First few days at the mechina

A quick update:

I've been at the mechina for 2 days, but it seems like forever already. When I first got here, it was SO hot and everyone was just standing outside waiting to sign in. The Israelis mostly knew each other, because they had been on a few trips together before the year started, so I introduced myself to a few people and ended up meeting all the Americans. The 9 of us had a little pow-wow in English, the last English we would speak for a while. There are 56 of us total at the mechina, and we were quickly oriented on how life here would work; we learned about the schedule of the day, the leaders each day, the "toranim" for each day (help clean up the kitchen, bathrooms, etc.). We were given the choice of how to choose rooms, and we eventually decided that each of us would request 3 people, and then we would enter it into the computer and the computer would decide. It was kind of funny, because I actually knew no one, so I just wrote down the names of some random people I had talked to earlier who seemed nice. It turned out that two of the people I requested are in my room now, which is great, and the other two are also awesome. Everyone here is very nice and understanding. They all want to translate for us and help us to become regulated with Israel and with the mechina.

Everyone gets to pick a committee that they help run. I am in the "tilyulim" (trips) committee, and we have already started planning our trip that starts on Thursday night and goes until Friday. It's nice to work with a group of Israelis (there are also a few Americans in my group), but it's a little hard to voice my opinions in the group because they talk Hebrew so fast! I'm sure that I will get used to it, and hopefully by the middle of the year, I will be just like the rest of them. Maybe even earlier than that.

Tomorrow we are going on an all day trip to Yafo (near Tel Aviv) from 7am to 7pm. I'm excited to leave the metzudah and learn somewhere new. It should be fun. There is so much more I could write, but we are getting up verrrrry early tomorrow morning and I'm going to let someone else use the computer. Lilah!