The Marcher Returns!

So, the marcher has returned. Hi yall!

I can’t believe I was only gone for two weeks. I honestly feel like I was away for months and months. And for some reason I feel like a complete alien now that I’m home -- I missed Glee, which makes me feel like a complete failure of a human being because everyone keeps talking about it, and today I walked into a Pinkberry and they were selling passionfruit and mango flavors AND offering a cone version. WTF?

Anyways, I’m here to fill you in. The trip was good - exhausting and emotionally draining, but worth it as always. As usual, I fell in love with a fantastic group of kids who truly make me proud to know them. Even if some of them travel across the world with their pet rocks. True story.

So let’s start with the recap. We first flew to Poland. In case you have never had the privilege of discussing Poland with me, let me break it down for you: I HATE Poland. I find it a repulsive and miserable country. The food is terrible, no one smiles, and I feel like the entire place is a graveyard. So I was not too excited to return to Poland for the third year in a row. Especially because this year, it was FREEZING! Check out my snazzy ensemble.

Then, approximately two seconds after we arrived, the Polish president died in the plane crash. So sad and so tragic, and FORGET about any Polish people cracking a smile after that. The day after the tragedy, we took the kids to the equivalent of the Polish White House to see the memorials people had left. There were thousands of people in the streets mourning his death, leaving flowers and candles - so sad.

The March itself (from Auschwitz to Birkenau) was pretty great. I managed to insert myself onto national television (wish I had a link but I don’t. If you’re dying to see me awkwardly stand in the background of an interview, my mom has six hours of footage saved on her Tivo. You’re welcome.)

Also, I FINALLY scored the Brazilian flag scarf that I’ve been trying to trade for for THREE YEARS (every delegation brings things to trade with other countries -- those Brazilian scarves are IMPOSSIBLE to land. I literally almost cried tears of happiness).

The worst part of Poland might actually be the food. I am not kidding when I say that I took to stealing food this year. At one hotel, they served us imitation nutella, and I legit stole an entire jar of it - just stuck it in my pocket and ran. At another hostel, dinner was baked potatoes wrapped in tinfoil -- I took three and and stuffed them into my backpack for the next day.

This is an actual food item served to us one night. I have NO IDEA what it is but I took one bite and almost threw up so instead I had these:

For those of you who don’t speak Polish, that is a bag of chicken and blueberry flavored potato chips. Poland is fucking weird.

We left Poland on a Wednesday night -- eight hours later they closed the airport and canceled all flights due to the Icelandic volcano. May I be candid for a moment? If that volcano had stranded me in fucking Warsaw with 162 kids you would never have read this blog again because I would have jumped into ongoing traffic. But it didn’t, and we made it to Israel, THANK GOD.

Israel was amazing, as usual. I cannot explain what an amazing feeling it is to feel so comfortable in a foreign country, thousands of miles across the world. My love for Israel is unlike how I feel about anything else - when I’m there, I feel so content and at home.

Among other things, we shopped on Shenkin and Ben Yehuda, visited the Kotel, attended a Yom Hazikaron service, toured Yad Vashem and Har Herzl, and partied in Rabin Square on Yom Ha’atzmaut (look how cute we are!)

Before I forget, I want to give a special shoutout to two children who greatly entertained me for the past two weeks with a FULL ON rap and musical number referencing me entitled “Do You Know the Muffin Man?”

This is a link to them performing it, and yes, they are referring to me as Big Bunny. I have no idea why. Kids are weird.

So there you have it. Now I’m home for three weeks until I jaunt off again - BACK to Israel to lead my first Birthright trip! Yes, I’m crazy. Yes, I’m jetlagged. No, I don’t have dual citizenship. YET.