Greetings from Israel!

Hello from Israel!  To all the parents who have been checking this blog to see how we are all doing, don't worry, we are great! Between the arrival, activities, and celebration of Shabbat this past weekend, we could not get to a computer to write to all of you and let you know how we are doing.  So we guess we'll just start from the beginning.  The first flight was long but meeting everyone was a great thing to do on a long flight because honestly we didn't have anything better to do than talk on a seven and a half hour plane ride.  The multiple days of travel definitely took a toll on our sense of time, it felt like 4 or 5 days not 36 hours.

The flight into Tel Aviv was nice, customs was a breeze and meeting the Israeli soldiers was a great experience to have.  The soldiers are all from different parts of the Israeli army and all have very cool and interesting stories as they all are at different parts of their tours and all have different stories to tell.  The soldier's names are Aviv, Noga, Gal, Chen, and Ya'el.  They are all on vacation from their tours and it's really nice to know that even the people who live here haven't seen it all or done it all.  They are people just like us and like we haven't all seen all of our home states and countries, they haven't seen all of the things there is to see in Israel even though it is their home.  But I digress.  The first place we went to was Ashkelon and it was a great time meeting everyone fully and visiting the town, getting the first real taste of the Israeli lifestyle was a fantastic experience to have.

On Friday, we visited Ceasaria and had our wonderful tour guide, Muki, show us the first of many great places we have seen thus far.  We visited Herod's Palace and learned of the Roman occupation of Israel.  we got to get our first taste of the mediteranian sea since we were able to feel the sand,  smell the air, and hear the water. ramot hamadiv was the next place that we traveled, followed by the memorial garden in zichron yachov. This is the memorial site for Barron Rothschild. It was a beautiful garden that showed how prosperous the area is and is resilient throughout time. We enjoyed a secular shabbat service led by Muki and Jess (a participant on the trip). We had a wonderful dinner that evening. The next day was Shabbat so the entire town was shut down. We were able to take a walking tour of a Druez village which we are currently staying in.

Shabbat ended with Havdalah. We then had a free night in Naharym and were able to bond with one another in the land of Israel. 

Keep checking back for more updates from Bus 1071!