It's official, as of this morning, I am staying in Haifa for a 2nd semester! I'm quite excited, though a bit scared too. I've been thinking about the decision all weekend and it was kind of driving me insane, so I talked it out with a friend from home this morning and finally it hit me: I do want to stay and study abroad some more. It's too early to come home already; I'd have to leave in only 2 months, meaning my stay would be half over! There's still so much to learn and see and explore, and I'm pumped! [View Full Entry]

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Before we had fully recovered from our week-and-a-half-long adventure in Egypt, we had to start classes. I was still hurting from my stomach bug, so I skipped orientation on Sunday and slept a ridiculous amount, so relieved to be back. It was very comforting to be back at school, with my own bed, my own shower, and my own space. Oh and lots of my own laundry to do, but that had to wait until Tuesday. I went to the orientation “party” Sunday night for the food, and hung out with some friends before crashing back into bed. Monday I skipped [View Full Entry]

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We started our adventure late Thursday night, at the bus station. By ‘we’ I mean myself, Rachel, my suitemate from CT, and Niall, who is Canadian. We took the midnight bus from Haifa to Eilat, and there we met our first hic up. I had thought about buying tickets early but decided to just deal with it at the bus station. Well at the bus station, turned out that we had to buy tickets from the bus driver, and that most of the seats were taken. So I ended up on the floor for half the time, feeling a bit like [View Full Entry]

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There we were, hiking up the black asphalt, as we’d been doing for the last few hours, and it still felt like we were getting no closer to the finish line. We did inch forward bit by bit, but on the 2nd day we moved much slower and everything was more exhausting than it had been 3 minutes ago. So I came back early, and it was the best decision ever! I left early yesterday for Tiberius and we (five friends and me) started hiking south along the sea after finding out there really isn’t a path around the sea, just [View Full Entry]

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Or maybe you're supposed to say "have a very hungry Yom Kippur". I decided to do a quick update as I won't be updating for another 2 weeks, so I thought I'd bring the blog up to speed before heading off on more adventures. Tuesday was a fun field trip, we went back to the Golan area and hiked some. We saw Yodfat, not the most exciting ruins, but at least they didn't have a sound and light show (it's become an inside joke for the Study Tour). After hiking some, we hiked down to a waterfall and swam. The water [View Full Entry]

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After a very long week and long weekend, I am happy to be back on campus. I got back around 5pm yesterday, and have done little but some laundry by hand and had some pita and hummus for dinner. Life is good. Thursday we went to the Ghetto Fighter's Museum, commemorating the people who fought against the Nazis in different ghettos during the Holocaust. It also was a museum about the Holocaust in general, which was interesting but pretty heavy. Friday I walked down to Horev (a shopping area in Haifa) for fresh challah, and then back up the hill (took [View Full Entry]

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It's been a few days so I thought I'd catch you up on the goings-on, but briefly 'cause there's not a ton to tell. I figured I'd upload some pictures and amaze the audience's adoring eyes instead :) Friday I went to the beach with my suite-mate Rachel, our downstairs neighbor and some friends of his. It was so beautiful and so nice out! We left around noon and didn't get back until the sun was beginning to set around 6pm. The beach was not very crowded and had plenty of umbrellas and chairs. We lathered on sunblock and sat for [View Full Entry]

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After many conversations with the silly airline that forgot the little red suitcase, the owner was thrilled to hear that it had finally made its way to Israel. However, it was due to arrive on campus on the day that she would be away and that posed a big problem. If she missed it she would have to trek to Tel Aviv, something she was not looking forward to. And there was a possibility it would arrive but she would not get it until Sunday, another unhappy prospect. So she thought long and hard, as she missed her little red suitcase [View Full Entry]

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Once upon there was a red suitcase made of fabric and plastic, and it lived in a store. It had rollers and two handles, for easy maneuvering. One day, a nice man came in to buy the suitcase, and the travels began. The suitcase saw many different homes and traveled to many different states, even Hawaii! The most exciting adventure for the suitcase was yet to come: a whole semester in Israel. It could not wait. When it was packed with lots of important things and ready to go, it was loaded up in a car for its first flight. The [View Full Entry]

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I tried to update right before leaving Peru but the website went down, so I'll just recap my last week there. I flew to Lima with no problems on Monday, dropped by the ministry to tie up some loose ends and headed to Mira Flores. I met Conrad and Alli there, and we bussed out to Ica that night. It was a long bus ride with some really weird movies showing, but eventually we made it and took a taxi to Wacachina. We stayed at La Casa de Arena Dos, the house of sand two. It was nothing great, but it [View Full Entry]

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