Paint a picture

Close your eyes, just picture the scene,
As I paint it for you.
You're sitting in the passenger seat ofan armoured vehicle , it is 2:30 am .
Blues and jazz playing on the radio .
To your left a faithful commrad , the smell of fresh coffee . To your right the view of the town you're guarding versus the people we want to keep out .
Between your legs your loaded trusty m16.
The only thing on your mind is how perfect this picture is .
That Kind of was my night last night .

6 months in ...

Well this has been a while hasn't it ?
For the past 6 months I couldn't be bothered writing a blog .
I just kept procrastinating , and I didn't have much time one my hands either .
The last blog I wrote I was still in Michve alon .
That seems like such a long way back now .
I have already finished basic training and my jump course and am in advanced training .
This week is a week of guard duties . Next week is supposed to be one of the hardest weeks of my training .
Will update little stories and chapters of training a little bit later . I'm just trying to get back into the groove of writing blogs .

Continued ...

For 3 days I had that blasting headache until I finally decided to go to see the doctor .
She took my temperature , it was at 39,5 degrees . They put me on a drip and let me sleep all day and until 11 Am the next morning :D . Needless to say the rest of my group were pretty jealous of my time off.
The rest of the week went pretty well .
Running around doing push ups and other physical activities .
We all got the weekend off , to sort and figure out how to get home easily .
During the weekend i spent most of my time with Toby and Mum .
we had to all return on sunday at 10 am . So i woke up at 5 am and met up with friends at the train station .
once on base we heard that there was a Gibush Tzanchanim ( physical and mental test for paratrooper ). that would be held on the next monday . I naturally wanted to participate .

That whole week was almost the same as the week before , except we were all running around with out long M-16's.
That weekend I was one of the only ones that got friday saturday and sunday off. Thanks to my dad being in town I got extra time off :D.  We had a lot of fun going out to dinners ( Massive steaks :D ) and shopping for insoles for my Red army boots .

more coming later .
Sam the tzanchan

Draft day .

On the day of my draft i had to be in Tel Hashomer .
Mum and Toby came along to drop me off :D. The night before I didn't get much sleep. I had gone with patty to pick up Mum and Toby from the airport . In total i had about 3 hours of sleep ( wasn't a good idea ) .
Once arriving at Tel Hashomer we bought some sandwiches because we hadn't eaten anything yet .
We took a couple of pictures and before i knew it i had to mount the bus . No problems there.
I had said my goodbye's and went on to the bus where the bossing around began ,"go here" sit there" give me this" ...
The bus ride was only 15 minutes long , we didn't even leave the base. Once off the bus we had to put our bags in storage for the day . After that we got put through a series of steps.
1. Inspirational speech by ex general.
2. Free haircuts to who needs it .
3. Get about 2 stickers to stick on your profile on every step to show you actually passed it.
4. Teeth X-ray .
5. Donate blood willingly .
6. Give blood for testing Unwillingly .
7. Fingerprints and palm prints.
8. Medical background .
9. The usual boring interview.
10. Get multiple shots.
11. Get military ID and Dogtags :D .
12. Get our kitbag with all our uniforms , shoes , shaving kit ...
13. Personal interview .
14. Give Bank information .

That took about 4-5 hours in total.
Lunch was next !! I was expecting a slice of bread and some cheese .
We actually got fed pretty well , rice , chicken , hamburgers , hot dogs...
After lunch we got back on the bus with all our stuff headed to Michve Alon .
4 hours later we arrive at our new base . 11 pm , expecting to get some sleep . I Couldn't have been more wrong. By this time I had a blasting headache . They had us running for about and hour while learning formations. after that we had to stand in line for an hour and a half just to be told we could go to sleep.
6 hours is what what is required from us to sleep. NOT a minute more or less.
26 people in 1 room with tiny bunk beds . At 4 am i wake up and I just know I'm about to throw up .
Forgetting I'm on a top bunk and that I'm in a sleeping bag , I try to get off my bed. Ofcourse i feel flat on my face . 20 seconds later i was puking everywhere. Good start right ?
One of my army buds helped me up  and helped clean up .
Woke up the next morning with a Blasting headache , but me being me i didn't go to the doctor . It'll pass i thought.


Next blog coming a bit later :D

Last day ...

Today was my last day as a 'normal' civilian .
I am at my cousin Patty waiting to leave for the airport to pick mum and Toby up .
I'm so happy that they're coming to see me off at Tel hashomer tomorrow.
I have no idea what to expect. I don't know if I'm going to Ulpan or going into my unit. I don't know if I'll get the evenings off at first or not.
Although i don't really ever get really nervous , I am getting very excited.
To meet new people , get shouted at , learn new skills and have fun .
I'm hoping that there will be a bit of fun :D.

Not knowing if I get evenings off or not , I have no idea how many of these blogs I'll be able to write.
But be patient :) , they will appear once i have time .
For now , I'm out .
Sam the one day pre-soldier .

Hayal house

2 days ago I was invited to the Beit Hayal in Tel Aviv ( soldiers home ).
They told me that I could use their facilities across the country to sleep in if i needed to .
Free of charge of course :D ( because I'm a lone soldier ).
I got there at 1 Pm , there were lots of lone soldiers already waiting.
Most of them were from the US , othere from Spain , Russia , Germany and of course Belgium.


The people that work there and set the whole organization up were all at one point a hayal boded (lone soldier).They said if I had any problems what so ever I can always contact them .


Last night I had dinner with Phyllis , I enjoyed it very much .
Got to meet a lot of new people . some more enjoyable than others...
I have 8 days left before my draft date.


I hope by next time I'll be able to write about something more exciting .
Bye for now

Tel aviv , beach

Surprise 2

For the past  9 days I've been in Belgium.

I went for a surprise visit , just to see and hang out with my family and friends.

I had told everybody that I had sent them gifts in the mail, and that they should go pick them up at my place. They all fell for it . I think they all enjoyed the gifts :D

The main plan of every day was going to the gym and meeting up with friends. I got  to say it was one of the most fun weeks of my life. The guys i saw the most were Pieter ( there is your reference you've been BEGGING for ), Francis , Ronn and Rey .

I'm not sure what to write about .

Lets just start with the parties.

I think i went out with the guys 4 times . Twice to Red&Blue and Noxx .

They were all great parties , all pics are viewable on my Facebook if anybody wants to check them out .

The rest of the time was mostly spent at the Gym . It was nice to work out with my friends again , we seem to push each other harder than just training alone .

I'm going to write a second blog about Belgium in a little while.

I cant really be bothered writing right now , but i had to otherwise I'd just keep procrastinating.

2 weeks left until my draft date .

Goodnight Readers.

SURPRISE

Today i decided to go to my recruitment agent to see what was going on . I hadn't heard from them in a while and wanted to know when my next meeting was.
So there I am asking when the next time is that i have to come in . He says he's not sure and he'll call the people that do. Two minutes later he comes to me and tell me that my DRAFT DAY( the day i actually start the army ) is the first of November.

I was so shocked by this news , I thought i still had 2 months to get ready for it.
They gave me a list of stuff i should bring along , so thats what I'm going to keep myself busy with in the meantime .

Mum and Toby were usually coming to visit me on the first of November. now all they'll be able to do is send me off into the army . Better with them than alone , I'm sure.


That was a quick update . i'll try to blog more frequently in the future.

The ALMOST soldier Sam

yom kippur

First of all i would like to say happy birthday to my mum.

Yesterday was Yom Kippur.
The holiest day of the Jewish calendar .
It was the first time i was in Israel for this occasion . I was very surprised to see no cars driving whatsoever.
Everybody was just walking in the streets , cycling or on rollerblades . I stayed in most of the day because I didn't want to get too thirsty . I did go for a bike ride for about an hour , just to take advantage of having no traffic to explore the city.

Today was a pretty slow day . I couldn't sleep last night so i woke up very late this morning.( not really morning anymore) . Started my day by going to the gym , then i went to the beach for a swim.
I got a bit hungry so went down the street for a Lafa . The guy that works there is from holland , so we speak dutch together . In Belgium its more probable that you will find a foreigner working in your local durum restaurant , here its the Dutch . It reminded me a bit of home .

I just felt like writing something today to keep the rhythm going .

Lishkat gius , First time

Lishkat gius is the main recruitment center for all the people that want to join the army.
Yesterday evening I received a call from Yuval telling me I had to be there at 8 Am the next morning.
Obviously I was excited . I thought to myself i should leave early so that I wouldn't get stuck in morning traffic witch is terrible in Tel-aviv. So at 5:45 my alarm clock goes off, took a shower and had a quick breakfast leaving my apartment at around 6:30 . I had heard and looked up the bus i needed to take (64).
Once on the bus at quarter to 7 I thought to myself 'this is going to take a while ' . Lucky me , there was no morning traffic what so ever ... i arrive at 7 o'clock , an hour early and nothing has opened yet. This was my first wait of the many .

At around 8 everything started to open up. I was let in and went to my appointment . There the woman who was assisting me told me what was going to happen today .
1. Test your hebrew skills by writing a couple of sentences and speaking .
2. Pee in a cup ( For a urine test).
3. Personal interview about my childhood and current life.
4. Medical exam.
5. Eye test.
6. IQ test .




1. My hebrew speaking is ok , i can have full conversations without many problems. When it comes to writing on the other hand i'm a bit (very) rusty .

2. This probably was the easiest test for me since i skipped going to the toilet in the morning .
Test came back negative for drugs and normal for all the rest .

3. This test took about an hour. I had to speak in Hebrew as much as i could. We started off with my childhood and school situation , so that was a long story. Then i had to speak about my best friends and normal friends, why i was here , why i wanted to join the army, what i wanted to do ...

4.The Medical exam was easy for me. All I had to do was take me shoes off and lay down so the doctor could examine me . Done in  5 minutes and i was off to my eye test.

5. The eye test was funny because I'm colour blind, so they had me arrange a whole load of colours according to how bleu they were (not so easy!!!). It took me about half an hour to get out of there.

6. The IQ test wasn't as hard as everybody said it was going to be . It only took 45 minutes instead of two hours. I thought I had made a mistake by finishing so quickly , but the person in charge told me it was normal.

After the last test i was allowed to go home, this was at 2pm. Somehow I've got this weird feeling that I'm going to have to return because they forgot to ask me something...


That's all for today , now i just wait till they call me back in again .

First two weeks in Tel Aviv

I've been in Israel for a bit over 2 weeks.
I love it here , the weather is great , i'm right next to the beach . What more would i want?
Although I don't like to admit it i do miss my family friends AND DOGS in 'La Belgique'.
So what have i done here for the past 2 weeks?
As i told you in my first blog i found a nice apartment with 3 great roommates . I'm completely settled in now. The day i moved in to my place i called the Gius , the recruitment agency for the IDF . i had an appointment that same day . they took a copy of my passport and told me to do 2 things.
1. get my document saying that i'm jewish signed at the jewish agency in Hashmonaim .
2. get a student visa for 2 years at the Government Complex.

The first one was very easy , they signed it without any hesitation .
from their office i started walking to the government complex that took me about 20 minutes.
once there i realised that i had forgotten my passport at the Jewis agency (stupid me). I started my walk back , picked it up and began my journey back to the complex.
When i went to the information desk asking for the Visa section they said it had just closed 5 minutes ago , (sigh) . They did give me the forms i had to fill in so i could come back the next day .

The next day i returned . I had to take a number and wait in the waiting room (number 505 , the monitor was at 300). That weird feeling came over me of just knowing this place is going to close down before its my turn , so i cut the line a bit when nobody responded to number 305. The form they had given me was the wrong one , but no worries they gave me a new one that i could fill in on the spot :D .THANK G*D.
Once done i was out of there to return to the gius with my documents. Surprise surprise , their scanner was broken , as always just be patient in Israel . After half an hour of waiting they finally got the idea of using a different one .

 PS : Once i have received my camera from Belgium i will upload pics of my place and City

Introduction to me :)

Hey everyone!

My name is sam. This is my first blog ever so give me some time to get used to writing .

i'm 20 years old , born in Belgium (Antwerp), into Basketball , going to the gym and Photography.

I've had the idea of coming to israel to join the army for a long time now , but at the end of my last school year was the time that i really started seriously thinking about it. I decided to go to the IDF (Israeli Defence Force). I told my parents of my decision , they were very proud of me and told me that was the right choice for me . My parents and i got started on planning on how to arrange everything i needed and started contacting the necessary people. The first person we contacted was Yuval from the Gius . he told me to arrange some documents ( Medical document from a doctor , original birth certificate and a certificate that declares I'm Jewish).Once we had those taken care of the only this they would inform us is ' the moment u land call them and make an appointment to sign up. 

so needless to say we were a bit confused . 

Finding a place to live was hard . trying to find something in Israel while I was still in Belgium was not as easy as I thought it would be . I had no previous experience looking or renting a place to live. Let alone in a different country . 

At the end of my school career i knew i wanted to go . 

My family and i went on Holiday to Vietnam for a week and a half. When we got back we only had 2 weeks to arrange everything so it was a little tense . we Didn't find a place to live so we came up with a plan to go to israel ( Dad and I ) and visit my dads Best friend  . From there we would search the internet for apartments for rent with roommates . After a couple of hours of people not picking up or saying the Ad is not relevant anymore we got a call back . A Friendly guy called Noah asked me a couple of questions and when i would like to see the apartment , i said 'right away ' .

So Half an hour later we were looking at a very nice Penthouse duplex with 3 roommates . This was the first place we actually went to see and i liked it . Noah told us to keep looking for places because he wasn't sure if he could rent the room . so we left there hoping he would call back. exactly 4 minutes after we left he called back and asked when i could move in and sign the contract . We went back to the apartment and signed . 2 days later i moved in .