, but by paying an outrageous amount of money to return the car with the tank half empty and my making a couple of illegal left turns, I made to Ben Gurion only 10 minutes late. There was already a crowd of 50 or 60 people waiting. I was assigned one of the first groups to leave. It turns out I was made a part of the small group being sent to an air force base in the Negev. It is the first time that this base has hosted Sar El volunteers. In my group of 13, only 2 people and me are first timers. The rest of the people have been participants as many as 15 times. There are 8 men and 5 women, one man from Poland, one from France, ... read more

Last Day Jack left last night. This morning I took the SkyTrain to Chatachuk Market. I know I had vowed that I wasn’t going to go to anymore markets, but I made an exception since this is the largest market in Thailand and the only food it sells is prepared food. There are approximately 15,000 vendors who are there only on Saturdays and Sundays. The market is enormous and I was extremely pleased that after wandering aimlessly for 2 hours I ended up at the entrance where I came in. Most of the vendors sell specialized products. For example, one vendor sells puppies, one sells kittens, one sells baby rabbits and one sell hamster or one sells sneakers, one sells sandals, one sells women’s shoes (not sneakers or sandals) and one sells men’s shoes. Actually, dozens ... read more