and this is why i don't tell people i'm american

Yesterday my whole group traveled up to Akko for the MASA SUPER MEGA EVENT OF THE MILLENNIUM. Akko is about 4 hours away by bus, which means that we traveled roughly 2/3 the length of Israel to get to this event, which was also called “Masa Goes North.” And north we did go.
Masa is this government organization that gives out a shit ton of money in scholarships to people from all over the world to come to Israel on long-term programs. The program I’m on, Otzma, is roughly $9000 for each participant, but thanks to the lovely people at Masa, it cost many of us little more than the airplane ticket to get here. And because we get $3000 back as food and travel stipend, well, I don’t need to divulge too many details but let’s just say that some of us are basically being paid to dick around for the year. (A great deal when you consider that housing, medical insurance, educational seminars, hiking trips, language classes, sandwiches, russians, etc. are all included in the package.)
We were told that there would be around 2000 people at the event – basically anyone in Israel on some kind of program had to attend, so we knew that there would be Jewish geography discussions all over the place. And literally everyone was there: our crunchy doppelgangers from Tikkun Olam (basically the hippie equivalent of OTZMA), the guy with the coke finger who we met in a hostel in Tel Aviv, the Pardes-tastic super Jews from Pardes (conservative Yeshiva, I think), and like a million 18-year-olds who are spending the year here before college.
When we first arrived, the first thing we saw was this guy stumbling around on stilts, and we were all thinking, “holy shit this thing is so craaazyyy!!!” But then we were all given free Masa backpacks with Masa freebies inside, so we quit our whimpering. Then there was this announcement that everyone had to stand behind some pigeon (which turned out to be a giant peace dove) so the parade could start – the parade was basically a stampede of all of us walking at the lightening speed of perhaps 100 meters per hour through the streets of Akko. I couldn’t help feeling bad for anyone trying to drive through town because our slow-moving mass of Americans was definitely stopping traffic and even attracting like 5 or 6 spectators. Finally it was over and we could eat our free food – and wouldn’t you guess it, dinner was sandwiches.
I believe I already complained about the fact that the typical free Israeli sandwich is a loaf of white bread with a piece of cheese, or perhaps a teaspoon of tuna salad, or occasionally a slice of turkey or bologna. However, you’ll all be surprised to hear that I finally figured out how to cheat the system! I’m quite the engineer, you know. I combined the insides of THREE sandwiches and made myself a triple-turkey sandwich with cucumber (malafafone) and tomato, so I was quite content.
The final event of the evening was a concert put on by Gaia, who is apparently a major Israeli singer. Don’t get me wrong, Israel is the size of New Jersey and it therefore can’t be too hard to be one of the most popular musicians, but I’m pretty sure that this concert would have cost us quite a few shekels if we had seen him in a non-Masa-sponsored setting. That still doesn’t change the fact that Israeli pop music sounds like ass.
High-Low-High time!
High – free shit
Low – driving 8 hours round trip for shit that they could have just mailed to us
High – I met a guy whose last name is Dorfberg!