Short Stories | Allie Bernstein

As anyone who has ever traveled anywhere knows, it’s virtually impossible to answer the question “So, how was your trip?” How can I summarize even a vacation, let alone six months of learning and growing and discovery?

The short answer: beats the hell out of me. But any experience is comprised mostly of the stories you can tell from it, and the best stories are the ones you never expected to have. Ergo, I present to you a selection of the moments I never expected would happen – but did. (For the full list or further details, you’re just going to have to talk to me. Terrible, I know.)

• Sitting in a car full of Israelis singing the theme song from The Magic School Bus in Hebrew
• Enjoying the best four-hour desert highway roadblock in the entire world (actually, not sarcastic)

From the road block

• Meeting best friends from Arizona, Montreal, Toronto, Switzerland, and Hungary
• Becoming a sushi addict
• Navigating the bus in a foreign language by myself
• Purchasing a chai latte entirely in Hebrew – including a joke
• Regularly eating lunch in Rabin Square
• Getting toes nibbled on by wild fish on purpose
• Befriending a stray cat (here’s to you, Mr. Tails)

Stay warm out there, Mr. Tails.

• Leaving my purse with a Slovakian man I had just met three weeks ago
• Driving a car full of people in the mountains in the Galilee
• Managing a team composed of my fellow interns and my boss
• Waving at Lebanese grounds – twice
• Advancing to a professional level of pomegranate opening