#classic ron

“Why? They soothe me, if you really wanna make me worry less...”

Me: Why?

Dad: I'll give you a rain jacket and a bat, and I need you to kill the armadillo.

Me: Won't it just run away?

In celebration of the Jewish New Year and it also being Thursday, I dedicate this post to my very first #TBT. The throwback to this Thursday goes all the way back to two months ago when I embarked on my trip to the Motherland. I took a very casual trip to Israel in July this summer on Birthright. Classic japventure. 

My first experience going on Birthright was to be intensely questioned by the El Al people, escorted to TSA by them, have my bags double searched, get patted down by then for another check, have my bags checked for the third time, then finally having my headphones and plug adapter taken from me because of alleged "explosive residue." SO OBVIOUSLY IT STARTED OUT GREAT. While all my group members got to do corny but also necessary ice breakers and get to know yous, I got super searched by El Al. Once I actually GOT on the plane I was less than mentally prepared to sit for a little more than nine hours. 

After nine grueling hours with shitty airplane headphones and terrible movies on repeat, we landed in the Tel Aviv at 5 am. We very casually were taken to go on our first and hardest hike of the entire trip, Mt. Arbel. None of us had slept and we were so jet lagged it was unreal. Here is a pic of the mountain we hiked down. And ya hiking down sounds easy until you see that you're hiking down a cliff and you're jet lagged.

We also made a quick pit stop to look at this

This is Haifa. Literally so beautiful. This country is unreal in terms of beauty. 

K NEXT DAY. My tour guide, who was/is the BANE of my existence decided to very casually point out some land mines while we were driving around. I should also preface more about Ron before this goes further. Ron, the tour guide, was/is the most ridiculous human in the world. He would talk too long about things none of us cared to listen to while we all stood in the Middle Eastern heat. We would be on these long 2/3 hour hikes and he would stop at the most inconvenient times almost always in the sun or he would just stop randomly stare at us then keep going. BUT, If there were ever places we wanted to stop and take lots of pictures we would blow past. There is more about Ron that will come later... 

ANYWAY, we pull up to what seems like the middle of nowhere and there are all these signs that signify land mines and we are like Ron wtf are we getting out to walk here? OF COURSE WE ARE. So now we are all on edge very concerned one step off and we all blow up and Ron starts talking for another 5 hours while we stand in the 100 degree heat. The we left this situation and everyone took a collective sigh of relief when we got on the bus and away from all the red triangle signs. Our next stop was another hike in a canyon. This was called Nahal Zavitan and it was in the Golan Heights. It was really fucking cool, here are some pix for your viewing pleasure.

After this hike we were supposed to go rafting in the Jordan River but apparently it was too dry so they took us to this BEAUTIFUL beach and we went tubing in the Sea of Galilee. It was probably the warmest, cleanest, fresh water lake I've ever been in. MORE PIX.

As Ron does, we only got to stay and hang out and just REALX here for like 1.5 hours. CLASSIC RON. Let me just give everyone a little visual so you see what I dealt with for ten days. 

There he is in all his glory. He always broke out that stupid visual cartoon thing as if we were 12. He also called the Stone Age, the Flintstone Era as one of his many not so or even close to funny jokes. Thanx Ron.

In the runny-nose part of winter, we start out listening to the sounds of snow removal, ruminate on dinosaurs and self-branding your clothes, and in Decoding Rhode Island we talk to Classic Ron Augustus Jr., local designer, artist, and one of the brains behind Axion Media Labs (find out more about Classic Ron here). 

—Cate Morrison