ISRAEL!!!!

It seems that Kara has the covered the photo-posting for out trip, so I'll counter with an overview of the best ten days ever! Sorry it took so long to post this, but there's a lot.

Day 1 -
We arrived in Tel Aviv after flying all night and most of us getting no more than an hour of shut eye. After an orientation at the airport, we loaded the bus that would soon become our home away from home and hit the road.
Our first stop was Independence Hall where we learned about how Israel became a state. From there we went to Rabin Square, where Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated in 1995. We walked around and viewed his memorial, all wishing we were slightly more awake to appreciate it. We then headed south towards our hotel by the Dead Sea.
After a long bus ride, and a stop at the wrong hotel, we arrived at the right hotel which was nicer than anything I had imagined. We had our first Shabbat dinner in Israel and got to know our new friends in the bar/lounge that night. We also got together and did some ice-breaking activities with the group that were a lot more fun than any of us expected. There were 38 people on our bus, and the hotel was a really cool environment to meet everyone.

Day 2 -
Guess what? We overslept. The group was supposed to meet at 1:15, and I conveniently woke up at 1:16. Luckily all we missed was the first ten minutes of lunch and the announcement that today would be a free day at the pool. Score! The hotel had a beautiful pool and we spent the day swimming and talking, playing volleyball and letting Israel feel like America. Saturday night was very similar to the night before with dinner at the hotel, group activities, and hanging out in the bar/lounge. We had a great time and this was clearly everyone's favorite hotel.

Day 3 -
That morning we packed up and left the hotel after being joined by eight israeli soldiers. We drove to Masada and cable-cared up since it was ordered too hot to hike by the Israeli government. Our tour-guide Jacob took us around the ruins and told us the story of the first jewish-roman war that led to the mass suicide that occured there.
After lots of walking and pictures, we cable-cared back down and drove to Ein Gedi National Park. We took a short hike that ended in a refreshing waterfall and natural pool.
The next stop was the Dead Sea, which was arguably my favorite part of the trip. The Dead Sea is the lowest point on earth and because it gets water input from the Jordan River but has no output, water continues to evaporate out of the sea, making it smaller and saltier every year. It's so salty that not only do you float, but the water is amazingly clear since nothing is able to live in it.
After we left the Dead Sea, we got back on the bus and headed for hotel number two of the trip. This one was not as luxurious as the first and was far more religious. The hotel catered to orthodox Jews and consequently had a dress code and a very quiet atmosphere, making us all feel a little out of place. With no bar/lounge to spoil us, we spent the evenings at this hotel hanging out outside.

Day 4 -
On Monday morning we did a hike through Nachal Hatzbani, which I enjoyed much more than I thought I would. This began the series of hikes that caused Kara and I to reazlize we secretly love hiking. Hatzbani was a wet hike, meaning we hiked in the shade along a stream. What's not to like?
After that, we drove to the Israel-Lebanon Border and were spoken to by a really interesting man who made Aliyah at the age of 22 from Cleveland, Ohio to support Israel. He spoke to us mainly about the whole "land for peace" conflict and his views on it. His opinion was that land for peace will only show weakness in the Jewish people and that all of Israel belonged to us. His talk was of course one-sided, but it was interesting to hear how passionate he was about the subject and how strongly he felt about Israel.
We finished the border tour early, so instead of having two hours of down time, we went on a water hike! We walked through a thigh-deep river, and then climbed up a waterfall. This was the second hike that I really didn't want to go on, and ended up loving.
After the unscheduled hike, we went mini-jeeping! We sat 3 or 5 to a jeep and took turns driving along the off-road tracks set up by the place that rents the jeeps. We had a pit-stop on top of a mountain overlooking the Golan region, and then another stop by a river. Unfortunately, I was too short to reach to fully accelerate the jeep when it was my turn to drive. Kara helped by flooring it for me. I yelled and got out of the driver's seat. All in all it was an awesome day.
That night, we had our first "night out" in Tiberias. We went out for a traditional "American" dinner, which consisted of spagetti, rice, pizza, french fries, hummus, and some kind of fish. It was just like home...sort of. After dinner we went to a bar that was owned by a friend of our gunman Idan, which was cleared out just for us. We had one drink, and then walked around the shops on the boardwalk. Kara and I bought skirts and Kara got a necklace.

Day 5 -
On Tuesday we went to Tzfat. We took a short tour around the city, seeing old temples and such, also meeting a Kabbalistic artist who spoke to us about the Kabbalah and how awesome it is. If you had to picture an orthodox jewish hippie, this was him. A lot of people bought art from him, and then we had time for lunch and shopping. We got lunch from this (Yemenese?)(Yemenite?)(someone from Yemen) guy who made us the most delicious something of the day. And no, I don't have any idea what it is was. We walked around Tzfat and I bought a star of david necklace, Kara bought an IDF (Israeli Defense Force) shirt for Joe, and we bought matching key chains as well.
After Tzfat we went kayaking. They weren't so much kayaks as they were kayak shaped rafts, and it wasnt so much kayaking as it was floating down the river, but it was still really fun and refreshing.

Day 6 -
Today we hiked Golan Heights. The area we hiked was once a war zone (like two years ago) and we saw a few old military houses in the begining. As we hiked, we passed by several rocks that were covered with old chewing gum. Our Israeli soldiers informed us that that's the solder's way of leaving their mark, to say "IDF was here". We viewed Devorah waterfall, which was beautiful, and then hiked a steep incline back to the bus.
The bus drove us to the Golan Heights winery where we watched a video and took a tour, learning how they make their wine. We then had wine-tasting! We tasted a white wine, a merlot, and a white dessert wine before having the opportunity to shop around. Of course we didn't leave without buying a bottle for Mom and Dad, one for Joe's dad and Hinda, and then one for ourselves.
We then got back on the bus for 5, yes 5, hours. We drove South to a Bedouin camp where we would experience Bedouin hospitality. We ate a traditional Bedouin dinner, consisting of rice and shredded lamb (or beef) to be eaten with pita bread and hummus. It was my favorite meal of the whole trip. After dinner there were natives drumming and tourists dancing, and when that died down our group had a bonfire by our tents. Everyone danced around and sang hebrew songs I didn't know I knew, drinking the wine we bought that afternoon and having an awesome time.

Day 7 -
We awoke to the unhappy sounds of the camels we would be riding. Kara and I shared a camel and took a short ride through the desert. After camel riding, we hiked Ein Ovdat in the Negev. This was the hike I dreaded the most, but loved more than anything. I got off the bus with an "are you kidding me? we have to do ANOTHER hike?" attitude, and ended thinking it was amazing. We basically hiked across the Negev to a waterfall in the middle of a canyon, and then hiked to the top of that canyon. The height at the end was awesome and made me realize how much I actually love hiking and that the difficulty of it was all in my head. Believe it or not, this was one of my favorite parts of the whole trip.
Next we visited the home/museum of Ben Gurion, the former leader of Israel. This was interesting, but probably not my favorite thing we saw (hence I have less to say about it). We then visited his grave and simultaneously said goodbye to our Israeli soldiers who were only funded to join us for five days.
We got back on the bus and drove to Jerusalem, where we'd be staying for the next three nights. This hotel was more of a hostel that often housed soldiers. It had an outdoor courtyard where we hung out at night and talked to more soldiers who were on a break from the army, doing educational things like Yad Vashem, similar to us. We had a political seminar that night, which was conveniently scheduled for the same day that an Arab man drove a tractor into a public bus in Jerusalem. We learned more about the Israel - Palestine conflict, but this seminar focused more on the current events and poltical side of it than the history, which made it very interesting.

Day 8 -
Friday we visited the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum. We listened to a holocaust survivor and then took a tour of the museum. Our tour was brief, since the entire museum would take about 17 hours to go through, but it was informative, and disturbing, and important, and interesting. I obviously can't say I had fun, but I'm absolutely glad we went and I thought it was a better museum than the one in D.C.
After that we went back to the hotel to change for Shabbat. We had a Shabbat service at the Western Wall, which was cool. They made us sing and dance, and it was fun, but I couldn't help feeling a little inappropriate and rude to those trying to have a quiet, more serious service. We put our notes in the wall and got back on the bus early enough to drive back to the hotel rather than walk.
The night was uneventful since nothing was open, but it was still fun hanging out in the courtyard with everybody and getting to sleep in the next morning.

Day 9 -
Today was Shabbat, so we had a light breakfast at the hotel, and then split off into small groups and went to Israeli homes to have Shabbat lunch. I went with Kara and our friend Sarah to have lunch with a young American couple. They seperately made aliyah and were married in Israel. They were really nice and easy to talk to and we all had a great time. Shabbat lunch hit me like Thanksgiving and I took a nap afterwards.
We pretty much had a free day for the rest of the afternoon, but we couldn't leave the hotel and there wasn't much to incline us to since everything is closed on Saturdays. That night we had a night out in Jerusalem which was wicked fun and definitely one of the high points of the trip.
We went to Ben Yehuda street, a popular place for both tourists and locals. We did some shopping, bought mom and dad a Shabbas menorah we mistook for a Hannukah menorah, and then met up with the group at a bar. Everybody had the choice of taking the bus back at midnight or a cab at 2:00am at their own expense. As expected, no one went to the bus. We went to maybe three different places that night, had some drinks, danced, and had an awesome time. This was the one and only time that I lost Kara on this trip. It was time to go and everyone I asked told me they hadn't seen her in a while. I panicked a little, but luckily our group leader Tamar found her and put her in a cab. I rejoiced when I saw her back at the hotel.

Day 10 -
That morning we went to Har Herzl cemetary, where Jacob tried his best to engage 40 hung-over kids in a lecture about soldier's graves. I've got to give him credit through, he was very informative and tried really hard.
We then had the opportunity to do volunteer work in Jerusalem, a required part of every Birthright trip. We went to a salvation army type place and helped organize things, basically makingthe place look more like a show room and less like a warehouse. Kara saw some art she liked and bought it for 20 shekels (~$6).
Next we took a tour of the southern wall excavations of Temple Mount, which is said to be the holiest site in Jerusalem. From there we went to the Jewish Quarter where we had our last opportunity to shop. Kara and I bought shotglasses and walked around the Old City. We met up with the group at the Western Wall again for anyone who missed their opportunity to touch it Friday night.
The last thing we did in Jerusalem was Hezekia's Tunnel. We walked down this shaft that was created years ago for irrigation when Israel was surrounded by walls and needed some form of underground transport for water. It was a small tunnel, only big enough for single file, pitch dark, and had water that went as high as my thighs (your knees). This was another one of my favorite activities. Kara had our flashlight and I wasn't with her, so feeling my way through the tunnel in the dark was really cool.
We then left Jerusalem and headed in the direction of Tel Aviv. Our hotel was just outside of the city, and it wasn't so much a hotel as it was a former school turned into a hostel. It was pretty empty though, so I think we were the only people staying there which was cool. We had our very last sharing session (I've left out the details of our daily "sit in a circle and talk about our feelings" activities). Tamar bought us wine with the last of the trip money and we had our farewell party there at the hotel. A few of the guys from the trip had a room with access to this rooftop terrace area, so we hung out there, smoked hookah, took pictures and spent our last night in Israel well.

Day 11- -
The rest of the story occurred as you would imagine. We went to the airport, said our goodbyes, got on the plane and came back to the States. Mom and Dad picked us up, dropped Kara off, and brought me home where I subesquently passed out.

All in all it was an amazing trip. I really can't say enough about it other than that everyone should do it. I could go on about how it changed me as a person and caused me to identify with Judaism more and all that, but you really just need to experience it for yourself. If you haven't been there yet, all I can say is go.