pesach break

fairly long update of break.

so I decided to change the title of the blog for the last time since I decided to spend my time here traveling in Israel, and not around other middle eastern countries. I wish I could do it all, but money and time make this not possible. (Except, I WILL go to Jordan before I leave.)

That being said...I got back last night from traveling around the country for the past week and a half/two weeks with my sister. First, we spent some time up north in and around Haifa. We did a little hike on a trail called "Little Switzerland" which I guess looks like Switzerland? either way it was pretty cool. Then we went to the Bahá'í gardens, Daliyat-a Druze village, Mt. Carmel/the Carmelite monastery, and Zichron Ya'kov-one of the first Jewish settlements in Israel. In one day we saw four different religions (Bahá'í, Druze, Carmelite Christians, and Jews) which exist in one area of the country. Sidenote: If you haven't heard of Bahá'í or Druze before your should check them out, they're really cool religions.
Back to TA then to J'lem in the morning. My friend Daniel took Allie and I out to an area in Jerusalem that wasn't Ben Yehuda street! (The area where everyone goes out in J'lem...it's fun but c'mon, I knew there had to be more, haha). Then the next day we went back up to Haifa for the Passover seder. We stayed at the grandparents house of Allie's friend Adina for a few nights and went to her family's seder at her great aunt and uncle's house nearby. The night was fun, interesting, and similar yet different to what I am used to. There were about 30-35 people at the seder and the whole night was in Hebrew. Much of the joking around went over my head but I still had many laughs and enjoyed myself all the same. Then it was back to TA for the following Shabbat.
Friday Allie and I thought it would be a good idea to ride our bikes to the shuk (market) and the artist's fair in Tel Aviv, typical day usually, but we totally forgot it was holiday and the city would be PACKED. If i'm ever here for Passover again I'm leaving the country, it is SOO busy!! Anyway, Saturday night was the long awaited dinner with Abe's parents! We went to Havana, a Cuban restaurant Darya and I went to one afternoon and it was just as amazing as the first time. We had never met Abe's parents before but the feeling of having known them for a long time was mutual for some reason. Went out in TA, I met Abe's friend Ari finally, came back to the university, then we were off to J'lem again Sunday morning.
Sunday night we went to Be'er Sheva and stayed with Allie's friend Yoav for a few nights. Be'er Sheva is south of J'lem, kind of desert but not quite desert yet. We explored Be'er Sheva a little and got to meet up with friends including Adam, our friend from Ultimate Peace who is studying in Be'er Sheva :)!!
Back to J'lem where Allie and I parted ways. I met up with my friend Gili from the leadership program I'm doing and we hopped on a bus to the dead sea. Gili and I met up with Daniel and his friends for the second night of a festival on a kibbutz right by the sea. The night was really fun we saw Mosh Ben Ari and Aviv Geffen! This was the fourth or so consecutive day of hanging out with Israeli's/people that speak Hebrew and it started to really frustrate me, a lot, that I can understand the gist of conversations but I can't communicate back much. Of course they all speak english as well but I don't want to talk in english, I want to know more hebrewww. Moving on, we got back to J'lem around 7am yesterday morning and promptly went to Daniel's to go to sleep. Traveling from place to place came to an end last night when I arrived back in TA for probably the remainder of break (until Sunday). Today I'm bumming around, tomorrow I'll probably go to the amuzement park nearby with friends, and I'm not sure what Saturday and Sunday will bring. I surprisingly have some work to do before school starts again, lame.

my computer decided to stop recognizing my camera so here are some old pics for now.

Until next time.