birthright

far too exhausted/busy to write anything coherent about what has been one of the most fun and jam packed 10 days ever, so i'll the photos do the talking. advance apologies for a post that will most likely be atrociously formatted- blogger for ipad is a bit of a challenge to work with- although infinitely better than the iphone app! 

we spent the first few days in the stunning golan heights. The scenery was spectacular and climbing to the top of har bental to not only see views of syria and jordan but also to hear distant explosions from the syrian civil war was fascinating.

our next stop was a day trip to tzfat, a hillside town full of kabbalah mysticism.

and then it was onto tel aviv, where we saw independence hall, rabin square, and enjoyed some precious free time.

a day later, we drove to jerusalem. seeing the old city and the western wall at sundown was beautiful, if rather chilly. the next morning we toured yad vashem, which was very different- more informative but less emotionally stirring- than dc's holocaust museum. whilst there, we had the privilege of hearing anne frank's best friend speak about her experiences. we picked the right day to visit! 

we then went south into the desert, stopping briefly in sderot, a village 800 m from the gaza border, to tour (and play in) a bomb-proof indoor playground that the jewish national fund constructed several years ago. all of the play structures were sized in order for kids to be able to stop playing and move to the bomb shelter in the back of the building in under 15 seconds in case of attack. 

we spent the night at a kibbutz near be'ersheba, and the next morning we set off for a long day of adventuring- a hike, a camel ride, and a night staying in a bedouin camp.

the next morning, we woke up at 4:30 and did a predawn hike to the top of masada in order to the see sun rise. we were the first group of the day to climb it, and the view made the ungodly wakeup time worth it. 

from masada, we drove to the dead sea, which was quite an experience! not sure if the mud actually did any skincare miracles, but slathering it on and floating in the water was a lot of fun. 

after the dead sea, we returned to jerusalem for the final couple of days, where we wandered machane yehuda, hung out on ben yehuda street, paid our respects at har herzl (basically Israel's version of arlington national cemetery), celebrated shabbat, and enjoyed our last hours all together. 

finally, after havdalah and dinner on saturday evening, we said our goodbyes to each other at the airport- but only after exchanging our info on whatsapp, snapchat, and instagram, and promising to have reunions in new york, boston & dc someday! luckily my goodbyes were made a slight bit easier by the fact that i'm staying in israel longer because I didn't have to say farewell yet to the 7 young israelis who accompanied us for all 10 days and whom we all became close friends with. i made them promise to come meet me in jerusalem and tel aviv from time to time to hang out, and i am gonna hold them all to it! 

i also didn't have to say goodbye quite yet to three of the americans from my trip, because we all shared a cab back into jerusalem that evening and stayed in a hostel together for 2 days before heading out on separate adventures- they're going to petra via eilat, and i'm heading north to the galil. yesterday, we all went on a tour of bethlehem that our hostel offered. getting to visit the west bank was a once in a lifetime experience- passing through the checkpoint, seeing the border fence, reading pro-palestine graffiti, and talking to palestinians about their opinions was something i won't forget. israelis can't enter the west bank without a permit, and likewise for west bank palestinians for israel, so it was interesting as an american to have the privilege of being a fly on the wall observer of both areas. I have a lot of photos of bethlehem, but that'll be another post- i need to leave in about 20 minutes to go catch my bus to the north. 

until next time,

אהבה

m