israel
ok! time for what i've been meaning to do for weeks now...a little update on the latter half of my winter break.
israel!
here we go...i'll try to keep it succinct. but bear with me.
okay...starts off with a good 30 hours or so of traveling, a little more perhaps.
then we get there, meet our group! get some chocolate milk in baggies and some bread and we're good to go.
we drive to caesarea, for some ancient roman ruins. and it's gorgeous.
ampitheater: where they still hold concerts! awesome.
then was our first lunch ever with shwarma and falafel! mmm mmmm mmmmmm
then we had a little get to know you meeting, i had to introduce evan with a rhyme (which i came up with on the spot!)
please don't ask me how i remembered this...
this is evan from fresno,
an interesting fact about him is he has no
brothers or sisters of any kind
he's going to Davis to improve his mind
we didnt talk about his embarassing moment yet
so i guess that's all the information you're going to get.
after that meeting, we ate a dinner, which none of us really appreciated since us la kids had been up for about 60 hours
we agreed to go on sleep strike if they made us stay up much later, and luckily it didnt come to that.
somewhere in there was a discussion of dinosaurs...
next day was the jeep ride. which was so fun. we drove by some mine fields which was a bit disconcerting.
then a gorgeous nature walk, which reminded me of santa barbara. and, finally a visit to a bunker with a breathtaking view (and a funny dinosaur statue!)
josh is being eaten, jason is caressing.
that night, craaaaaaaaaaazy karaoke party. crazy crazy crazy. sachi and i tried to dance with paris timberlake.
next day, visit to amuka forest...which...had a lot of trash, and a santa doll playing santa claus is coming to town, but otherwise had redeeming qualities.
then a visit to Safed, which was wonderful. we had fun at a market that day. found a doll that said "i will urinate" hehe
we walked through Akko, and visited a famous British prison
i think we took this picture somewhere in there...
this is the ucla crew, with ayelet on the far right (our hillel advisor) and our guide doron down in front.
that night there was israeli folk dancing and we watched a good movie called shlomi's stars.
the next day we visited Zippori, with more beautiful saved ruins fom about 1800 years ago.
then there was a camel ride in the desert! i cannot begin to tell you how awesome it was.
after much contemplation, sachi and i named our camel sazi--because it's lazy like sachi!
see those smiles? they stayed plastered on the whole ride. how could you not smile? you're on a camel!
we loved her. she didn't want to walk in-line with the other camels, or keep up with them for that matter, and so she didn't.
our dismount was....not as graceful as it could have been.
we screamed, we laughed, mostly other people pointed and laughed at us. good times.
at the bedouin camp we had the most amazing tea i've ever had, and an incredible bedouin hafla dinner (tzimchonit, of course).
and the next day was incredible. we spent the night in the tents, which was great. we walk up before the sunrise, and went to masada.
the view was, of course, breathtaking. dawn truly is my favorite time of day.
the landscape stretched on endlessly.
after that, we went to the ein gedi spring, where i regret not having put on my suit...but oh well. the rest of the group (for the most part) enjoyed it.
then! the dead sea! it was so fun. just an entirely new experience altogether. the boys chased us down the road, and josh was kind enough to grace sachi and me with a nice muddy hug.
we then checked into our fabulous five-star hotel, and it was shabbat before we knew it.
sachi, josh and i went to ayelet's alternative service, and it was wonderful to hear about everyone else's experiences on the trip.
that night was new year's eve...sachi, evan and i enjoyed some wine on the porch outside, before counting down to the new year twice in josh's room.
12:30: to bed.
the next day was very relaxing, seeing as it was shabbat and all. there was a new year's eve after party, at which sachi and i worked on our frat party moves...
ooo! and we got to dance briefly with achram (one of our guards), before doron took him away...and chaim! our lovely bus driver! here's achram:
he didn't speak much english, and we don't speak much hebrew, but we tried as best we could.
sometime in here we had this delicious lunch: shakshuka. it's fried eggs and tomatoes. and boy oh boy if you know me you know how much i love food.
yumm
we also went to independence hall, and the square where yitzhak rabin was murdered. it was very touching, beautiful, and sad.
that night, gidi gov performed for us (he's pretty famous, apparently!). josh discovered the soundcheck, so we got to watch, and that was wonderful. (obssession with music comes before food, for sure). there was some short-lived israeli dancing before the performance, in some gym...and that was funnnnnn i love that flying feeling when you run around the circle
the next day avraham infeld, the president of international hillel spoke to us. it was in a room with a wonderful ceiling.
there had been a spice girls marathon on mtv world the night before, so we reminisced and sang along together (before and after the speech)...
three people in our group became b'not mitzvah that day as well, if i'm not mistaken
that day we met our soldiers! 8 wonderful people. we had a tour of Old Jerusalem in the rain, and Sachi, Omer and I wandered off for a bit and almost got lost...but Ronen saved us. it was such a gorgeous walk.
that night was the mega-event, which was very fun. it was great to interact with the soldiers and see how excited many of them were.
the next day we visited the yad vashem holocaust center, which was quite sobering. but good.
sachi and i ate lunch with yuval and na'ama that day. they seem like such great people.
later that afternoon we all reflected on our experiences and it was so nice to hear what everyone had to say.
and....(drum roll please) that night we participated in a dig at the maresha caves in beit guvrin!
it was so wonderful, so spectacular, breathaking, so....bah words dont describe it!
we were digging up pieces of pottery and bone that hadn't been touched for roughly 2000 years!
climbing through caves and tunnels that hadn't even been excavated yet...it was just thrilling. i could go on...but i won't.
and now i'm going to minor in anthropology.
our last day there was....well i'd rather not talk about it. given the choice of seeing the dead sea scrolls or shopping in a mall, our group chose...
well, let's put it this way. i wish i could describe the scrolls to you, but i can't.
on the upside, we did have an ugly face contest.
this wasn't ugly-face...just ucla being silly.
the flight back was...rather introspective, on my part. i was definiteley sad that everything was over. i definitely want to go back soon.
i would write more, about how wonderful the people are and the country is...but i've exhausted myself and, i'm certain, whoever's still reading this...
it was incredible, what else can i say?