Day 11 (May 12) - Yom Yerushalayim

The Dig

The Old City

The City of David

Post for Day 10 (May 11) - by Emma Dorfman-Su

We woke up by hearing Miss Blakemore knocking on the door. After breakfast, we loaded up the bus and drove to the old city of David. We watched a short 3D movie about David’s city, and then we walked in Hezkiyahu’s water tunnel. The water was flowing and it…was…Awesome!!! After the cool water hike, we were starving, so we drove to get some food in the Old City of Jerusalem. Phillip gave us some questions for our scavenger hunt and we walked around the place looking for answers. Then the people who have never seen the Kotel were blind folded and led to see the Kotel for the first time. I was one of them. The Kotel was amazing!!! Next, we went to an archeological dig for ancient pottery and other cool stuff. We were all tired and we drove back to the hostel and we played football. And now I am sitting and finishing my writing. Thank you everybody for reading.
Emma Dorfman-Su

Post for Day 9 (May 10) - From the Golan to Yerushalayim

Wake up, as usual, was way too early, at around 6:30. As usual, we ate breakfast, then loaded up the bus, and then left for the Syrian border. As is quite common in the Middle East, it was very hot. We visited an old battlefield with trenches and bunkers and various implements of weaponry scattered about. We got to see the inside of a tank, and the bunkers and a military truck. Meanwhile, the bus had a flat tire, which delayed proceedings a bit, but not irreparably. Back on the bus, and our next stop was an electric dam on the Jordanian border, which was right next to a site dedicated to seven girls that had been shot by a Jordanian soldier. The temperature was 109 degrees, and the wind was extremely blustery. Then we went to Bet Alfa, an ancient synagogue with a beautiful floor designed as an exquisite mosaic, and it was still really really windy, and then we slept on the bus on the way to JERUSALEM!!! Our first stop was at an Ethiopian Jew’s house, where she told us her story, how she traveled from her home town in Ethiopia, through Sudan and London, and finally to Israel. After that, we briefly got settled in our hostel in Jerusalem, and finished the day off by shopping on Ben Yehudah Street.

- Sam Clark

Post for May 9 - by Talia

In the morning we went to a kibbutz next to the Lebanese border. There we met and talked with IDF soldiers and handed them food we had previously bought that day. At the kibbutz Eitan, the kibbutz manager, gave us a tour and we had the best cherries ever!!!! We walked through fields and bee hives to get to the Lebanon border. We stopped for lunch at a place overlooking Syria and Lebanon. After lunch we went to De Karina, a chocolate factory, in the Golan where we saw how the chocolate is made and we were able to make our own chocolate and overflowed our boxes. Towards the end of the day we went on a hike and it was a thousand degrees. Bugs were swarming around us and all of us ended up with millions of bites. We finally reached nachal devora which is a waterfall which was infested with bees. Luckily, they weren’t in the part where we were swimming so we were still able to cool down in the water. Some of the class was brave enough to swim over to the waterfall, which was below freezing, (no joke). Sophia lost her shoe, unfortunately and it went down the fall into the bees infested area. Phillip, our tour guide was brave enough to go get it and then we went on our way to kibbutz Gonen where we stayed in cottages with full size Jacuzzis in every cottage. Leaving my mark! Talia