The following weekend after Jerusalem, I had made plans to go to a rock climbing festival. The climbing festival, Festipus, was located in Ein Prat (a Nature Reserve). Elliot and I met up with Brian and Madeline (from the Be'er Sheva ITF program) in Tel Aviv on Thursday. They rented a car and we took a bus to Tel Aviv. They picked us up there and then we headed to a rock gym right outside of Tel Aviv. Madeline and I needed to buy climbing shoes for...

Our break from school felt very short because of the seminar. School started back up again on Monday (December 17th) and things basically went back to normal. However, the following weekend I went to Jerusalem by myself. I have never traveled alone before in another country and I was a little nervous about it but I ended up having an incredible time. Two of my friends from back home were in Jerusalem at the same time so I really wanted to see them. I staye...

Sorry friends, I know it's been a while! That just means I've been having an amazing time and haven't had time to write! I left off during the conflict. I only want to touch on that briefly because this is a happy post! The conflict ended with a ceasefire after 8 days and since then Israel has been very quiet. I am so glad it ended and that everything has calmed down and gone back to normal. It will be interesting to see what happens during elections (January...

In light of recent events, I would like to address the situation in Israel right now. This is a brief recap before explaining how everything impacts me. Five days ago an anti-tank missile sent from Gaza hit an IDF (Israel Defense Forces) jeep and injured four soldiers. In the following days there continued to be attacks from Gaza into Southern Israel. This led Israel to protect its citizens by having the IDF attack terrorist groups in Gaza. Specifically, Israel...

Earlier this week we went on our second seminar. Through our program organizer, Israel Pathways, we have 8 seminars throughout our 10 months in Israel. These seminars are in different cities all over Israel and generally have a specific theme for each one. This one in Jerusalem was on Israeli Society. We started off our seminar on Sunday by going to Givat Chaviva, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting peace and collaboration between divided communit...