We were up at 7am, and packed away our stuff while we had our final desert meal: breakfast of tea and nutella bread. Because today was Michal's birthday, we spent the entire morning wishing her a Happy B'day, and singing "Happy Birthday" and "Yom Huledet Sameach" to her.
Near the end of desert survivalWe took heaps of farewell photos after breakfast, because once everything was packed, it would be just a short stroll and we'd reach civilisation, our trip well and truly over.
The Desert SurvivorsOnce the camp was all packed away for good, the jeep drove off and we set out on the very short walk (about 1/2 an hour) along a flat track to the nearby village. When we reached it, we found our bus there, and all the kibbutz people waiting for us.
It felt so weird, to suddenly be back in civilisation: to see all these people freshly showered and wearing clean clothes; to see houses and buildings for the first time all week; and to see a bus that would take us places with no effort at all on our part. We gave all the kibbutz people hugs, and most of them freaked out and couldn't stand our smell. Bwahahaha.
We were very sad to leave the desert, but reluctantly we loaded our gear onto the bus, and turned our backs on the rugged peaks as we climbed solemnly aboard.
We drove for about an hour, through the desert to Ben Gurion University [Sder Boker campus], where we met up with the Gadna people. On the way, we went along "the scorpion road", one of the most dangerous winding cliff roads in Israel, and once the only way to reach Eilat.
There were many warm greetings when everyone was finally together again at Ben Gurion. We all had lunch on the lawn there - no more gourmet food from Ofer, back to our shitty pack lunches. It was good to see everyone again - also good to eat an ice cream and stock up on junk food - but I already missed the desert.
When we got back on the bus, we were Academy 2 again, for the first time in a week. It felt a bit surreal to be back in the old group after the Desert tour, but also quite comforting. We had a long bus ride of 2 hours - on the way, we watched "The Thomas Crown Affair" and stopped for Maccas - because we were going all the way to Zichron Yaakov, where we are now.
Me at Habat Habaron in ZichronOur hotel in Zichron is both massive and cool: it's built on the side of a mountain, and it has 19 levels that all go down the mountainside like steps. It's a luxury hotel, with nice rooms, a restaurant, pool, sauna and gym.
Man, it felt so good to have a shower when I got into the room! It was simply amazing how much I stank, and how wiry my hair was. Also felt good to shave, which I did after a reasonably good dinner was consumed. Additionally, we sent heaps of our clothes to the laundry, because we urgently need clean clothes.
After dinner, we all got together in an activity room, and made skits of what we did during our interest week. The Gadna people did a play where they all stood up in a line, got screamed at, and did pushups; they also re-enacted their revolt against cleaning the kitchen for 5 hours straight. The kibbutz people formed a square, and we played noughts and crosses on them: each person told a story, and we had to guess if it was real or bullshit: if it was bullshit, the other team got it as their spot.
The desert survival skit started with us acting like wild monkeys, and then just became us telling stories. Raffy told the story about setting his toilet paper on fire, and inhaling used toilet paper fumes for 15 minutes while he tried to get it to burn properly. The one about how they poured petrol - instead of water - all over the teriyaki chicken was also popular.
Our final activity was splitting into groups to plan the proceedings for the upcoming shabbat. I'm in charge of Kabbalat Shabbat; and there's also Oneg Shabbat, and Havdalah. We're not quite sure what we're gonna do yet, but probably just heaps of singing. On top of that, everyone was given one other person for whom they have to be an "angel" for a week, giving presents and happy poems to in secret. I got Ari: no idea what I'm gonna give him yet.
Burnett and Portnoy have just gotten their heads shaved by Nimrod; and Ben and Bec Stern's older sister just got engaged.