We got up, got ready, all the usual this morning. Marissa was really pissed off that there was no jam at breakfast - really pissed, that's all she'd talk about! - and so she earned herself the nickname "Jam girl". We were also very lucky to get to wake up at 8:30am, and to leave at the luxurious time of 9:30am.
The weather was really shitty this morning. Our morning activity was a visit to a soup kitchen and warehouse for the poor, in downtown Jerusalem, where we were to lend a hand and do some volunteer work. The visit started (as they all do) with a crappy promotional video about the soup kitchen: and then, we were put to work.
It was good to finally be doing something for other people, rather than having everything be for us, as it's been most of the past six weeks. Unfortunately, I didn't volunteer for the soup kitchen - where it was warm, and everyone was kept occupied - so I went with everyone else to the cold warehouse, where we sorted old shoes and painted a wall.
There was a really cool 3D picture of a unicorn in the warehouse. I haven't looked at those things for a while - so I was a bit out of practice - but after about a minute, I saw the unicorn clear as can be. Dane also tried it, and got it too.
Sorting the shoes into pairs was shit work; but painting the wall was lots of fun. A few Israeli guys got us some paint, a bucket of water, and we were set. It was an utterly pointless venture - all we did was paint a wall white (not that hard, especially since it was white already) - but we did some cool things in the process.
All of us got a bit messy, spilling paint on ourselves and on the floor: but Nim (Naomi) was by far the worst. She was wearing an old, torn coat that she didn't want anymore, so she let everyone paint her coat! It was so much fun: when we were done, I asked her if she wanted "another coat" of paint.
After the volunteer work, we went to a really nice restaurant (with Academy 1); and there we ate the best BBQ chicken fillets I've eaten in months, as well as hommus and pita, pickles, and sweet cinnamon tea.
Following lunch, our afternoon activity was a tour (by... who else but Nim-rod) of the cemetery for the "leaders of the nation": Mt Herzl. We visited the grand tomb of Herzl himself, as well as the graves of Rabin, Golda Meir, and Levi Eshkol. We went through the military cemetery as well, where we saw - among other things - the memorial to the Deker submarine, and the grave of Yonatan Netanyahu. The tour was good: the weather made it unpleasant, but it wasn't too long, and I found it quite impressive.
When we got back to the hotel, it was only about 3:30pm; we had the rest of the day to relax, shower, and pack our luggage in preparation for tomorrow's departure. I had a shower; watched some TV; tried to sleep; and then packed everything into my wrecked suitcase.
We had dinner, and then some more time to relax - during which many people got drunk, despite Nimrod's insistence that we not drink "until the night activity begins" - and then the big event, our farewell party, got underway.
At the farewell party.We all went down to the activity room, to find a DJ, a laptop, and a digital projector patiently awaiting us. Once we were all seated - and after a few minor technical problems, naturally! - the madrichim started the slide show they'd prepared for us.
We're not drunk.The slide show was great. It started with each person, and a little caption. There were some really funny ones: "**** off" for Tanya; "Wanna shower?" for Ari; and "No croutons, thanks darling" for Semii. Then there were pictures with speech bubbles added: Nimrod talking about "the Syrian African rift" (his obsession); Ariella saying "where the hell am I" whilst on a camel; and Tanya smiling for a photo, with a thought bubble "I need a ****ing ciggie".
But the slide show (hilarious as it was) was but the beginning: next came Raffy and Jeza, and the 3-line poems they had written about each person. They read out everyone's poem, and each person had to have a shot of vodka before theirs was read. Most of them were entirely lewd and sexual in their nature.
Dancing away (farewell party)We also played a pass-the-parcel game, where you had to pass it to someone with a certain attribute. Crembo got both the "quietest" (clearly as a joke!), and the "loudest" (not a joke). Chad got "the Chad" parcel; and Ely got "the cootest".
The rest of the party was just a mix of disco and karaoke. We danced for a few hours, and sang along to some great songs.
The party had died down by about midnight, after which we went back to our rooms.