May 27th- Well I'm finally home after an 11 hour flight plus a 4 hour delay at the airport over a strike, an emergency stop in Norway over a heart attack (he lived) lasting an hour, an additional hour in Norway to refuel, and an additional 2 hours more because they fueled the wrong tank which caused the left wing to leak. Finally getting home was nice but weird. I've already gotten a haircut and half of the food I've missed, with more to come. I'll continue adding things to the blog in the time to come, but probably not more check ins. It was a great adventure!
May 25th- Sorry for not posting, I didn't bring my laptop on the trip up north. Honestly it was pointless because they tried to teach us things and we just didn't want any part in that. It was cool to go to the Naot factory, but that was about it. Even tomorrow they are gonna try to teach us more on the way to the airport. Other than that all that's left is the banquet tonight. We leave Friday morning at 12:45. Tbh I'm totally ready to go back by now. See y'all soon.
May 17th- Well I'm done with school now. For the next two days I have nothing required to do. I just don't know what to think or do. Its crazy how almost over it is.
May 16th- Math final got moved to tomorrow. So I have that and my JHist final tomorrow. Makes for a stressful night tonight but I'll be done with school totally after 4:30 pm. Things are winding down wayy fast.
May 15th- Well today was a day. First of all, it was 111 degrees today. As for school, I took my Hebrew final, handed in my final paper for English, and did the final assignment for Bio. As of tomorrow I only have 2 classes, JHist and Math. JHist ends on Tuesday and Math on Wednesday. Things are calm from here on out. Prep is starting for the final banquet and class shirts and life is good! See y'all soon!
May (Friday the) 13th- Haven't had a chance to update this cause we've been so busy. The 9th we went to the Supreme Court to learn about the judicial system. The 10th we held a Mock Knesset (equivalent to Parliament) to learn about politics and legislation. The 11th we celebrated Yom Hazikaron, Remembrance Day. For that we went to a ceremony at the Kotel the night before and to a ceremony at the Kibbutz in the morning. There were 2 more sirens that just added to the experience. The day was nothing like Memorial Day in the US. That night we made the transition to Yom Ha'atzmaut, Independence Day. We went to Ben Yehuda to celebrate then took the 12th off as a beach day. It was all a lot of fun and all of Israel was so high energy. Nothing in America has ever come close. Today we were finally able to go to the Jlem Shuk and bought things for a picnic. Tonight we are going to 2 Israeli synagogues for Shabbat. With school ending in the middle of next week, things are gonna be all fun here until we leave.
May 8- Easy day. Starting to prepare for finals. Things are calming down quite a bit. After classes and stuff we talked with a few representatives from Kids For Peace. Their goal is to bring Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Israeli, Arab, and American kids together to experience diversity and the opinions of different people. It was a wonderful talk and was both very inspiring and eye-opening.
May 7- Productive and restful Shabbat. Ze'oh
May 6- Wow..I missed two days. Well in those two days I finished my AP Euro final and did very well. Today I also finished the AP Exam and did less well. But its good to be done with it. Last night we went to Ben Yehuda street but only for like and hour so not enough time to shop. Regardless it was nice to go back after 2 years. As soon as I got back to Tzuba I sent in my JHist final project. So that's one more thing off my shoulders. I might post it later with a few other things. All for now.
May 3rd- Second day of AP Euro final. Went well. Got grade for first part...96...YAY. Take that US. Other than that only had that one class today for a variety of reasons. It was so great. Also put together a full family tree for my Immigration project. More on that soon.
May 2nd- Full day of productively procrastinating....that's all you need to know. Oh I also started my 3 day AP Euro final...it kind of sucked. BYEE
May 1st-- The long trip is over. My host was great; she took us around Tel Aviv, had a short seder, took us surfing, then we hung out with some of her friends. Yam L'Yam was one of the best things ever. After not camping for a while it was very needed. I don't think I've ever had a better time. Resting at Hanaton was much needed afterwards. Now all that's left is to prepared for the AP exam on Friday and finish up the rest of school in about 3 weeks. See you the end of this month!
April 19th- Saw some Israeli movies as part of JHist. Started packing for the days away. That's all for now.
April 18th- Studying for AP exams is not fun.
April 17th- So going back to Friday we spent the day in Sarona, Tel Aviv. It was a nice relaxing day. I also meant to say yesterday that I went on a hike to Sataf with a bunch of friends to go to a spring. It was a 45 min walk and once we got there we found a 2m by 2m square of water with a sign saying "No Swimming". Being the crazy Americans we are we went in anyways; we weren't gonna make the hike for nothing. Today we went to Ammunition Hill to talk about the 6 Day War. It was a great tiyul. That's it for now. Packing for Yam L'Yam starts tonight.
April 14th- Oy Vey I'm good at missing posts. Iv'e had a lot of work recently so have had busy nights and just forgot. Things are calmer now, except for my preparation for my AP Euro exams coming up. The class exam starts next week and the AP exam is a week after I get back from the Pesach break. BTW, that starts a week from Thursday until the following Friday. I'll also (hopefully) be adding on here a few writing pieces I've done while here just so I can share some of what we've been doing and some of my experience.
April 9th- Wow, I've already missed 2 days. Well Thursday we went up north to tour some places that were part of rural Zionism. Friday we went to Tel Aviv to talk about urban Zionism, but really ended up just going on a graffiti tour, getting ice cream, and shopping in the shuk. We've had a lot more free time recently, so I watched some quality movies: Kung Fu Panda 2 and Madagascar 3. Who says they're for children anyways? And today for services I read from Torah. Since I was given the portion last night I didn't use trope, but it still went well. That's about it!
April 6th- Good day, but it's Poland essay time!!
April 5th- So I've been told that I need to post more. And I'll admit, the first month was alright but then I got lazy. So....today and tomorrow are normal days. I'm busy writing the essay for Poland which is due on Thursday, trying to catch up on Latin work, and am slowly working on our immigration project due in May. Prep for Pesach is starting, and late next week will begin the packing for the hike from sea to sea. It was very sad to miss Spronc, but oh well. I'm having a great time here. Overall things are pretty good, with high hopes for the future.
Second update...got my grades back. Better than the US by a lot. That's what you get for paying a ton of money.
April 4th- Poland is over. That was a crazy trip. Its nice to be home at Tzuba. More to come.
March 24th- Exams are over and went well. Purim was a blast, especially in Tel Aviv (there was a parkour and breakdancing contest on the boardwalk.....pretty awesome). Poland prep is in full swing. Things are going crazy... but good!
March 18th- While writing this I am in Yad Vashem. We go to Poland in 8 days. Every day while I'm there we go to a different camp. This is going to be a rough two weeks.
March 16th- At the point where I only post when I remember to, but life hasn't changed much here. Had a few tiyulim, some with the parents there too, and continued with school. Things have gotten a little stressful with exams coming up and work stacking up, but its not too bad. Check out the other blog for tiyul stuffs tho.
March 4th- Finally settled after the week and a half away. Masada and the Dead Sea were amazing. The Bedouin camp was really cool. Gadna was awesome. Eilat was a well needed relaxation. Second JHist test wasn't too bad, but studying took up a lot of time. Everything has been pretty quiet here otherwise.
February 16th- Had a tiyul to the Israel Museum. Got to see the model of Jerusalem and the Dead Sea Scrolls again. PLUS the Ahavah sign which is a signature of EIE. We leave for our ten day trip tomorrow, so I will not be able to post until after then. Seeya!
February 15th- Just an average day of classes. Got a 100 on JHist test. Whoop! Begin the packing.
February 14th- Average Day. To describe Gadna, we will be spending 5 days in an IDF training camp. This includes dressing and training like all of the new soldiers. It will be intense but a ton of fun.
February 13th- Had a nice peaceful Shabbat. As always Havdalah made me so happy but also miss everyone. So what else to do than drown yourself with multiple cups of tea?
February 12th- Pre-Shabbat preparations. In the morning we went on Tzedakah (justice/charity) trips. We chose between 2 senior homes or a make-shift cat shelter, so obviously I chose cats. Although it ended up being manual labor which was unexpected, it was still a great time. The second half of the day we cleaned for Shabbat then went to different reform synagogues in Israel. Services were very similar to home and it was a nice experience. Then we finished the day with Shabbat dinner and oneg Shabbat on the kibbutz.
February 11th- Last day of school for the week. An alright day. To describe Masada, we will have two day trips there. One will be at the foot of the mountain learning about the historical time period. The next day we will be climbing Masada at before sunrise as tradition and will learn more about the actual settlement up there.
February 10th- So the test was alright. I survived and wrote a bomb (good) essay. We had a discussion about what to expect from Gadna tonight and I am very excited. Starting next week I may not be able to post often as we go from Masada to the Dead Sea to Gadna to Eilat and back up to Tzuba over a 10 day period. I will talk about all of these individually in the days to come.
February 9th- JHIST TEST TOMORROW!! AAAAHHHHHHH!!! STUDDYYYY!!!!
February 8th- Normal day of class. That's it.
February 7th- Had a tiyul to the Old City in replace of the City of David for security. The museums were alright but it was rainy and cold so it wasn't too great. But I got shwarma so that was nice. OK day.
February 6th- Very relaxing Shabbat. Lots of free time to get to hang out with people. It's great here, as always. I GOT TO LEAD HAVDALAH. IT WAS AWESOME
February 5th- I'm going to talk about the day in reverse. As it is the beginning of Shabbat the second half of the day was free and very mellow. Some people left the Kibbutz to see family, but I was fine just catching up on some rest. Services and dinner were both great. As for the first half of the day, we went on the archaeological dig that we were supposed to do last week. It was a really cool experience with great weather (68 degrees). Part one we did some searching for artifacts, mostly finding pottery shards and mosaic tiles. Part 2 we crawled through a cave system used by soldiers to hide from their enemies in 70 CE. It was really complicated and really fun to go through. Part 3 we went on a quick tour and checked out another burial tomb. Overall it was a cool tiyul on a nice day.
February 4th- Had a tiyul to Sataf today. We started early and walked from Tzuba to there; the trip was about 2 miles. The hike itself was very nice with great views. When we actually got to Sataf we walked the trails and learned about ancient agricultural systems. The weather got into the 60's and the day was incredible. Israel is just so beautiful. At the end we were able to go into a cave where a natural water source comes out of. And by go into a cave I mean crawl through a very narrow tunnel for a hundred or so feet. The actual cavern was very spacious and was insane to think that it was made thousands of years ago. Inside we actually turned off all of our lights and sang Hinei Ma'Tov in complete darkness. It was one of the coolest experiences I've ever had.
February 3rd- Just an average day of classes. I did continue to realize though how amazing it is to be here. The weather and views are spectacular. We get so much freedom here even though we have classes literally all day. Everything we need is right on the Kibbutz and all our friends are always close. It is just so amazing living here.
February 2nd- Mostly a basic day of classes. Pretty chill. However we did take a mini tiyul on Tzuba. We went to one of the 39 (which is a lot) tombs and learned about one of the ancient burial traditions. Our tour guide, Reuben, who used to be a teacher here, is a walking encyclopedia. He knew so much background information and made the exploration so interesting. He was even able to date an artifact he found there just by looking at it for a second. It was a really cool experience, where else can you do that right where you live?
February 1st- Wow, its February. So we had out tiyul to Tel Gezer today. The weather was absolutely amazing and the ruins were really cool. Although it was an educational trip to learn about the Canaanite civilization, it was a lot of fun and really interesting. I will try to post the URL for a blog our Jewish History class is writing together. Afterwards we had general study classes which went fine. That's about it, life in Israel is soo great.
January 31st- So apparently its been a week. That's kinda crazy. It's awesome here though, I'm so happy. Second day of classes. Went smoothly and got little homework. Overall good day. Excited for a tiyul tomorrow, you'll find out.
January 30th- Had a very nice and peaceful shabbat. Took a walk up to a nearby Tel (look it up) and played in the ruins. Saw some great views and took some great pics. At night we went to a Debbie Friedman memorial concert at Hebrew University. It was lit af and another (ex) CT Jew was there. The concert was followed by my first Havdalah experience in Israel, which made it so much better.I haven't been happier in a long long time. Afterwards we went to a mall for an hour and I got my first Israeli falafel since summer 2014. The entire night was amazing and made the first week of EIE so special.
January 29th- Had a trip cancelled due to weather, so we had a relaxing movie day. Then we went into the city and had our first Shabbat service at the Kotel (Western Wall). It was absolutely beautiful and created such a strong connection to Israel. A community such as NFTY could only be bettered by being with Jews in Israel (aka EIE). I love it here so much.
January 28th- First day of school. Went very easily. Had a lot of free time and just soaked up the nice weather and view and day. It's just so relaxing here, regardless of how long the school day is (11 hours).
January 27th- Got our schedules today and met our teachers. In the morning there's 3 hours of Israel study followed by 2 hours of Hebrew. Then for general studies, I got a lucky schedule. 1st period lunch, 2nd period Euro being the only person in the class, 3rd period free, 4th period math with 2 other people, 5th period free, 6th period English but only on 3 days a week, and 7th bio with 3 others. So although an 11 hour day, things look good.
January 26th- First morning after sleeping at the Kibbutz. As the second group has not come yet, we have not done much. But things are very nice here, regardless of the snow which seems cannot be escaped (yes, it actually snowed in Israel).
So now its almost midnight and this is awesome. The other group arrived, and the people are as awesome as those who flew over with me. Today was laid back, but tomorrow schedules are handed out and classes start Thursday. This is insane.
January 25th- First full day of EIE. Getting off the plane and just standing on the ground in Israel just made me put it together that "Wow, I'm actually doing this". The flight wasn't horrible and the airport went smoothly until the SIM card booth. After that was resolved we traveled from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem where Kibbutz Tzuba is located. The campus is beautiful and I can easily see this being my home for the next four months. All I can do to describe what it's like so far is to talk to the NFTYites (sorry for those of you who aren't). Think of your second event; where your first event overwhelmed you but now you're beginning to get down names and be incredibly close friends with people. That's what EIE has been in the first 6 hours. And I know it will only continue to grow from here on out. Classes will start around Thursday, and I'm just so excited for all that is to come.
January 24th- Although the snow caused some anxiety, we were able to get to NY on time and the flight was only delayed about 2 hours. Some of the group was not able to make it, but will be flying out tomorrow. So far I can tell that the people are amazing and this is going to be an insane experience.
Pre-Trip- If you guys want to communicate with me anytime after the date above, use any social media with DMs. Texting is a bad idea, unless you want to pay for the mad international rates - be my guest. And if you want any specific pictures or little gifts when I return, make sure you hit me up early!