We have successfully completed our second week in
Israel!! Time is really flying by so quickly; it’s crazy. I already
feel like I've known these people for years. I guess that's what happens
when you spend all day everyday with people..... okay anyway this was the
first week when we started going on Tiyuls. A tiyul is basically a trip,
some are half days and some are full days. On half day trips, we still
have our general studies classes in the afternoon.
On to the next trip, we went to Sataf. This
was so cool and beautiful. First, we had to walk like three miles to get
there. Totally ridiculous that they made us walk there in the morning,
right? Actually, that's what I thought going into it, but turns out the
hike was one of the highlights of the trip. During this tiyul we explored
some of the irrigation systems that were used way-back-when to water the
crops. Now, this isn't your typical flat group farm. It's more set
up as shelves upon shelves of crops in a line. So, we got super deep into
the water streams and we ended up exploring caves, and some of them were so
small you were literally (not figuratively) crawling on your hands and knees
through them.
Our next, and one of my favorite trips, was an
archaeological dig. For anyone that has heard me say the world
archaeological, you know that my pronunciation is hilarious. So, for now
on every time I say archaeological, picture it in my voice.
We explored excavated tunnels from the ancient times that people
used to live and hid from their enemies in. It was crazy how small the
spaces were. I asked our tour guide if I could move into one for a day,
and she told me they didn't have WIFI down there so I immediately rescinded my
request. Along with the tunnels we did some digging and found a few bones and
pieces of pottery. Also, we had the chance to explore some ancient burial
caves. This trip was very fun and I also have to say, I learned a lot.
Friday, I had a chance to go off the Kibbutz.
I went to northern Israel to a place called En Hashofet. One of the
friends I made here on EIE invited me to go with her to her grandparents’
house. They live on a rather large kibbutz and it was super nice.
This opportunity was really great for me because I got to test out my sub-par
Hebrew skills. But, this made me realize I know more than I think, and I
can actually hold a short conversation. I also made the effort to listen
to others conversation (this is different than eavesdropping, it's for
educational purposes) and try to figure out what they were saying. My
guessed turned out to not be too far off, and some were even completely
correct.
All and all everything is great (besides the food
sometimes). I love my friends and everything we have done so far. This
week is looking to be hard and boring because we have full days of classes
almost every day :-(. But, next week we are going on a 10 day trip!
Stay tuned for more.