Garin Tzabar and Aliyah

Hello everyone! Last post I mentioned something about the whole group and going to Jerusalem, well we weren't there for long but we went to Yad Vashem - the Holocaust museum - and It was a pretty strong experience for me. I've never been to a Holocaust museum before, the few things that I know about the holocaust were the things that I learned at school (and if you knew me from back then I wasn't that stellar of a student in anyone's eyes). Zigging and zagging in and out of all of the rooms in the museum, watching all the videos, reading all of the articles and looking at all of the memorabilia from WWII really got me thinking - Why the hell do people in this world try to act like this never existed? Like seriously, the Holocaust was horrible, I began to tear up while I was watching a few of these videos, something like this should never happen again, to any culture, any religion, or any race of people, ever. And still, there are people in this world who deny its existence, like come on man, it honestly wasn't that long ago - there are survivors, videos, and countries like Poland that have concentration camp exhibits (Auschwitz, hello??) where you could literally see where these poor people live. Nobody should ever live live that okay, enough for my rant, off to other things...

Here is me and the homie Elena at the entrance of Yad Vashem, sadly I wasn't allowed to take photos inside. I understand why.

I visited Nazareth for a bit, with a few of the volunteers, we walked around a bit, went to a church, ate some shawarma and got some sweets and left, not really much happened that night.

Jaden, Elena, Matteo and I chilling with the Virgin Mary

Me being... Well, me.

Christmas and Hanukkah fell on the same day this year, which is good because there aren't that many Jewish volunteers here so we had a Christmas/Hanukkah dinner. It was really sweet, The girls - Greta, Lisa and Antonia (they requested me to put their names on my blog) made a nice dinner and everyone sat down and ate together. It was bloody adorable, I wasn't expecting anyone to do anything honestly.

For new years, the girls and I (Greta, Antonia, Lisa and Paula) all went to Jerusalem and stayed there for a few days. I've always wanted to go there and check out the old city ever since I was a kid and finally, there I was, at the western wall, I prayed a bit and shoved a piece of paper in the wall and went on my way to explore the rest of the old city. The girls and I spent a lot of time at the shops - It's really different from what I'm used to in America, and I love it, all of it - the disorganization makes my OCD go in a frenzy, the haggling (which I need to desperately work on) was something new to me - back home nobody does that really, the craziness of people running around all over the place going off in all directions at the same time looks like insanity, but also, everything is "in order" like its supposed to be like that, everyone's just so used to it that it's basically just the everyday norm. It was wonderful, and I'm planning on going back really soon. For new years we went to a sorta party at a big bazaar that I don't really recall the name and it was pretty cool, the whole strip was full of people selling drinks and people were dancing everywhere, on the floor, on top of tables, screaming shouting and singing the songs, It was complete havoc, I'm starting to think that havoc is the everyday thing here, it's not a bad thing, you just got to get used to it.

 The New Years Bazaar

OH! I got a new job, not really a promotion, I just got moved to the kitchen, I'm learning to cook a bit and the people that I work with are cool, well, the ones that I speak to, two Argentinians, cool dudes, and if you know me then you know that I got a thing for Argentinians haha. So goodbye cleaning dishes and hello 3rd degree burns!

So, now to the Garin Tzabar and Aliyah thing:
Garin Tzabar is a pre-army program that helps you join the IDF and in order to be in the program I have to do Aliyah.
Aliyah is a process of a Jew immigrating to Israel and becoming a citizen.
So, first off, I am a Jew... By conversion, which was recently completed a few months ago.
That isn't a bad thing but one of the rules for a converted Jew to make Aliyah is that she/he must live in their Jewish community that they converted in, so technically I need to go back to Florida until June then apply for Aliyah again. BUT! Nefesh B'Nefesh has been a great help (thank you guys so much I really do love ya'll) and they said that if I move to a religious kibbutz for the remainder of my 9 month probation I have a good chance that I will be approved for Aliyah. So, I'm going to take my chances and save some money (like a good little Jew) and not go to Florida (sorry guys) and instead try to find a religious kibbutz accepting volunteers Which the KPC (Kibbutz Volunteer Program Center) office in Tel Aviv said they would help me out with. Now, hopefully everything will work out, I kinda maybe sorta do see a light at the end of the tunnel, I will find out in June.
OH! and one more thing, I need to make Aliyah before August and its roughly about a 2 month process, and what month is 2 months before August? June! Bloody hell! I just can't get a break can't I? With that said I'm going to push them to process this Aliyah application as fast as they can before the deadline.
Also! For Garin Tzabar I have to go to about 5 seminars before even getting accepted into the program! So what does that mean?? That I could get denied at any time before the program starts and I would need to wait till the next session to join again or I would need to do all of it myself.
I really do hope I get into this program, It seems really cool and all the people I met that also want to do this program are really chill, I bet it would be a great experience for me. Plus the fact that they help you out with everything is absolutely awesome and a person basically living alone in Israel with no help (me) this program is a godsend. So yeah, pray for me guys, I'll be doing a lot of it in the religious kibbutz, I'll let you know once I get into one.

One last thing that I've noticed, the architecture of these buildings here drive me mad, the people here really need some help, my OCD goes crazy seeing things that really don't belong, and seeing patterns mess up in random places, whatever, these people need to redraw some of the buildings here (or maybe all of them).

I'll be posting once a month for now on.

Thank you all for reading.

Peace in the Middle East Yo.