Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Bus 1107: Welcome to Israel!

Taglit-Birthright Israel - Bus 1107- December 2013 - Day One 

After a very long day/night of traveling, bus 1107 finally arrived in Israel! We got off the plane, got our luggage, exchanged our money from dollars to the Israeli Shekel, and also picked up our rental phones. Then we got straight on the bus and headed 2 hours north to Nof Ginosar, a Kibbutz on the Keneret. While we were on the bus they gave us our first Israeli snack called krembo. Krembo is basically 3 inches of marshmallow on a graham cracker covered in chocolate, yum! 

When we arrived at the kibbutz we had our first Israeli meal of the trip and it was amazing. They had a huge table of hummus, babba ganoush, and many other types of Israeli salads and condiments, which were all delicious. They also had chicken, salmon wrapped in pastry, and spiced lamb patties on a cinnamon stick, it was all so tasty. For dessert I tried a light cake that was layered with coffee flavored whipped cream it was very good. Me and my friends also tried a persimmon which is a tasty fruit that looks like an orange tomato but is very sweet and has a soft texture. 

After dinner the whole group had an orientation to meet everyone, go over the rules, and go over the itinerary for the next day. After the meeting we went to our room which is very cozy, just enough room for 3 small beds and a bathroom. In the bathroom there was a squeegee in the shower but me and my roommates had no idea why. One of my roommates was the first to take a shower and realized that there was nothing to hold the water back in the shower and that you had to actively squeegee to not have a raging flood in the bathroom. Let's just say that I didn't listen to her and didn't actually squeegee while talking my shower and now our bathroom is quite wet...sorry roommates! We finally crawled into bed and tried to set our alarms for the morning but realized that were weren't sure what the local time was because all 5 of our electronic devices had a different time. We decided to call the trip leader to ask him what time it really was. He laughed, told us the time, and then we fell asleep watching some crazy Israeli T.V. show. It was a great first day!

- Olivia Berlin, Junior at Michigan State University 

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