Yom Studentim and Misebat Teva in Hadera

With Jen's return to Tel Aviv, the fun began. After a lovely day at the beach on Thursday, we took the train to Hadera, a small town 40 minutes north of Tel Aviv. Thursday night was "Yom HaStudent", or student day, at my friend Boaz's college. Every college and university in Israel has a "yom student" around this time of year, and it's basically like a carnival/concert/all-day-and-night party for the students and whoever else they decide to invite along. There are clowns on stilts, rock-climbing walls, trampolines, games for prizes, tents for chilling out, bars, food and coffee shops, and of course a huge stage for the sequence of bands and thousands of dancing students. For some reason I decided I had to try the electric trampoline - not something I would usually do but it's not every day I'm at a yom student. They harness you into belts and cables and pump up the trampoline full of air until you're able to bounce really high and do flips and things. It was so exhilirating, such an adrenaline rush! I was able to do a backwards flip relatively easily but somehow flipping forward was much more terrifying. Also you are supposed to bounce up and down in the center of the trampoline but I kept bouncing from front to back until the trampoline man had to stand there and keep catching my legs and slowing me down to bounce in a straight line again. haha. good thing I did the trampoline early in the night because it didn't seem to go so well for a lot of people after hours of drinking. I also decided to try this ladder contest, which is a challenge to simply walk up 5 rungs of a ladder without it flipping over (it's on a rope) so it's basically just a test of balance. you pay 20 shekels to try and if you can do it, you win 300 shekels. I thought hey, I've been doing yoga for a year and a half this will be a piece of cake! I lost many shekels trying over and over to do it, I couldn't even get to the second rung without flipping. Again not a smart game after a bout of drinking. The best part of the concert was Ivri Leader, one of my all-time favorite favorite Israeli singers. I'm in love. Hadag Nachash also performed which was a delightful surprise.
Once the party started winding down, around midnight, the party buses arrived to transport the crowd to the "misebat teva" or "Nature Party." THAT was the best surprise of all. so we crowd into these buses and they take us to a valley somewhere between Hadera and Netanya, drop us off, and we make our way through the dark to this secured clearing. At first all you see are some flashing lights and you hear a distant techno beat. as you get closer you see tents set up with a DJ, strobe lights and an enormous dance floor. then there's a "chill-out" tent covered in straw mats and low tables with things to drink and smoke. there are food stands selling sweets and fruit and hot drinks. i couldn't believe where I was. unfortunately by this point in the evening I was EXHAUSTED and so I headed straight for the "chill tent" and found a comfortable spot to lie down and watch the dance floor fill up. the sky above us was kindof murky with clouds half-covering the moon. it felt like we were in the middle of the desert even though we weren't so far from the ocean. somehow despite the loud music I fell asleep, and woke up a little while later slightly embarrassed that i had had one of the famous libbie 'narcoleptic attacks' (haha jk) at such a cool party. that was until i looked up and noticed that half the people lying around me were sleeping. Boaz explained that this was like "nap time", from midnight to 3am, because the dance party doesn't really get started until 3 am, when the really good DJ comes on. then everyone dances as the sun comes up. incredible.
the only bad thing about the nature party is that being in the valley in the middle of the night is actually pretty cold. when we asked about leaving (silly question) it turned out there was actually no way to get out of there - the party buses only go one way apparently. i laughed thinking how i moved from the comforts of america to come to Israel and sleep outside in a valley in the middle of nowhere. ha. thankfully a friend came to rescue us and to sleep in a bed we finally succumbed.