To Jerusalem
Getting There
First morning in quarantine.
Alrighty, everybody! We’re going to talk about the first 2 weeks in Israel.
I left my hometown on July 2nd, had a 22 layover in the UK, and landed in Israel the afternoon of the 4th. The travel wasn’t awful. The first flight, the worst part was trying to get my bags checked. In the Heathrow airport, I had to talk to 4 different people to let me out so that I could sleep in a hotel instead of waiting for the flight. I did finally get out, thankfully, the last man had seen me try and confirmed that I had all the proper testing and such. I then got to check into a hotel and sleep and eat before packing up at 4am to make it to my 6:30am departure. 7 hours and a terrible airplane meal later, I was landing in Ben Gurion airport, where I got tackled in a crushing hug by one of my teammates and team leaders.
Something I had thought about when I landed in Heathrow was about how I wasn’t going to get to see anybody to talk to anybody for like, 2 weeks total. I’m from a family of 7, and I like hugs. I cried thinking about how I would just be lonely without that contact. So when these people found me in the airport and hugged me, I felt God’s grace smiling down on me, letting me know I was going to be just fine with these people here who loved me and looked forward to me coming for so long. I was going to make it through the lack of hugs just fine.
1) Leaving the car. 2) Waiting to board my plane. 3) Taking the train back to my terminal for my next flight. 4) Breakfast. 5) In Israel, driving into my neighborhood for the first time. 6) My bed.
Quarantine
After landing, I had to quarantine for 10 days. During this time I spent days in my room while my roommate was home. While we normally would have all come in at the same time for this program, due to the COVID regulations and the hoops we had to jump through to get our visas, our arrivals were all staggered. When I arrived, only one of my current roommates was here, and she had been here for 7 days, so there was only a 3 day time period where I had to stay in my room all day before she got to go out and go to work.
When I look back and think about it, I’m super thankful that I had those days to catch up on sleep, settle in, and process the fact that I had left everyone I loved and the state I adored for a year. About the time that day 7 rolled around, I was stir crazy. I just wanted to be out so badly, I wanted to feel like I was doing something with my time, I wanted to get my Zealous year started. Now, I think that it helped me not burn out. I had those days to sort of prepare for the packed schedule that I’d be running on the rest of the year.
About a week after I had gotten out of quarantine, the second roommate arrived. And I got sent into quarantine again (we will talk about that later). When we were both free of being locked inside, Alicia, Hosanna and myself got to have one of the loveliest Shabbat meals together! It had been a crazy couple of weeks of being walked around the city, meeting all of the volunteers, learning about my position within the organization as a Graphic Designer, and melting in the heat of Jerusalem summer before I ended up in isolation for another 7 days. So when that Friday rolled around, the day I got to rejoin my roommates, and we got to be in charge of our own meal and decorations, we went all out. When I think back to the process of settling in that first month, this evening was the highlight. Freedom, music, the Torah reading, the cool evening, and watching the stars come out on our balcony.
At this point, we were still waiting for the last roommate to come in. So to keep track, we have 4 roommates in, 1 in quarantine, and the 5th not yet here. And I’ll talk about the next adventure soon… :)
Thanks for reading!
- Mads
