On Thursday I had a fairly lazy day – I knew that I was going to have to wake up at 5:30am on Friday to leave for the trip to Tel Hai at 6:00am, and so I figured I should have a fairly low-key day leading up to that. I also wanted to have a day of exploring campus outside the tour so that I’d be familiar with it before classes begin.
I slept until about 8:30am, had a lazy morning, and eventually walked down to campus with Kate. We headed to the Academon bookstore and bought our Hebrew textbooks. Then we visited the madrichim office to sign up for a few more trips – we both signed up for the practical Jerusalem tour, a picnic, and a night tour of the Old City, and I also signed up for a trip to Ein-Kerem. Then we grabbed lunch from the cafeteria (reasonable prices, HUGE portions, decent food) and went to the Academon non-bookstore, where I purchased a router so we can get have wireless internet in the apartment. Then we chilled out in the Forum for a while catching up on e-mail and Facebook.
When we got back to student village we stopped by the office of Bezeq, the internet company that serves the dorms so that Kate could sign up and get a modem, but they had closed early! So another couple of internet-less days...I'm looking forward to having internet so I can Skype more comfortably! Then we dropped off our stuff in the apartment and went to the grocery store to get some basics: milk, cereal, pasta, cheese, bread, peanut butter, apple jam, chai tea, hummus, pretzels, and half a watermelon. Then we headed back to the apartment where I chilled out for the early evening. Kate and I attempted to go eat at the falafel place near campus, but they were closed :( So we ate our lunch leftovers for dinner, made a quick stop at the grocery store to buy honey for our chai and used an ATM, and went out and used the internet in the courtyard for a bit. Finally I went to bed nice and early around 9:00pm.
I woke up the next morning at 5:15am to get ready for the trip. Now, a friend of mine who is an alumna of this program told me that I should go on all the trips – “It’s a small country and they take you everywhere,” she said. Well, I am so glad that I listened to her! We took a three-ish hour bus ride on very groovy-looking buses (with a stop for a traditional Israeli breakfast – chocolate milk in a bag and bread!) up to the Golan Heights.
Groovy bus:
Chocolate milk in a bag: 
Golan Heights!
There we went on what the madrichim had called in the description of the trip a “short, beautiful hike.” We also asked the madrich on our bus, Sima, if the hike was difficult. “I think it’s pretty easy,” she told us. (We later discovered that she spent three years as an officer in the Israeli army. Noted.) Well, the hike was very beautiful, but it was pretty intense! It was about three hours, and here’s a sample of what the trail looked like:
Pretty tricky at points, especially when crossing streams where the rocks got super slick. But it was worth it: we eventually arrived at a waterfall and a swimming hole where we got to spend half an hour playing in the water! It was absolutely beautiful.
Finally we hiked the last half hour up to the buses where we had sandwiches for lunch. Then we climbed back on the buses and rode up to Mount Bental. From there we had a spectacular view; we could see into Lebanon and Syria. Our tour guide also gave us some really interesting history, and Ido, one of the madrichim, told us about his father’s time in the Israeli army and pointed out the place where he had fought an important battle in the War of 1973.
There were also some statues made by a local artist, and I found this one particularly amusing -- my family especially will understand why!
Finally we continued on to the Tel Hai youth hostel where we spent the night, and I took a looooong nap. I woke up for dinner, then we went to a “madrichim special event” – we divided into teams and competed in events such as creating the longest possible chain of clothing, dressing one guy on the team in drag in our team colour, etc. It was pretty fun, but I was glad to see the end of it and head to bed. Here's a shot of the sunset in Tel Hai:
In the morning I woke up for the tail end of breakfast, then got dressed and ready to go to the Open Photography Museum in Tel Hai, a very short walk from our hostel. We received a tour of their current exhibition (several collections from Micha Bar-Am), spent some time in a darkroom, and watched a film on Stef Wertheimer, who has created several industrial parks in the Middle East, including the one the museum is a part of. Interesting stuff!
After lunch we walked to the Joseph Trumpeldor monument, the Roaring Lion. Our tour guide gave us some background on Trumpeldor’s life and why he was important to Israel. I also got a chance to chat with a few Israelis with us (one of the madrichim and a couple of our guards) about their thoughts on him and his legacy.
Then most people walked an additional 30 minutes uphill to go to a swimming pool, but I opted to return to the hostel and read for a while. After dinner, we had Havdallah (a ceremony celebrating the end of Shabbat and blessing the week ahead) and got back on the buses. We returned to the student village at 11:35pm and I fell straight into bed!
Coming soon: first day of classes :)
UPDATE: click here for some pictures the madrichim took over the weekend!
I forgot about chocolate milk in a bag! SO much better than in a carton :)
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