Yam L'Yam 1

Hello Detroit and San Diego!!! What up? What up? JCurhan and Rach coming at you, live from A-RAD! anyways....

so. Thursday (4/29) - Katie, Naomi, Monica, Elana, Michal, Jessica and Rachel headed to the Be'er Sheva Train station after the air-force museum. We had said bye to the madrichim and friends...off to a new adventure. We got to the Train station and it was CLOSED!!! There were no trains running between Tel Aviv and Be'er Sheva. So we started calling people to check times of buses when some guy overheard us and told us about this magical but that would take us to the next train stop. We loaded our bags and tried to figure out how much it was going to cost. It was free :)

We thought that the bus would be like 10 minutes or so (that is what the guy said) it was over a hour. Rachel passed out on that bus. We got to the train station in Ramat Gat and it was packed and hectic b/c everyone had to go to it instead of Be'er Sheva. So we tried to hurry through security b/c the bus that we needed was already there and was going to leave in 7 minutes. Security took forever. Naomi wanted to buy tickets at the counter. But we overheard that you can buy them on the train so we walk through the gate--not the turnstile where you present your ticket but the handicapped entrance b/c there was a mass amount of people exiting through it. We ran and pushed our way up the stairs and hopped on to our train. We found seats (4x4 with tables) set our stuff down and relaxed. Rachel read. Elana tried showing us the route on the map, and how to read the map. We thought that this train would go all the way to Na'aria (this was only a local train) but it only went to Haifa and from there we could take another train to Na'aria. The nice man that told us about the bus also made sure that we got off in Haifa and waited with us so that we could not miss the train to Na'aria. While we were waiting for a half hour, some of us needed the bathroom really badly, so we went to look for it. it was outside the exit sign. we were screwed. we didn't want to exit b/c then we would need to pay to get back in. so we went back to the group and explained that we would just wait. but the nice guy was like that's not right so he came with us to look for the bathroom--and like we said we couldn't find it. We had gone down stairs, to the left, up the stairs, saw the exit sign, back down the stairs, to the right, followed signs into an elevator, went up and there were our friends. We were back where we started. So as the train to Na'aria approached, which Rachel had pointed out, and he was impressed that she could read the hebrew, we boarded and this train was packed. We put our bags down kind of on the stairs/entrance way of the train. Jessica and Rachel went pee. We also had to come up with a plan as to how to exit the trainstation. (you need to put a ticket in the turnstile to exit) but we didn't have tickets, b/c no one came around to sell them, which we were told would happen.

"Julia, Julia, Where are you? Crap, She got off in Haifa! Why did we leave our tickets with her?!?" So we had come up with a plan that we had bought tickets in Acco and for some reason our friend got off in Haifa with all of them (its a cheaper ride from Acco to Na'aria than Ramat Gat). We were all kind of nervous do to do all of this lying as we were getting off the train. When we got off we saw others just crouching beneath the turnstile, oh we could just do that! so we did.

We then had to wait for about a hour for Judith (section 2) to join us from Jerusalem. We got a snack--pita with zatar, Rachel's with humus and Jessica's with Labana. We relaxed, made new friends with the pita lady who has some family in Michigan. We kept going to the bathroom a lot--to pee, change into pajamas, brush teeth and what not. We had to come up with a plan to get to the beach. We were planning on tramping (hitchhiking) but we were told that it wasn't the best area to do that. So we decided to get a cab. Judith finally arrived, she too bought a pita and then we headed out to find a cab. After talking to many cab drivers we got a price of 6.30 a person. We told the driver Achziv Beach. He dropped us at the campsite for Achziv Beach (we didn't realize that till the morning). It was pitch black out and we didn't know where we were or where we needed to go other than the direction that the taxi driver pointed us in. We took out our flashlights and started walking. Jessica and others realized that hmmm maybe we should have brought a tent for protection. We walked along a dirt road next to some train tracks. scawy! Rachel kept thinking about the Blair Witch Project. It was just not good. We then came to like an apartment building, Monica and Elana went to knock on someone's door and ask directions to the beach, some others kept walking to see what was just ahead and we stayed with the bags. We learned that we just needed to keep walking a little farther. jessica checked her phone, she had trouble seeing the time b/c she was shaking so much. We came to another campsite. We kinda thought about staying there but we wanted to really sleep on the beach so that it could be from sea to sea. This car pulls up and we ask where the beach is. They tell us and offer to give us a ride. We are 8 girls, only 3 seats. So we load all of our bags into the trunk and 4 girls get in while Jessica, Rachel, Monica, and Michal start on the 3 min walk to the beach, along the way Jessica and Rachel needed to pee, so we did, first nature pee of the trip. The guys were really nice and walked all of our bags down the small cliff. The waves were really big but we were in a safe spot. There were fisherman on a rocky jagged part going out of the shore, so we go say hi, they yell at us for being too loud and scaring the fish. We needed to be extra careful, some of the wet parts were just puddles but water holes down to the black sea. We go back and get in the bed. Rachel sleeps with her knife, flashlight, and wallet. Around midnight some guys come over to see who we were, they had a dog and only some of us remember this encounter, as only some of us woke up. Jessica wasn't one of those, but Rachel certainly was.

Lila Tov…