friends at last?

when people ask me how i like living in jerusalem, i say that i love israel, but living in jerusalem is tough. why? i have no friends. i'm not religious. my hebrew sucks. it's kinda dirty. it's a cool experience, but i wish i lived somewhere else. however, now that i've been here exactly one year and four days, i can say i have a few friends. in general, the ones i do have are not ones i feel crazy-close with and talk to/text/call every day. i'm friends with my roommate and his gf but you can only be the third wheel every so often, ya know? plus it's good to have separate friends (which is easy, since jon is like, social king of the century, and i'm like, little miss outcast). i do have a couple friends i meet for lunches or dinners or drinks, which is always really fun! but mostly these friends of mine are religious, so it's difficult on the weekends while they're shabbating it up and i'm like, writing, showering, cooking, playing, typing, working, baking, etc.... when they are avoiding all those action verbs and are instead resting...praying..... eating a meaty shabbat meal somewhere if u will... (i realllllllllyyyyyy tried doing the shabbat-meal-going for a while. but when you rarely eat meat, you don't eat lettuce or most salad-type things, there's only so much challah you can eat). anyway, the point of this post is that very exciting people are around.

friday at the shuk i ran into a bunch of people i know - some from home, some from here. it's just comforting to see familiar faces in all the friday shuk madness that can sometimes cause my thoughts to be borderline-suicidal. ok i'm exaggerating :) but i LOVED seeing them!!! yesterday i went to see illana, who is here on birthright. it had been five or six years since we'd last seen each other. i met her at her hotel and got to meet the other participants and her trip leaders, and it was really comforting and almost bittersweet to know that 365 days before, i was at the exact same location (one hotel over) with the rest of the amazing 17 crew. i got over it (at least i pretended), and illana and i caught up and decided we will pick a city and become roommates. then i met some others who knew some of my faves in dallas quite well, which was exciting :) the trip leader invited me to go to dinner with them, and it's not like i had anything else to do....... hahah so.... the bus was taking the trip to emek refaim for a set amount of time and the participants could choose any restaurant they wanted. i obviously went straight for caffit cause it's my fave, and i never get to go cause i have noone to go with!!! so illana and i walk in to caffit, and about 16 others followed. it was SO much fun!!!!! i was really depressed when i had to leave them and go back to my own little world haha. wow. i took a taxi home and the guy kept saying he remembered me, but i def didn't remember him (and i have a pretty shockingly accurate memory). he asked "how long you are here?" and i said, "shalosh chodashim".... i was pretty sure he wanted to know how long i'd been here so far, but whenever i answer honestly they yell at me for not speaking Hebrew. once i answered in Hebrew, though, the dude spoke ONLY hebrew the rest of the way until i got out of the cab. but i managed to have a conversation - responding in hebrew- meaning i actually understood what he was saying. major progress :)

then tonight i got a call from my long lost friend (and iltc'er) ari, who i ran into at kol nidre services but hadn't seen since. he was in jerusalem, and i just got home from meeting up with him and a bunch of his friends. they were at nadin's (which i loathe)... buttttt i'd go anywhere for ari. he's a sweetheart. i'll never forget, he was the first iltc participant i met in 2002 the night matt and i arrived to perlman. OH the memories!

what's even more exciting is that in the next few days, i'll get to see 2 more awesome people from the past, and after that, 3 more! it's just so weird how much fun i can be having now that it's almost time to go. but i hear sometimes that's how it works. it's just crazy to me how greatly others can impact our time here - for the good and the not-so-good. regardless, i'm feelin very, very blessed.

some random things:

i'm STILL super-addicted to texttwist and need rehab.
i want a puppy.
i still want a best friend here.
i need to figure out what i'm doing next.
i haven't had la cuisine in almost 2 weeks. record.
bacardi breezers (lemon) are some of my other new friends.
cute boy = cuter than ever.
lately my dreams have been INSANELY random yet realistic.
i want to make pumpkin cheesecake this week.
the awkward boy at the cheese shop sold me ricotta, mozzarella, cream cheese AND brie for 50 shekels.
tomorrow morning i'm going to a lecture. haven't done that in a while.
don't be surprised if i turn into an avocado.
i'm still kind of in my own world more often than i'd like to be.
i miss you.