Tel Aviv and First Day of School

As expected, yesterday was so go go go I didn't have anytime to sit down and update the blog. In the morning most of the students went to services. To my disappointment they were not very good :( Immediately following services I joined Ryan, Toba, Greg and an Israeli friend of theirs in Tel Aviv! Tel Aviv and Jerusalem are complete opposites. Jerusalem is more old city not tall building like, and Tel Aviv is like San Francisco and New York combined with east coast humidity.

Getting to Tel Aviv was not very hard, I know how to do it for future visits. We got to the beach and got some food then found a spot on the sand to hang out on. I don't think I have ever seen a beach so crowded. Not only was there an actual sea in front of me but I was part of a sea of people...very cool experience.

I was lucky to have gotten to hang out with a friend from Isaiah (Alli Darrow) while there. She has been spending the past couple months in Tel Aviv. It was really nice seeing a familiar face from back home.

When we went in to the water I couldn't believe how warm the water was. I stepped in expecting the chilling pain of ice water, as I have for the past two year up at Tawonga, but it was so warm I just wanted to jump in! I didn't for the sake of ruining my make-up. Spending the day on the beach was exactly what I needed before school started.

When Ryan and I got back from Tel Aviv we went to Ben Yehuda street and met up with some other people from the program so get something to eat, and I also got to see one of my sorority sisters who is doing birthrite. Again, very nice to see a familiar face. While the day was very long and exhausting, it was really relaxing and totally worth it.

Today, was the first day of school...didn't start off too well considering my alarm didn't go off and I only had 30 mins to get ready. On top of that my stomach was feeling well. We all got to school and got to our classrooms and I was officially no longer on summer vacation and was officially a graduate school student. Surprisingly the day went by a lot quicker than I expected and I knew a lot more than I thought I would. The teacher only speaks in hebrew, so I think I will be able to understand a lot more than I will be able to speak. There are only 8 of us in my group, but it's really nice because it is so small. We already have homework so I need to make sure I stay on top of it.

After class I went to Supersol (the safeway of Israel) and finally did some real grocery shopping! While it came out to a lot of money in the end, I got a lot from it and finally have enough food to have a different kind of lunch every day! You will all be happy to hear that I made my lunch last night and had it all ready to go and packed for school today. I used my cute pink bag michelley gave me.

I also purchased a nalgene and a brita. The water out here doesn't taste very good, so I figured it was worth it paying some money now rather than paying a lot over the year on water bottles. Also, I didn't even think about bringing and nalgene here with me. But no worries, I found a VERY cute pink one :) Another water bottle to add to my collection.

Now I am off to Nina's house. She is making dinner and we are going to work on the paper we have due for our education seminar next month. Miss you all like crazy!!!!!!!!!!!!