Shopping, Skating, and Superfriends

One week filled with many reasons to be thankful. It's only been three weeks here and I already feel at home. It feels like three years but at the same time it feels like two days. (If that makes sense) I really love it here and when my mom would tell people she was afraid I may never come back, she was very right. I never want to leave or anyone on this trip to leave. We can just live here forever as a huge happy family. 

The adventure of the past week really began with shopping on Ben Yehuda street. So filled with life and musicians and stores for everything. If you go to Israel and you don't go to Ben Yehuda street in Jerusalem, you're truly missing out on some amazing Israeli culture. So much bargaining and food and ice cream and jewelry and kippot and PEOPLE! So many people in on place at one time. 

I only bought one thing there, a mud mask with Dead Sea minerals that I have yet to use. But it's very exciting for me. 

The next shopping adventure was a t the shuk in Jerusalem. That may have been the busiest marketplace I have ever been to. In the words of Elah, there were like "500 billion" people there. Obviously that's not true but I thought the way she said it was really funny. 

No matter where we go, we always have to be in groups of three or more. We had five people. It's fun with a lot of people but it's very difficult to keep track of everyone. Surprisingly though, we never lost anyone in the hour and a half we were there. I'm very proud of that. 

The first day we got here, my necklace broke and I lost one of my rings so I have made it my goal to find a necklace and a ring wherever we go. Sadly I haven't found a ring yet but I'm still looking for one that really means something and will look perfect with the rest of my rings. But I did find two very, very pretty necklace charms and a chain. The total was about 67 American dollars for the two charms and the chain, all of which are sterling silver. I'm currently wearing one of them and I absolutely love it. It took me forever to decide which one I wanted and wheb I heard the price of both of them, I decided to get both because why not?

I also bought a pair of elephant pants, falafel lafa(I cannot describe the amazingness that was that falafel. It's an entirely different blog post) and a birthday  present for my brother who turned fifteen on February 16. It's nothing super special but I hope he likes it. I have yet to buy my parents a gift but then again, you always save the best for last. 

Now onto the skating part of this blog. If you're wondering if I'm skating in Israel, I'm bit, sadly. I truly miss it a lot and I miss my babies (my skates) and my coach Yasmin and all my skating friends but that's not what this is about. This section is about the amazing Jason Brown and his Olympic journey. The team event, his short, and his long were all incredible and I really cannot believe that I know him personally. I was unable to watch him skate live, which was very upsetting so I had to keep checking the USFSA's tweets on twitter to see how he was doing. But when it came to his long program, I had no access to twitter and just cell service. My friend Amit went out for the weekend and gave me a second by second update on how he was doing. When they announced his score and when Amit texted me what place he was in, I started crying. Jason, in his first Olympics at only 19 got 9th place out if 30 skaters from all over the world. He even did better than the US's other male skater who was at his second Olympics. I'm incredibly proud of how he did and how determined he is. 

Friends? More like superheroes. At EIE, you have the ability to organize theme days. So I took a chance and organized a super hero day in memory if Superman Sammy Sommer. The amount of support receive from everyone was unbelievable. Even if they didn't dress up, people still came to be a part of the picture. I truly cannot say how thankful I am for this group of about 70 teenagers, so wonderful and who want to give all the love and support in the world to their friend. It hasn't even been a month and everyone has already accepted each other as family. 

I really couldn't ask for a better group of people to be with in Israel.