In honor of our first Shabbat together in Israel, someone came up with the great idea to have a Shabbatluck! We all dressed nice and brought homemade dishes to the 5th floor of the main building around 8:00pm. A majority of us went and the food consisted of homemade chicken schnitzel, two different quinoa dishes, cheesy mashed potatoes, Israeli salad, fruit salad, rugula, and an apple strudel. It was delicious! There is no better way to bring in Shabbat than with amazing food and friends in Israel.

Shabbat in Israel is unlike anything I've experienced before. In Netanya, shops close around 3 or 4pm on Friday night and do not re-open until Sunday. This means that you have to plan ahead and buy groceries at the shuk or grocery store in order to get you through the weekend. This also means that the whole town is shut down on Saturday. I started my Shabbat with a morning walk with Marisa. We went to go explore and find the bike park nearby. It was about a 20-25 minute walk each way but the park will actually be really nice for rollerblading! After our journey, we went to the beach. The beach was very crowded, most likely because there is nothing else to do on Saturdays. I could definitely get used to this part of the Israeli lifestyle. I enjoy having a relaxing Saturday to go rollerblading, exploring, to the beach, or just to reflect on the past week. I've never really done so before, but it's a nice tradition.

Tomorrow is our first day of training. Our only direction is to meet out front at 7:30am for the bus and then we will go from there. I know that our training is from 10-4 but I have no idea what exactly we are doing. It will be a long day but hopefully a good one. Oh, and tomorrow is also my birthday.