Ok so yes, it has been a while. Lets go over some highlights of the past month and a bit: Halloween! Some boys in the International School hosted a party in their apartment. Most of the International school went, and there were a few Israelis too. It was so cool to be celebrating Halloween in Israel with a bunch of Europeans and Israelis. My Danish housemate Sara and I found Haifa University basketball uniforms in our apartment so we wore those and looked awesome. USA elections!! So exciting. We watching on a big screen from 2am to 7am. The Europeans all [View Full Entry]

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It has definitely been an experience to be in Israel during the high holidays. For Yom Kippur, Jordana and I went with the Schwartz’s to a reform synagogue that is within walking distance from their house. It is actually illegal to drive in Israel on Yom Kippur, so after Kol Nidre everyone goes out and walks up and down the main street. I walked with David and it was quite a sight. Almost everyone is dressed in white, there are groups of teenagers and families pushing strollers. Many people on bikes who seem to swerve at the very last second to [View Full Entry]

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Shanah Tovah everyone! I was very lucky to be able to spend Rosh Hashanah with the Schwartz cousins in Ra’annana. Jordana came along too and we had a great few days eating a LOT of food and going to services. On the second day we went to a picnic in a park with some members of my cousins’ synagogue. They played an ultimate Frisbee game after eating. It was a bunch of adults and kids. We ended up dividing up the teams Americans vs. non Americans. Results were inconclusive, but it was a lot of fun. The services were all in [View Full Entry]

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Ok so I am writing this entry from Israel, not Greece, but let's pretend. Greece, as a whole, was a great vacation. There were some minor glitches…but in the end all the logistics went relatively smoothly. I arrived in Athens at 9am Sunday morning. After checking into the hostel, I went off to the National Archaeological Museum. This museum is huge and has the complete range of Greek antiquities: sculpture, pottery, grave stelae, etc. I think I saw almost every single exhibit, and as always it was exciting to see pieces that we had studied in Art History 105/106. After the [View Full Entry]

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Sorry it’s been such a long time since the last post! Ulpan has been over since last Thursday. I think my final went well, and the picnic afterwards was a lot of fun. I brought my Frisbee and was able to throw for a while with Savannah and some other people. I spent most of the weekend cleaning my apartment, of which I am currently the only inhabitant. Having the whole place to myself is a little weird. Luckily, for the weekend Laura and some other people were still around so we went to the beach and the mall. Saturday night [View Full Entry]

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I can’t believe Ulpan will be over this Thursday! The time has really been going by so quickly, and I know the three weeks I have off will fly by, as soon as I figure out what to do with them… Last week we visited the Ghetto Fighters Museum which is located on a kibbutz near Haifa. It is a smaller Holocaust museum than Yad Vashem, with more of a focus on rebellions such as the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. It also has a lot of artwork. It was the first museum built in Israel to remember the Holocaust. One of the [View Full Entry]

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Hello all. It’s been a few days so I thought I’d fill you in on what I’ve been up to here in Haifa. The tour of the Bahai gardens was beautiful. All the plants are so well taken care of and the grass must be cut every few days to keep it so short. My favorite thing about the gardens is that there is water that flows down each side of the steps and you can hear it quietly splashing and you walk down. It was easy to see how this place was so sacred. After the tour we walked to [View Full Entry]

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Shalom! I have been here for almost an entire week already, so I figured I would post my first blog entry. Both flights here went very smoothly. I met two other girls in the Heathrow airport who were also going to Haifa. When we landed, the three of us braved the train to Haifa and then a taxi up the university. This was no small feat with all of our luggage, but we managed. When we arrived at the University, we were met by Ofrit who is a Madrichah. Madrichim are Haifa’s equivalent of Vassar’s student fellows, except they to much [View Full Entry]

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Test Entry! Leaving for Israel in 8 days! [View Full Entry]

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