The clock runs down

This past week I've had entirely too much time to think. And, the last couple days, entirely too much to eat. To be honest, the last day or so I've just felt entirely too close to just losing it. There's been a lot of fun, drinking with Ron's uncles was a really good time, and as I mentioned food was abundant and amazing. But not really knowing what was going on, only catching bits of conversations, feeling singled out as a guest- it just grinds on me,

And, like I said, there has been entirely too much time to think. For the last year thoughts of Israel took my mind every time it wandered, this week it's been thoughts of home. Not even things I miss either. To be honest, in addition to family and friends I don't miss all that much. Long showers without feeling guilt for wasting water. Good Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese and Sushi. My car. Being able understand the conversations going on around me.

For the last year this trip was the great unknown. The thing equally anticipated and dreaded.

What would happen when I got off that plane in Tel Aviv? Now it's, “What's going to happen after I get off that plane in Rochester?” Well, I know part of it. The mundane anti-climax to international travel. Pick up my car from mom's garage. Pick up my mail and re-start my delivery. Sort through it. Buy groceries. Unpack. Do laundry. Sleep off my jet lag before I start seeing Tyler Durden. Go through my email backlog. Catch up on the web comics. Edit and retouch my photos. Post all the edits to Picassa and a tighter edit to Facebook. Then the most fun of all- going back to work. I'm still undecided if I should wear a set of fatigues on my first day back. It's not like anyone important would be around to see them (The joys of working nights.) and at least they'd be clean- unlike the ones I wore for around a month.

Tomorrow instead of tagging along to Ron's open airsoft game, I'm going on a hike with Nir. Tomorrow night is a birthday party for our friend Alex. I have a feeling things are going to get pretty stupid- made more so by the fact that I'll have to catch a train to the airport to meet my next Sar-El group. They told me I'll be up North this time, but that can change. I'm really looking forward to being back in green. Things are a bit more predictable and there are more English speakers to hang around with. I love being immersed in a different culture, but not being able to keep up really grinds on me after a while.

I've only really glossed over the airsoft scene in Israel, so I'll go into a bit more detail based on my own observations. I have personally been to two stores, both of which are under the “Tacticball Members Club,” name. One is in Kfar Sava, the other, run by Ron is in Ceasaria. Ron's is housed at the Dani Hai facility which included horse riding, ropes courses, paintball games, and a lot of firing ranges including a couple small MOUT/CQB training facilities.

In order to purchase an airsoft gun or equipment a person has to have a recreational player's card. (You caught the “Member's Club,” right?) This reminds me a lot of some of the rules in the UK. The personal ownership of airsoft guns is kind of a legal gray area. Technically, the guns are rented permanently by the player, but officially owned by the club- which retains records on who has what. I'm not sure how used sales work, or if they are even allowed to be conducted outside of a shop.

Games fall into two basic categories- open and closed. Open games are just that, anyone can come in, pay their money, pick up a rental gun, face mask and play. Most players, especially younger ones at the open games use rental guns. Ron has about 40 available, mostly they are Classic Army Sportline M4's, there are also some Tokyo Marui MP-5's a couple G-36's, and AK's. The open games go on bi-weekly and attract around 60 people. As you can imagine, distributing the rentals, safety equipment and ammo is barely organized chaos. The game itself is pretty much total chaos.

One thing worth pointing out is that weapon safety in the staging area is taken far more seriously than any field I have seen in the States. No magazines are allowed in weapons, pistols or rifles, the players for the most part police themselves, the staff gives out one warning. After that, people are either running laps, doing push-ups, or going home. Any negligent weapon discharges in the safe zone are cause for the same, even if it was only a dry fire.

The field at Dani Hai is a small complex of cargo containers with some scrub brush and small gullys around the outside. There are only two ways the buildings can be approached and both can be easily defended against. It would require perfect communication and coordination to get in there with equal numbers defending and attacking. This being airsoft, the attackers are usually good and screwed. To me the field is just too small for the number of players who show up for these games. There is not enough room for maneuvering without running into people. Teammates can end up tripping over each other and there is just a lot of paintball-ish run and gun. On the more positive side of things, most players tend to use semiautomatic exclusively, which on a crowded field does allow for some movement and reduces the injury potential a lot.

Closed games (invitation only) are much smaller and are usually between organized teams with a few guests in attendance. This was much more to my liking as there were about 1/3 the number of people which allowed for a decent amount of movement. People also knew each other, knew what they needed to do and played a much more tactical, and to me enjoyable game. To put it in perspective, I shot only about 75 rounds. The first game, I had no targets and did not fire, the second I fired perhaps a dozen times just to keep someone's head down while we moved. The third game I got into more action, and was safety killed toward the end of the game. The final game of the day I took a hit in the shoulder about a minute in. Well, someone has to be the first out.

The game types I saw were pretty simple, attack and defend, capture the flag, etc. Not too involved, but still fun. Given the size of the field it's also kind of hard to vary things too much. I know there are larger more role play and simulation driven games, but these are pretty rare due to trouble finding suitable land. Unlike in the States there is so far, no cooperation from the military.

I just realized that I have just about 12 days left here and one of those is Yom Kippur. So much to do and so little time.