The first day, Momo came to talk to us. Apparently he lost like 60 pounds, though I get my memory from 5 years ago is very hazy so I don't actually remember what he looks like. He really is a man who was born to do what he's doing, bringing kids to Israel and making them want to stay. The way he talks about Israel being the homeland for the Jewish people and being "one big happy family"...you just want to accept everything he says as true and he's so warm and welcoming you just want to do whatever he says so that he'll be happy with you. He has that power. I see how he was able to brainwash me 5 years ago, and I'm kinda sad that I had too many other experiences to go with it. Maybe I'd be speaking Hebrew by now!
I can already tell who I dislike on my program. I gave them a full two hours of a "benefit of the doubt, trying not to judge" window, but there are at least 4 that have already blown it. Partially its the fact that a solid half of them are under 21, and just dumb by factor of being naive and inexperienced. But being young doesn't make you annoyingly stupid...which a lot of these kids are. There are a few cool people for sure, and a couple in the house, so we'll see how this develops.
We learned that we'll be split into two Ulpan groups - beginner and advanced. No question about it, I'm in beginner, since I can't read and don't even know the alphabet. Unfortunately most of the people I'd prefer to be around are going to be in the advanced class, so I'm gonna be stuck with the geniuses in the beginner class.
We had a scavenger hunt around Ashdod as well, during which what I basically learned was that my Russian and French will get me much further in my month in this city than any Hebrew I'll acquire. Our day ended with a few hours at the market, followed by sitting on the beach waiting for the last group to arrive. There's nothing that irritates me more than sitting around and waiting, but at least we had a nice view:
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