End of the road...

So I'm sitting in the Newark International Airport writing my last post of the trip. All I can say is that this was such an incredible experience. I will sum up what we did during the last week of the trip.

On Monday we went to Caesarea which is a really cool, touristy area. There are all these ancient ruins and we toured and watched a movie about the history of Caesarea. It's a port city where ships would come in, many ships that brought immigrants to Israel over 60 years ago came into Caesarea. We also went to a museum that is completely pitch black and you are supposed to be blind and the tour guide is blind and you go through the museum and feel what it's like to be a blind person. It was amazing! So much fun. Monday night we stayed in Tel Aviv at a kibbutz hotel. We walked to a beach that was near the

kibbutz. Mattan came and picked me up and we hung out in the evening. On Tuesday we went to the Azrieli

mall which was nice because we got to shop a little bit, I bought a lot of Michal Negrin jewelry for my mom and for friends. We also toured in Tel Aviv and saw the Yizak Rabin memorial. We went to Sheinkin street which has a lot of stores and it's also a craft market. That was really nice. Tuesday night we stayed in Jerusalem. We went to the Kotel and did a tour of the tunnels underneath the wall.

On Wednesday we went to Yad Vashem and to Mt. Herzl. I have been to all of those places before but Yad Vashem was amazing this time around. The first time I was at Yad Vashem was on birthright and I remember being so exhausted that I didn't get much out of the experience. This time I was alert and I paid attention and it was very emotional for me. Our tour guide Baruch told us his father was a child that was had to do forced labor in the Lodz ghetto. He started to cry which of course made me bawl. Wednesday night we saw a show at the Tower of David. It was very cool, basically it's these pictures that get shown over the entire ruins of the tower of David. It shows the history of the city of Jerusalem. After the show we went to the International Craft Festival where we saw a concert and got to shop. It was like a huge art fair.

On Thursday we toured the old city of Jerusalem and went to different churches and to the Kotel again. Then we went to Ben Yehuda street to go shopping. The whole group had a big dinner together because it was the last night. From there, everyone went to the airport. I took the train to Tel Aviv with Baruch and Mattan picked me up at the train station. That night we just stayed in and watched movies because I was exhausted and it was late.

On Friday we went to the Azrieli mall so I could exchange some of the Michal Negrin jewelry that I bought and that my mother did not like. Haha. I also bought myself a top at Mango. Then Mattan and I went to Nahalat Benyamin street to go to a craft market. We had lunch at this awesome place called Moses. I got a portobella mushroom burger. Afterwards we went home to get ready for shabbos and we drove to Maccabim where Tamar lives. The three of us had Shabbos dinner together and it was wonderful. Tamar made chicken stir-fry, cauliflower and meat something or other which was soooooo good, eggplant salad, regular salad, and apple pie. I was stuffed. After we left Tamar's we went to Mattan's aunt and uncle's house. That was fun, we sat outside and talked for a while. It was nice to see Shira their daughter who I met at Stef and Shalom's wedding and I met their son as well.

Saturday we went to the beach. It was really beautiful and we stayed for a couple of hours and mostly played in the water. There were such cute dogs there and they were swimming in the sea with their owners and playing fetch in the water. I was in love, I wanted to pet them so bad and it made me really want to take Cody to the beach. Before we knew it it was time to go to the airport. I of course cried a lot :(. It sucks so bad because even though leaving Mattan was so hard, it was so hard to leave Israel. I'm so in love with the place. If you've been there you must know what I mean. I get such an incredible feeling being there and I feel like a different, and better person when I am there. I'm not even back in Detroit yet and I can't stop thinking about when I can go back to Israel.

Thank you so much to everyone who has been keeping up with the blog. It's been so fun writing for all of you and I hope you enjoyed reading about my adventures in The Holy Land.

amazing weekend

So this weekend was absolutely fabulous. On Thursday the group went to class and then got back around 2:30, then we had the rest of the weekend free. Mattan came up to Afula to pick me up and we drove to Zichron Yaacov which is a cute small town with boutiques and wineries. We went to the Tishbi cafe and had a bottle of wine and ate cheese and crackers. It was very fun. The shops in Zichron are adorable. There are a lot of artsy places. There is this paper store that has all the paper making equipment outside and you can see how they make paper. There are also a lot of jewelry stores and stores with art, it reminded me a lot of an art fair. After Zichron Yaacov, we drove to Shave Tziyon. The water there is absolutely gorgeous, we walked to the beach and also BBQed dinner. That was a lot of fun. On Saturday we went to Rosh Hanikrah which has caves and the water crashes inside, it's unbelievable. You walk inside the caves and the water is so loud and wild, it's very cool to see.

After Rosh Hanikrah, we drove to Tel Aviv and then to Maccabim where we spent time with Tamar and Dana and her husband. I also met Mattan's old friend Noga who was such a sweetheart. It was really nice, we just hung out at Tamar's and ate leftovers from Shabbos and drank coffee. This morning everyone woke up and went to class to take our final exam. It was pretty easy, we had to choose three questions out of five to answer. I wrote about Theodor Herzl, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and how the Holocaust changed the Zionist movement and Israel in general. It was pretty interesting to take the exam because although I had been learning all about this all month, I hadn't applied any of my knowledge until now. I realized I learned a lot! haha. After class we went to our last lunch ever at Kibbutz Sarid. That was sad, I will miss Sarid's pickles and chicken nuggets and especially their soup. After lunch we were allowed to go back to the college and work on our papers. I chose to do so because I hadn't worked at all on it over the weekend. I got 2 and a half pages done while I was at the library which was really good because the paper only has to be three pages long. Then we came back to the dorms and I packed a little and cleaned up. This evening was the final dinner with all the camp staff, federation staff, and our professor. We went on a tour of the kibbutz where the dinner was (I forgot what it was called) and then we ate dinner there outside. It was gorgeous out! The weather was perfect and the view was breathtaking. The people that work there cooked all different kinds of pizzas for us and there was a lot of cakes and other things to nosh on. We sang some songs and gave speeches and said our thank-yous to everyone. Unfortunately my camera died while I was there and I didn't get any pictures but there will be a lot on facebook that other people took. Tonight is our last night in the dorms and we are going to Tel Aviv tomorrow. That is going to be a lot of fun.