Steph in Israel. Day 6. Here Today, Home Tomorrow.

Symbolic day! Today we spent the entire day doing symbolic things for the students’ last day in Israel. For some reason I woke up at like 6:45, so I packed. I had to go to the main building to pick up my second suitcase with all the kids’ transcripts. Around 8, Elana texted asking if I wanted to walk to town for breakfast and to pick up something for lunch. The kids were packing lunch in the dining hall (which I wasn’t going to do), so I joined her. I got an iced café and a tuna sandwich for later. When we got back to campus I went back to the main building to say goodbye to people. Finally I saw Orit, the co-CEO who had been sick. She was the first one to ask me if I actually knew what I was doing taking the kids home and if I had all of the information I needed. Obviously, I didn’t. She explained the process, as did David Mitchell, and then we said goodbye. From there I went to my room (but not before being locked out and having to have someone unjam my lock), finished packing, and brought everything to the bus. That wasn’t easy. We pulled away from campus at 9:20, which seemed very early. Alana said they usually leave on symbolic day around 10:15, so I don’t know why we left so early.

Our first stop was tree planting! How symbolic! We entered some park (where Elchanan, the teacher, happened to have gotten married) and then had to wait a good 20 minutes for someone to show up to guide us to where we needed to go. Also what was funny was this was the only part of the day where we had a guard.

We got off the bus, stood in a circle, and had a ‘tree ceremony.’ Everyone passed around a tree and said who they were planting this tree for. All of the answers were good, but I loved the kids who were like, “I’m planning this tree to symbolize the growth that I’ve had as a person while here.” I said I was planting the tree for Hallie, though that seemed a little depressing when he said not all of the trees would make it. He also made us do this song and dance about a tree. It was cute. We all planted our trees and then went back on the bus.

From there we drove to Har Herzl. At this time Elchanan told us to eat whatever lunch we brought because there was no formal lunch today. Lovely. We met Yishai at Har Herzl, and then spent two hours there. It was long. We started with the graves of famous people who died recently in the 2nd Lebanon war (Michael Levin, Roi Klein). I visited the grave of Erez Deri, the soldier who died after a successful operation in Jenin but then was in a car accident. He saved a lot of people by swerving one way. Anyway, one year on Write On, the students decided to raise money for his family to dedicate a Torah in his memory. It was great. The dedication, not his grave. I told Yishai the story. From there we moved on to people who died in earlier wars, and then to Prime Ministers and finally to Theodore Herzl himself. I got a picture of Blue Box Bob on the grave. That’s probably in poor taste.

After Har Herzl we started driving to the kotel, our next symbolic stop. Obviously the traffic was crazy, so after about a half hour of not moving, we decided to walk. This took us to places I’ve never been to. We actually walked through King David’s tomb. What’s special about the tomb is that the room over the tomb is supposedly where the Last Supper was held. It’s also famous for some reason in Islam, so really that place is a microcosm of Jerusalem. From there we walked to this other church (I think it was the Abbey of Dormition). We did this because there is one non-Jewish girl in the group from Texas.

Finally we made it into the Old City. At this point, Elchanan gave everyone 45 minutes of free time. We didn’t really NEED it, but I walked around with Yishai. We visited Udi at Blue and White in the Cardo (I think he remembered me), we got snack, and I bought Hallie a puzzle at the bookstore. Finally we all made our way down to the Kotel. Good views, nice sunset.

After the Kotel we walked back up through the Old City to Mamilla. He gave the kids 45 minutes in Mamilla, during which Elana and I continued walking to Ben Yehuda. On the way I stopped at Roladin and bought 4 sufganyot for Tzvi. We’ll see how those travel. For dinner, Elana and I decided on Moshiko. It was my first schawarma of the trip and it was DELICIOUS. I’ve thought moshiko was going downhill in recent years, but nope. Then we walked up to Machane Yehuda where I bought some marzipan rugelach. Then we parted ways as she wanted to get home, and I walked down to Ben Yehuda to find somewhere to charge my phone. I bought a seltzer at a bagel place and just charged my phone for an hour before meeting the group.

We gathered at 8 and headed to the airport! Now I was ON. Check in was fine. We all gathered after check in to say goodbye to the madrichim. I can’t even tell you the crying that ensued. It was hilarious. That goodbye took a while, and we made our way through security with no issues.

Once we were at the terminal I basically told the kids that they can do whatever they want, but don’t miss the flight. A few of the kids were flying to San Francisco, so there was even MORE crying at that separation. Thankfully, everyone made it on the flight. They did the pre-flight water check, as you aren’t allowed to bring any liquids on the plane even if you bought them post security. The woman saw the donuts and was impressed.

It was a great trip. Now I’m going to go home and sleep for days. Except not really, because on Sunday we leave for Disney World!