There's No Place Like Home

Since there's only about a week left in my time abroad I've been thinking a lot about missing things. What I miss about America, what I will miss about Israel, what I won't miss about Israel, all that fun stuff. So I decided to just write them all down, and then maybe I'll be able to focus on my final papers and get all the work that I have done before I get out of here.

What I Miss About America:

• The people: Seeing my family, all of my closest friends, minus the amazing people I've met here
• "American Food" or American interpretations of other culture's food (AKA Chipotle/Pete's,  Noodles, Bagels, etc.)
• A Saturday-Sunday weekend, despite being here for 5 months, I STILL can't get used to my weekend officially being Friday-Saturday and having class on Sunday
• Weather: If I'm gonna feel cold, there might as well be snow on the ground and an excuse to curl up in a bunch of blankets with some hot tea and a book
• Efficient public transportation: RTD Light Rail > Egged/Metropoline/Metrodan

What I Will Miss About Israel:

• The people: I have met some amazing Israelis and Americans (and some pretty cool Germans) in my time here and I don't want to think about leaving them
• Shabbat Dinners: This is something I'm planning to bring back to the states, there's just something wonderful about Friday dinners with your close friends, destressing from the week a little, just hanging out and having fun
• Food: America does Middle Eastern food pretty well but you can't argue that getting really amazing falafel for about 3 bucks isn't something to be missed
• How close everything is: I can travel to anywhere in the entire country on a weekend by just taking a bus or train. Can't really do that in the US. Also, EVERYTHING in Beer Sheva is within walking distance

What I Won't Miss About Israel:

• The Smell: I'd really like to go out somewhere with my friends and not come home smelling like an ashtray, a smell that sometimes doesn't come out of your hair after 1 shower. Also, sometimes Beer Sheva just smells, they could use some infrastructure improvements
• Shabbat: A day of rest is great, an entire country practically shutting down is not so fun
• The people: I won't miss really agressive guys who don't get the hint when you act uninterested or Israeli girls who are (often) pretty cold towards American girls
• Security checkpoints: Now I'm all for security, but it'll be nice not having to go through a gate to get to class every day and only having a few entry/exit points to the university