Pesach Adventures by Car

Potluck Seder

I am wrapping up my fabulous Pesach vacation with a little rest and relaxation. The past few days off have been full of venturing to new parts of Israel via a tiny rental car approximately the size of a pea. We took to the road on Thursday morning and traveled west of Nahariya towards the Sea of Galilee until we hit the little town of Tsfat. There we visited what used to be the Arab part of town. Today, it is a small artist colony. We wondered through the ancient streets and in and out of small galleries stopping for a brief lunch during which my friend Hali was set up with an apparently wealthy and handsome young man via his Israeli aunt. This hilarious woman played matchmaker using Facebook as her method of introduction. We are all excited for their future wedding and toasted to their happiness.

Tsfat- Artist Colony

Unfortunately, we took too long looking at galleries in Tsfat and were unable to make it to any Synagogues before the whole town closed for Shabbat. So we trekked back to our car and decided to drive an hour south via a route by the Sea of Galilee to the town of Nazareth. Nazareth apparently contained beautiful churches, so we decided it would be worth the extra driving to fit a second town into our day. The drive from Tsfat to Nazareth was honestly the most beautiful drive I have ever made. Though it was quite overcast, the sun managed to spill onto the Sea making it sparkle through the mist. The mountains were also covered with the most beautiful little yellow flowers! I’ll include a photo, though I don’t think my photos do the scenery any justice.

After driving for a little over an hour, we reached Nazareth. Oh, what an unfortunate disappointment Nazareth was. It is a very modern looking, dirty town which was immediately unsatisfactory. We tried to follow a few signs to churches, but managed to find none. The signs all seemed to be totally wrong, so we decided to park to car and traverse the city by foot. We started by following a sign for a church of Mary that pointed uphill. We started walking in the direction indicated and within a city block, the road stopped. There was no church to be found and we were in a completely residential area. On our walk, we were able to see a fantastic church and golden mosque perched high on a hill. So we walked back to our car with the objective to follow the signs – a horrible idea – to these places of worship.

Side of the road Sea of Galilee

As I am sure you can guess, we failed miserably. Just as soon as we started following the signs, all trace of them disappeared. We were left winding through ally-ways that became progressively smaller as we climbed higher. We found some promise, however, when we began to see hoards of tourists heading in one direction. At this point, we decided to find a parking spot and join the masses. Due to the size of the allies, we obviously had some trouble finding a spot. After making it through a herd of senior citizens, I thought we were finally about to find something when I drove around a corner and found myself in the middle of the Shuk or central market place. Everyone in the car found this moment particularly hilarious. One of the vendors, however, looked at us like we were crazy and began to motion at us to get out. Though we had a small car, this proved a difficult task. I managed a slick 72-point turn and eventually got us out of the situation. Nazareth- we all decided – was not meant to be. So we ventured down the hill and made our way back to Nahariyya for a delicious dinner before turning in for the night.

Our tiny car

Day two was just as odd-ball, yet successful as day one. Our original plan was to go on a 4-5 hour water hike in a nature reserve about 1.5 hours away. We were supposed to head out at ten, but realized at 9:45 that the car’s battery died because one of its doors was left open over-night. Joy. So by the time we made it out of the kibbutz, it was already 10:45. We decided to stop at an Arab market on the way to pick up some fruit for our adventure. As soon as we got into the market, it started to downpour and we turned back to the kibbutz. All was not in vain, however, because we managed to take a trip to a phenomenal Druze supermarket where we bought all our groceries for the week.

Sunset at Rosh Hanikra

Cave at Rosh Hanikra

After a siesta, the clouds parted and it was absolutely gorgeous outside! So a few of us hopped into the car and made a short drive up to the Lebanese border to see some costal caves at Rosh Hanikra. It was absolutely beautiful! When you were on the top of the cliff you could see for miles and miles souh! We also got the chance to walk inside the caves and watch a little informational movie. It was a solid end to the car adventures for the day. Post sunset, we all drove home and made a massive sushi dinner - I think we made about 15 rolls of the stuff – and then dyed my hair red! Surprise!

Red hair!

Our final half-day, we checked out a small kibbutz/village between Ga’aton and Nahariyya that contains a little B&B, some local organic foods, a small goat-cheese factory and a little French café. Ruby and I had a delicious ham, cheese and mushroom crepe (first time I’ve really seen ham around here!) and then continued to town where we returned the car and lounged on the beach for a few hours before heading home!

Woohoo! So here I am attempting to be a vegetable before the dancing resumes. I’ve had a lovely vacation! Chag Sameach everyone! I hope you had tremendous Seders. I’m off to eat some food and enjoy the sunshine. Sending love as always, Marissa

Pesach Israeli Style

Last night, I went to the program organizer’s best friend’s house for a massive Seder.  I think it was hands down the most exciting Seder I’ve ever been to. The grandmother and grandfather have 6 grown children who each have 3 kids of their own who span from ages 8 to 22. Most everyone in the family was present and was crammed around two small tables.  From the moment I entered the house, everyone was shouting and laughing and dancing around.

To commence the evening’s festivities, the grandfather walked to the head of the table, poured himself a glass of wine and shouted the first blessing. It seemed like no one was listening, but as he finished the last words of the brucha, everyone shouted ‘Amen!’ and the epic Seder began! There were enough Haggadot for everyone and as soon as they were passed out, the speed-reading of the Seder began. You had to be on your toes because as soon as someone finished reading a section of the Hagaddah, a different name would be shouted and that person had to continue reading. Occasionally, the Seder was interrupted by one of the son’s who would butt in by beating his drum and then there would be a few minutes of ruckus song. At one point, the youngest girl, Shirai, began the typical four questions by shouting “Mah!” at the top of her lungs, at which point her father picked up the drum and everyone joined in singing the rest of the questions at the top of their lungs. It was crazy time in the house, but it was so much fun.

Celery, salt water, wine, matzo, maror, charoset and many blessing were almost literally thrown around the table while the story of Passover was being sped through. There was laughing and clapping and loads of merriment. When we reached the halfway point of the Seder, the books were shoved in a corner and the food was put on the table. There was enough food for nearly 3 times the amount of people present. There were easily 10 different types of salads from your traditional potato salad to baba ganoush to Swiss chard salad to pickled veggies. Then there was the meat. There was what I believed to be matzo stuffed with liver, fall off the bone lamb with veggies, chicken stuffed with some other type of meat, potato knish type things with ground beef inside… I was told I needed to try everything, so I did. (Worry not, I dressed appropriately in a billowy dress and had preemptively taken a Gas-X and an anti-acid. So besides being completely stuffed, I felt excellent!)

After dinner, the plates were cleared quickly by a few of the women, while everyone else lounged on couches or the floor. Within 15 minutes, half the kitchen was cleaned and cleared and the desert was presented. The women insisted that I have every desert on the table. I obliged and they watched me eat. Post consumption and at the beginning of what is bound to be a week-long food coma, the drum was brought out again and thus commenced a dance party. We sang traditional Passover songs and then the women danced in a circle in the small part of the kitchen that had been cleared. It was so much fun!

Smadar, the woman who brought be to the Seder, brought me home after that and said I was welcomed at any time. I will certainly be taking them up on that offer and will be making them something delicious as a thank you. I decided upon arriving home that my next Seder is going to be modeled after that one. Obviously, I will be translating it into an English version, but it’ll be just as chaotic and full of love and craziness as that one!  You are all welcomed to my crazy Israeli-style Seder next year. What wonderful people they all are and what a phenomenal Israeli experience! I wish I had pictures and videos to show you!

I hope you all had lovely Seders and are enjoying full bellies! Sending lots of spring love, Marissa

Akko

Well all, it feels like July over here in Israel. I realized this as I awoke in an actual pool of my own sweat. Currently, I am in my room wearing a light dress with the fan going at full speed and I still feel like it might be a problem getting to sleep in the heat. This wouldn’t worry me if it were in fact June or July, but it’s April and what’s worse is that just a few days ago, I needed a sweatshirt and scarf when going outside at night. What will May and June be like?!

Good news is that it is Pesach and I have a few days of rest and relaxation before we go into what is bound to be a completely hectic home stretch of the program. We have 5 more working days before we have a big performance at a Holocaust memorial ceremony of sorts and we don’t even know the structure of the piece we will be performing. I also have to get kicking on my pieces for our performance in early June. I have quite a ways to go. It’s good that I have a chunk of time to rest and re-organize myself because I can definitely feel my body telling me that I need it!

The Shuk in Akko

Earlier today to celebrate the start of our holidays, a few of us went to the neighboring Arab town of Akko. Akko is apparently home to the best humus in all of Israel. Let me tell you, my friends: according to yours truly, this rumor is completely true. I had the best humus ever today for lunch. I can’t even describe it. I can say that it tastes pretty much completely different from regular humus. It is so unbelievably fresh and tasty. For desert, we went next door where they sold bars of fresh nuts and honey. I got a triple layered chunk of goodness that had sesame seeds at the bottom, pistachios, almonds and hazelnuts in the middle and unsweetened coconut on the top. A little slice of heaven in my mouth! The Shuk (or market) was home to fabulous textiles, chachkes, spices and best of all fresh fish! I wish I could have bought some fish to take home, but it would have spoiled in the heat. Next time! … For the other chunk of time we have off from dancing, a few of us were contemplating renting a car and taking day trips to the Golan and Tsfat among other places. We’re getting together to discuss cost tomorrow.

View of Akko from the harbor

This week, I have decided to cut myself off from all forms of chat on my computer including Skype. I have also decided not to email many people unless it is necessary. I am doing this because I recently realized that I have been too tied to the computer and haven’t been present enough around the kibbutz. I re-recognized that this time is supposed to be for me before I delve into the ‘real world’ - as it were - and I need to be living in it as much of it as possible. Most recently, I have been too concentrated with home and my future. It’s amazing how much I have done in the few days that I have gone without these things.  I started and finished a book, took a long walk by myself, wrote lots in my journal, had several meetings, am currently writing my second blog posting. My mind feels much clearer already and I am thinking that I’ll try to keep a simplified version of this plan for the rest of my stay. Sorry all. I’ll continue to write blog posts.

I am off for now! I am going to clean up a bit before I go to a massive Passover Seder. Can’t wait. Sending love and Chag Sameach to all! Xx, Marissa

April

It has been a while since I’ve last written and I’m sorry about that. So much has happened – as it always seems to – in the past two weeks, that I don’t even know where to begin. This most recent week held two unfortunate auditions and some very long days. The outcome of this means that I am indeed going to be traveling back to the states on July 1^st and becoming a true New Yorker. The very prospect has left me completely overwhelmed. I must say that I will be very sad to leave this place and it may take me a while to get mentally back into the swing of things. I really love the little bubble that I have been living in these past 2.5 months. I shouldn’t mope too much, though, for I have another 2.5 glorious and full months before I board the plane back to the states (where many great things also await!!).

Two weekends ago, I felt like I took a trip to another planet entirely. I explored an incredibly vast, barren and completely unreal landscape as well as a strikingly still body of aqua water whose beaches were lined with crystallized salt rocks. What I really did was take a trip to the Negev - or the desert - in the south of Israel. The desert looks legitimately like Jupiter. Its dunes extend to what seems like the end of time when in reality, if you drive two hours north, the steep cliffs and gigantic dunes turn into rolling, lush and fertile hills. This country is amazing.

We started our trip with a workshop at the Kamea Dance Company in Beer Sheba. We took ballet and modern technique classes followed by a repertoire workshop and a brief showing.  I really did not enjoy my experience there. The artistic director was a big diva of a man who seemed to be attempting to sell his ‘fabulous’ company to us. In my humble opinion, if a dance company is a good one, its greatness will speak for itself.  It also seemed to me like he was throwing one terrible sales pitch the whole day. It also didn’t help that his sense of humor was poor, his choreography quite juvenile, and his knowledge of the dance world seemingly deprived. Oh well. At least it made me thankful for where I am…

We finished the trip by taking a hike through awesome dunes and cliffs and descending to a fresh-water spring. The hike took 5 hours and was beautiful (I’ll post some pictures on this blog post). After the hike, we took a dip in the man-made part of the Dead Sea. Did you know that scientists believe the Dead Sea is actually the embryo for a huge sea!? Pretty cool if you ask me. I wish I could stick around another few million years to see if that is really the case. The next day, we took a quick hike up and down Massada followed by another dip in the actual Dead Sea. The second day at the Dead Sea, I swam parallel to the shore until I found a load of Dead Sea mud, which I treated myself to. My skin was so soft! Wish you were all there to feel it! My roommate, Elleka, took some mud back in a plastic container, which is now sitting in the bathroom.

Onto this week…Sunday was the second of the auditions for KCDC, which I managed to get cut from. This was obviously a bit on the disappointing side of things, but I also know that this is not the ideal company for me so I wasn’t completely devastated. Tuesday, we had a fabulous workshop with a man from Inbal Pinto Dance Company where we learned two chunks of repertoire from a current and a past show. That same day I made an impromptu decision to travel to Jerusalem that night to dance at the Vertigo Dance Company’s studios. Traveling and finding a hostel was stressful to say the least. Even more nerve-racking was when I stepped into the studios the next morning only to be informed that what I was actually attending was not open class, but a legitimate audition. Due to whatever otherworldly state I was in, I was axed pretty quickly. Not only was that a bit of a bummer, but financially speaking, it made a bit of a hole in my pocket. Then we trekked back up north and spent another 4 hours in the studio on the kibbutz catching up on the bit of the workshop we missed in the morning. Yesterday, we had day 4 of this fabulous workshop in which we learned tons of choreography. (The result of this workshop will be a 30-minute piece that will be performed in June.) My brain is a complete mess and is totally full!

And now, my fine friends, I am going to start making pizza dough for our pizza night. Thank you Susie for the Fillion recipe! Sending my love to all!

I am the Hulk.

At the same time that I feel a bit stifled and antsy by living on such a remote kibbutz, I feel for the first time in a long time that I can be completely free here. Though my cuticles are an absolute mess in anticipation of the future, I actually feel calm and confident. When I feel like singing, I sing. When I am frustrated I say so. When I have something to say no matter how silly it is, I have - for the first time since I can remember - no problems saying what I need to. It is an emancipating feeling. This is one of the reasons why I don't want to go back home. Some of the others being that Israelis are wonderful people, this country is beautiful, the food is so fresh and I feel like I am living the life I should live. I feel healthier here than I have anywhere else!

That all being said, I do miss New York and if a job opportunity does not arise in Israel, I am excited to get back and start my life there again. I have so many plans for myself that I am so looking forward to that it is hard not to be animated! If I go back to the city however, I know my chaotic lifestyle will resume. I can only hope that I will be able to maintain some semblance of my lifestyle here on the kibbutz.

This is the dress I made out of plastic bags for Purim!

Anyhow, as for this weeks happenings… Two weeks ago was an absolute killer and I feel like I spent most of this week trying to recover from it. At this point, I am pretty confident that I am a walking zombie. I am totally sleep deprived and my body is about maxed out, but I am still happy as a clam. Yesterday evening, after a full day of classes, I went to my bi-weekly and semi private pilates lesson in the fabulous bomb shelter called “Studio Randy.” Due to the fact that we were the last clients of the day, she kept us on the machines for 2 hours. It was exhausting and I was trembling from head to toe, yet it was an exhilarating way to end the day. At the end of our lesson, she told us she wanted to open up a special class for us this weekend for yoga/personal training so that when we leave, we can have some tricks up our sleeves. This class – which she told us would take 2 hours – will take place on Saturday and will be back to back with my hour-long pilates reformer lesson. When I informed her of this and asked her if I could move the reformer lesson, she insisted that I stay in that time slot and that not only would it be really good for me, but she’d also take care of me. For whatever reason – perhaps because it was 9 in the evening and I hadn’t had dinner yet/ I wanted to leave – I agreed to leave everything the way it was. So I am going to have 3 hours of intense fitness training on Saturday before a full day of dancing on Sunday. Huzzah! I am going to be the Hulk - I know it. Just wait until I come back looking like a body builder!

It seems like bombings in the South of Israel have stopped this week. I am thankful for that, for we are taking a 3-day trip to the South starting Wednesday. It looks like we’ll have a one day workshop with a dance company down there followed by some camel riding, Dead Sea floating and desert hiking. It will be really nice to get away from the Kibbutz for a bit and do something else. Then we get back to the kibbutz in time to rest for a day before the second of the KCDC auditions (the rumors and anticipation are killing me…). Then it’s back to the grindstone. Did I mention that we have quite a few performances coming up in the near future? The first one is on May 2^nd and is part of a Holocaust memorial ceremony. Apparently we are going to perform a section from the piece Aide Memoir which will take place on a multi-leveled stage. Because the stage is so large and complex, we are going to begin rehearsing for it on the tennis courts outside…The next few are spattered throughout May and June. I think at this point we have about 10 before we leave if not more. Tre cool…

Okay, all! I am off to the studio to work on more choreography and then soak up more of the sun! Sending my love to all!

Marissa