After a mere 3 hours of sleep, I somehow managed to roll out of bed with enough time to head out for a morning run. I did not explore all 50,000 acres of Kfar Maccabiah (I decided to investigate the sports club on the premises at a later time), but chose to venture off the grounds.Well wouldn’t you know? I was SHOCKED to discover, much to my delight, that down the block there was a park unlike any other parks. I found Park Leumi, which from the outside looked like a giant golf course (yes – there was a whole lotta REAL grass growing in Israel!). Park Leumi contains such features as a giant lake, waterfalls, fountains, a hedge garden (with some giant hedges trimmed so that I could run through them), an outdoor gym, a cactus park, a path through the woods, playground, and some of the most strange and incredible looking fowl I’ve ever seen.
My run left me with little time to eat, but when I arrived at the breakfast I was greeted with THE largest buffet I’d ever seen. The hot foods included waffles, pancakes, French toast, warm 
cheesecake, blintzes, customized omelets, scrambled eggs, boiled eggs, with options for maple or chocolate syrup to spread over them. A wide variety of pre-made salads were there for the taking, as well as a make-your-own salad section. For the lactose tolerant there were blocks and other various consistencies of cheeses, butters, and yogurts. In case we still weren’t satisfied, there were fresh & dried fruits, pastries, cereals, and all types of hot & cold drinks still available. Mmmmm…excuse me while I take a moment to salivate.My arteries thanked me, as I took a full plate but only had time for two bites of my French toast and salad before I was ushered off for our first “Frame the Day” session. There, we were informed that the day’s plan involved more icebreakers. Now, I previously mentioned that I am an icebreaker fanatic, but I’ll be the first to admit that 3 hours of various outdoor icebreakers left the group feeling quite pooped and at times a bit confused. Some of the better breakers included ones involving beach balls, hand-slapping games, and having a large group of people make an incredibly complex giant knot out of a very long piece long rope, without touching a designated part of the rope and without taking any of our hands off the rope at any point (this my group learned the hard way). Some less-inspiring icebreakers involved playing a game of tag and using a partner or more to help each other stand up from a sitting position on the ground while holding hands with each other for support. The latter activity wasn’t bad with just one other person, but when you have 120 people attempting to stand up at the same time while supporting each other, and then are asked to do it a second time, trust me – it ain’t as easy as it looks!
After a short break and another extravagant lunch buffet, we had our first formal meeting within our specified tracks. I’m (surprise surprise) part of the Arts & Culture track. We’d broken into tracks during the larger icebreaking session, and I must say I’d learned two of the greatest icebreakers to quickly remember a lot of new names and faces:
1) The first one, used during the outdoor session, involved tossing around a ball from one person to another. The person receiving the ball had to thank the previous person by name and then call out the name of a new person to wish him/her a good morning before passing the ball towards him/her.
2) Naomi Less, our fearless track leader, taught us a method used in drama. All 17 of us (16 Arts & Culture members + Naomi) went around in a circle and made up a movement that best represented our field of arts, while shouting our names. Naomi the rocker made a guitar strumming rocker motion and shouted, “Naomi!” The whole group then had to imitate Naomi’s motion and name. The next person continued, and the entire group repeated the new motion and name, and then repeated Naomi’s. We went through the whole group this way (my motion, of course, was pointing with both hands to a huge smile on my face while shouting “Chari!”)
Our activity for the session was to think of all the major turning points in Art & Culture history as divided per decade from 1900-today and separated by personalities, events, and Jewish history. We each needed to write three events on post-it notes and place them on a chart shaped just like a bull’s-eye. Afterwards, we divided into groups of two to discuss the patterns and reasoning behind our event choices. It wasn’t surprising that according to those in the room most major events begun to happen in the 1960’s and onward. We discussed how it was interesting that the Holocaust was not even mentioned. I’m excited about how diverse the Arts & Culture group is, and how well we all meshed together. Excited for the future track sessions!
After our session dismissed (10 minutes late…) we rushed to change into “business casual” clothing before piling onto busses and heading out to Kfar Yarok for the “Opening Ceremony: “Tel Aviv- Celebrating the Centennial” event. When we arrived, we were shocked to discover a huge circus tent, complete with people walking on stilts, a woman playing with a ring of fire, and contortionists to entertain us while we ate at the outdoor “gala” (gala = event with a lot of food). Freshly spiced pitas, mini-falafels, corn on the cobs, salads, fresh popcorn and cotton candy were some of the items on the night’s menu.
After mixing and mingling for quite a while, we were ushered inside for the formal opening ceremonies, in which guest speakers addressed the ROI 2009 community in between performances of various circus acts. Guest speakers included the inspirational Yael Arad, the first Israeli Olympic medalist (silver in judo, 1992); the enthusiastic Lynn Schusterman, Chair of the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation; Gidi Mark, International CEO of Taglit-Birthright Israel; and Eytan Schwartz, International Outreach, Tel Aviv Centennial Year Administration.
The main highlights of the night for me were:1) Finally meeting the adorable Sarah Lefton – creator of the amazing G-dcast online Bible animations (and webmaster of The Unmasked Comics website, my project with Inbal Freund-Novick)., and Yael Arad – the main guest speaker and winner of Israel’s first ever Olympic medal (silver in judo, 1992).
2) Meeting Lynn Schusterman, who is no doubt the cutest philanthropist ever – and got some great dance moves to boot!
3) Being inspired by Yael Arad’s story. I’m from a very athletic family and I’ve had my cartooning dreams for nearly all my life, so it’s great seeing a woman who has had such success with something she was so passionate about at a young age.
4) Watching ROI-ers in a Michael Jackson dance-off!
We returned home, and I went straight back to my (still gorgeous) hotel room to do some blogging. Boy, these days are just packed – can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings, and excited for the big upcoming ROI no-cover party on Wednesday night!
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