My decision's been made

I found it amusing rereading my last blog entry about how the ride to Tiberias was uncomfortable. The ride to Tel Aviv was most definitely worse. We were supposed to have two 9 person sheiruts, but 4 of the guys backed out so we had to fit 14 people in a 9 person sheirut. Yours truly was the last to board. I was miserable. Other then that I had a great time in Tel Aviv. We celebrated Biancas birthday by walking along the Tel Aviv beach and watching a drum session, having dinner at nice restaurant, and lastly getting desert and the renound Max Brenners Chocolate House. Around midnight, Eli, Avi, Benny and I took a cab to Holon to stay at Ithai's apartment. We ended up staying up until 4 in the morning talking. Benny, Ashley and I woke up grudginly at 6 in the morning, boarded the bus to Mount Hermon at 6:30 and slept for a good portion of the 3 and a half hour bus ride. It was cool because most of section three went on the trip, seeing as how they're in Bat Yam/Holon, so I got to see Adam Rothstein and Etsion again. I also got to see a cool guy I met through Mike named Josh. He's from Portland and is going to the U of O next year, but he wanted to get out to Miami for the Year Course orientation so he met Mike there instead of going to the L.A one with me. Mike introduced us, and since then I've played ball with him, met up a few times here and there. He's a real cool guy and I'm so stoked he's coming to the U of O. We talked for probably 87% of the trip about Oregon sports haha.
In the Hermon, we took a chairlift to the top of the mountain. I have some pretty funny pictures of the way up and the way down. The mountain was fairly void of snow; people said that this year was a terrible year for skiers. Nonetheless, the top of the mountain was very snowy and cold. We played some games in the snow, hung out and were cold together. Pretty upsetting point: Arab kids started throwing rocks and snowballs at us. Some people got extremely mad at them, but Ithai stopped anyone from doing anything. They couldn't have been older than 12 and 11, and getting mad would have only encouraged them. After getting back to the bottom, we went to this rollercoaster type ride. You could either go one or two people per time. Basically we got on a little pod, and had a lever letting you adjust your speed. It.....was..... awesome! I loved it, but we ran out of time so I could only go once. After that we took a 20 minute busride to Nimrod Castle. is an ancient fortress situated in the northern Golan Heights, on a ridge rising about 2600 feet above sea level. I took pictures and I'll upload them later. We just walked around the Castle; nothing special, but a very cool site that was worth visiting. After we settled in a field for lunch. Our lunch was a type of food which I can't remember how to pronounce. It was absolutely delicious. This is how you make it: Boil water, throw in rice, beans, carrots, lettuce, sauce, soda, whatever. It's basically shmorgusborg stew, and it's so freaking tasty. We than took a bus back to Holon, and immediately caught another bus back to Jerus (alem. I'm so glad I did the trip. It's been so cool having these amazing, productive, adventurous weekends. I plan to have many more in the future.
Today I didn't do much. I played a lot of basketball, then went to watch a Jerusalem basketball game, and I just got done skyping with Austin for about an hour.
Now, on the topic of my post title. Yesterday, the only event of significance was in the evening we had a seminar educating us about our Israel Experience options (last three months). Fortunately, I had already made my decision about a week ago. I had juggled my sport volunteering options with the Army, and ultimately I chose the army. It's widely regarded as the most rewarding option, and I have plenty of friends doing it (Marva). The one issue with Marva people have is that you're seperated from your friends. Problem is, nearly everyone is seperated from their friends. Marva is the largest option of all, and although we only get every other weekend off base, I'll be able to use those weekends to the fullest. Benny just decided today that he's doing Marva, and I couldn't be happier. I have a schedule of what we do week by week, which I'll write in my next post. But it's a litle past midnight, and I'm going to bed

In other notable news, Avi Behar shaved his head. Look back to my October 9th post, consider that hasn't cut it since, and you'll realize this was a big deal

Peace and Luv