Michigan State Hillel

Day One:
After ten and a half teasing hours on the plane, bus 989 arrived in Tel Aviv, Israel. Following the plane ride, we made our way to Caesara for breakfast on the beach. We heard interesting stories about the reasoning behind why Israeli's were not allowed to go to the circus, and saw an amazing ancient theatre. Every Israeli celebritiy dies to perform at the theatere on the Caesarea beach. After breakfast at the beach, our tour guide, Muki, introduced us to the village and let us roam the city for lunch and shopping on our own. Recollecting at the bus, we rode to the Kibbutz to make our way into our rooms and settle in to our rooms for the next few days.We had time to relax and organize our rooms before dinner. We then did some fun orientation games in order to get to know our fellow group members and break the ice to end the night.

Day Two:
It all started with a hike. Israel's highest mountain, Mt. Meron, brought rocky and tree stump covered paths for the crew to travel across. A couple group team bonding games were played as we made our way through the heat. The views consisted of mountains on top of mountains. Even Israel's neighbor Syria could be seen from one point. Heading into the village, we went to a synagogue and experienced a sauna heat packed group of Israli's swaying flags and dancing. Next, we followed the cobblestone pathway to the glass blower. Watching her as she told her unique story of life and showed us how she makes her pomegranate glass holdings. Continuing, we made our way down several flights of stairs to work on taking trash to a dumpster from a bomb shelter. In order to do this, every person lined up where we passed the trash from person to person down to the dumpster. A nice Israli lady offered us pretzels as we jammed on the grass to some guitar. After helping out the community we went back into the village and visited a synagogue. At this point the tour guide told a historic story about a bomb hitting the temple and cracking it. Despite the bombing, luckily, no one got hurt. Next, we witnessed some candle making where one of the group members received two candles twisted together for her upcoming birthday. There was every animal imagined displayed as wax, along with Noahs arc and even the simple duck. The adventure packed day was continued with some wandering and shopping for lunch. Hopping back into the bus, we went into the beatiful and industrialized town we've been to yet, Tiberias. In Tiberias we did some shopping and caught a little dinner before ending our night.