On My Own

Don’t get blown up. Don’t get shot. Why are you going into a war zone? This is what people that I have known for most of my life said to me upon hearing about my plans. My friends had heard many different news reports about suicide bombs and invasions going on in the north. “There is nothing to worry about, I will be safe and it will be extremely fun,” was my response to whoever asked.

Getting my affairs in order was difficult to say the least. I needed to figure out what classes I was going to take and how to deal with graduation requirements, such as health, that I was going to be missing. I went through a process of dropping and picking up different courses that would be the best fit for going abroad. I was living in my adviser's office. The last day of the first semester came and I said my goodbyes and walked out the doors of New Trier for the last time in a while.

Leaving my family was a difficult thing to do. I had never been away from home for that long and I had really only been to Wisconsin. Crossing the Atlantic was a whole different story. I started to pack up my clothes and other supplies into the two allotted suitcases. I could not believe that we were only allowed two suitcases for the amount of time we were going away for. I tried all of the tricks in the book to get my suitcases to close. I sat on it, jumped on it, and even tried to duct tape it shut. Finally with some luck, and the added weight of my brother, it closed and I was one step closer to my journey.

As if saying goodbye to my friends was difficult, saying goodbye to my family felt like I was getting ripped apart. I knew that it was my choice to go and I was ready to accept it and get on my plane to New York where I was meeting my group. I arrived in the morning and it was so cold that my tongue froze whenever I opened my mouth. I walked through the international terminal at JFK and met Stacy Chassen who is the director of our program. She handed me a boarding pass and a name tag and I stood in line to go through security. It took forever to get through the line, but I finally made it through and boarded my plane.

Our group mostly had seats together but one of my friends had to sit in between a crying baby and a man that had to use a sickness bag quite a few times. I met all 87 other kids from my group on that flight and I decided that I was going to remember everyone’s name by the time our twelve hour flight ended. That goal was not reached by a long shot. In reality I did not know everyone’s name until the third month.

The long flight ended and I could see the sign as we taxied to the terminal, Shalom L’Yisrael, Welcome to Israel. We had arrived in Israel and I was so excited that I felt as though I was going to jump out of my skin. The first thing that I wanted to do was eat a falafel because I had not had a real one since eighth grade. I exchanged money into Shekels and went to the first food stand, ordered a falafel, and enjoyed my first experience in Israel. After our snack we were herded on the bus and were off to Kibbutz Tzuba, our home for the next five months.

(I am not sure if this is a good place to end and add stuff in the middle, or continue with what happened next.)