Friday, July 17, 2009
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
First 2 Weeks of Seminar
Ok so as most of you reading this know (that means my parents, because I don't think many other people actually read this) I don't really have internet access while I work as a counselor on Ramah Seminar. I'm on my first day off in 2 weeks, and it has been MUCH needed! I get about 5 hours of sleep a night and each of my days is about 18 hours long consisting of 3-4 stops each day of hiking and walking around. I hike/walk about 6 km every day. My experience with the kids has been both a positive and negative one: there are some amazing kids out there that impress me tremendously, but unfortunately there are several kids that make me disgusted to be related to them as human beings. I want to ship them off to boot camp until they learn respect and the values of being a good person.
Anyways, let me try and give you a quick summary of what I've been doing...
My first week of Seminar started in the north of Israel, based in an orthodox youth village called Hodayot. The theme of the travels in the north was Borders and Beginnings, where we showed the kids the borders with several countries and showed them different kinds of people living in and around Israel. We traveled all around the Golan Heights and the Galilee, seeing beautiful nature hikes and cool cities. Some of the pretty hikes I've done are in places called Banyas, Gilabon, and Mount Arbel. These were all nature hikes, some being around beautiful waterfalls and hiking in streams (which I always think is very cool). As for Mount Arbel, we hiked up it in order to stand on the top and pray Shacharit (the morning prayers) as the sun rose, which was really a beautiful scene. I know I throw the word beautiful around, but it's one of the best words I can use. Other places we've visited have related to the military here, as it is one of Israel's central focuses. We visited a place called Kfar Giladi where we heard the story of a man named Joseph Trumpledor, who was a Zionist leader and came to live in Israel, saying that if no one cultivated the land up north, countries would simply take it over. He died fighting for what he believed was his homeland, and was quoted as saying "It is good to die for your country." We also visited an old army based overlooking Syria called Har Bental, and we got to run around in all the old trenches in this base. We've also gotten to meet with Israeli Arab teenagers to hear their perspectives on things as well as meeting some Druze people in their village (called Dalit al HaKarmel) to hear their perspectives on Israel.
The second week here we moved ourselves to the base camp in Jerusalem, and have started to travel around this area. We've traveled up to Tel Aviv to see Independence Hall, where Ben Gurion declared the Jewish state of Israel in the middle of a war. We took the kids to a mall where every single place to eat in the mall is strictly kosher, there's a synagogue there, and how this mall completely shuts down on Shabbat...how cool is that??? We've taken them to parts of the Old City, to walk around the ancient towers of the walls of the old city, walking in Hezekiah's water tunnels. We are also exploring the War of Independce of 1948 and seeing some battle sites, such as Castel and San Simon Park. We also got to tour an underground ammunition factory called the Ayalon Institute and we visited the Palmach Museum (the Palmach was basically the beginnings of the Israeli Defense Forces).
Next week begins our 5 days of Etgar (literally meaning Challenge), where I will be one of about 9-10 counselors leading about 70 kids on a 5 day hiking, swimming, biking trip from the Kinneret (on one side of Israel) to the Mediterranean Sea (on the other side of Israel). This trip is commonly known as Yam L'Yam (Sea to Sea). Anyways, my next internet access should be in about 2 weeks, so be prepared for another big update then. Pictures will follow soon hopefully!
Love you all and hoping this finds you well,
Talia
Anyways, let me try and give you a quick summary of what I've been doing...
My first week of Seminar started in the north of Israel, based in an orthodox youth village called Hodayot. The theme of the travels in the north was Borders and Beginnings, where we showed the kids the borders with several countries and showed them different kinds of people living in and around Israel. We traveled all around the Golan Heights and the Galilee, seeing beautiful nature hikes and cool cities. Some of the pretty hikes I've done are in places called Banyas, Gilabon, and Mount Arbel. These were all nature hikes, some being around beautiful waterfalls and hiking in streams (which I always think is very cool). As for Mount Arbel, we hiked up it in order to stand on the top and pray Shacharit (the morning prayers) as the sun rose, which was really a beautiful scene. I know I throw the word beautiful around, but it's one of the best words I can use. Other places we've visited have related to the military here, as it is one of Israel's central focuses. We visited a place called Kfar Giladi where we heard the story of a man named Joseph Trumpledor, who was a Zionist leader and came to live in Israel, saying that if no one cultivated the land up north, countries would simply take it over. He died fighting for what he believed was his homeland, and was quoted as saying "It is good to die for your country." We also visited an old army based overlooking Syria called Har Bental, and we got to run around in all the old trenches in this base. We've also gotten to meet with Israeli Arab teenagers to hear their perspectives on things as well as meeting some Druze people in their village (called Dalit al HaKarmel) to hear their perspectives on Israel.
The second week here we moved ourselves to the base camp in Jerusalem, and have started to travel around this area. We've traveled up to Tel Aviv to see Independence Hall, where Ben Gurion declared the Jewish state of Israel in the middle of a war. We took the kids to a mall where every single place to eat in the mall is strictly kosher, there's a synagogue there, and how this mall completely shuts down on Shabbat...how cool is that??? We've taken them to parts of the Old City, to walk around the ancient towers of the walls of the old city, walking in Hezekiah's water tunnels. We are also exploring the War of Independce of 1948 and seeing some battle sites, such as Castel and San Simon Park. We also got to tour an underground ammunition factory called the Ayalon Institute and we visited the Palmach Museum (the Palmach was basically the beginnings of the Israeli Defense Forces).
Next week begins our 5 days of Etgar (literally meaning Challenge), where I will be one of about 9-10 counselors leading about 70 kids on a 5 day hiking, swimming, biking trip from the Kinneret (on one side of Israel) to the Mediterranean Sea (on the other side of Israel). This trip is commonly known as Yam L'Yam (Sea to Sea). Anyways, my next internet access should be in about 2 weeks, so be prepared for another big update then. Pictures will follow soon hopefully!
Love you all and hoping this finds you well,
Talia
Monday, June 15, 2009
The End and The Beginning
Monday, May 18, 2009
Media vs. Reality
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Pesach break slideshow!
So here are my spring break pictures finally.... After losing many of my pictures to a stupid mistake, I was able to recover most of them and then I borrowed some pictures that friends took. These aren't all of my vacation memories, but here's a small taste so you can see what I did for two weeks!
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Pesach Break Part 2- Greece
Thursday April 9
- in trying to get a cheap flight to Greece for vacation, I ended up booking a flight that had a layover in Riga, LATVIA! (not really realizing how far out of the way that was) so I now have a stamp in my passport saying I went to Latvia!
- arrived in Greece...for some reason without getting a stamp in my passport :( and met up with my friends who were already in Greece
- grabbed an evening ferry to the island of Santorini where we were picked up by the people who ran the hostel we were staying in called Manos Villas, which was very nice (the pickup service and the hostel)
Friday April 10
- after getting a recommendation from Ali about seeing a volcano, and hearing from other people too, we decided to wanted to check out this volcano on a small island off of Santorini called Nea Kameni. In order to get to it, we had to catch a bus from our hostel, take a cable car down to the port, and then hop on a boat going to the island! All very exciting though!
- We were guided around the volcano by the tourguide of the group, and got to hear about how it's still an active volcano and for only something like 1 million US dollars, you can actually buy this volcano!
- After wandering around the volcano for awhile, we hopped back on the boat so they could take us nearby to some hot springs, where we could get out and swim around if we wanted, which of course some of our group wanted to do. We jumped into the Aegean Sea (which was freeeeeezing) and swam to the hot springs, but because it was only April, the hot springs weren't actually hot, but it was still fun.
- that night we went to a late dinner and then out on the town to check out the scene, and it was very touristy was still fun
Saturday April 11
- rented 2 ATVs to share among the 4 of us because we were told it was the best way to get around the island to see all the things we wanted to see
- drove to a black sand beach called Kamari beach and then drove to another beach (with white sand) called Perissa...sadly we ran out of time to see the red sand beach
- grabbed an afternoon ferry to Crete. It was rough seas but we made it pretty quickly because we took a ferry that was a hi-speed Cat.
- arrived at the main port of Crete called Iraklio but we were staying in a city called Rethymno, so we took a bus over there which was 1.5 hrs away and checked into our very crappy but very cheap youth hostel
Sunday April 12
- took a bus back to Iraklio in order to go see this ancient palace called Knossos which was built by the Minoans, where we met up with 2 of our other friends from Israel...we saw lots of ancient ruins, but because so many of the ruins were falling apart so badly, the guy who did lots of the excavations of the site built replicas in its place, so much of what we were seeing were replicas of what he thought the palace used to look like
- then we decided to go see the CretAquarium, which pales in comparison to the New England Aquarium in Boston, but it was still fun to see all the underwater animals
Monday April 13
- the plan for the day was the beach, but the wind was killer, so we decided to visit the Fortezza in Rethymno which was built by the Venetians relatively recently (in the 1500s) to protect against the Turkish threat
- met up with our 2 friends again in Iraklio where we went to the Archaeological Museum, but didn't stay there long because it was terrible and small. It's under many renovations and they are very strict, unlike many museums in the US, about visitors being inside, so it wasn't really pleasant to stay there
- hopped on a 9 pm ferry back to Athens
Tuesday April 14
- grabbed a 730 am ferry back out to Mykonos (I know, going back to Athens was out of the way, but it saved us some money)...and at this point in time, it was now my friend Larissa and I traveling together because our other 2 friends traveled to London for the remainder of the trip
- arrived on Mykonos around 130 pm and was picked up by the place we were staying with (we were staying in a little studio called Studio Eleni, a little 3 person room with only the 2 of us, on a roof, very nice and quaint and relaxing)
- Larissa and I wandered around the city of Chora, where we were staying, for the afternoon and then called it an early night since we were exhausted from not sleeping on the ferries
Wednesday April 15
- went to a small island right off the coast of Mykonos called Delos, where basically the whole island is an archaelogical site/ruins of a city and walked all over the island and up the mountain on the island until the early afternoon
- after cleaning up, Larissa and I went to a local bar on the water in the city/area called Alefkandra to watch the legendary sunset on Mykonos, which was absolutely beautiful and then spent the night dancing away at the clubs together
Thursday April 16
- sat in the sun on the rooftop of our studio since we were leaving relatively early to head back to Athen, leaving on the day that supposedly 10,000 people were arriving to Mykonos
- arrived in the evening to Athens where we checked into a wonderful hostel called Easy Access. It wasn't located in the best part of town, but it was a great hostel otherwise. We met some people in the lounge who showed us to a great place to get gyros right around the corner, and since I finally could eat bread and break Pesach, I was super excited to have my first gyro!
- later that night we met other people, and went out with them to this area called Psiri, which is always cool to learn about other people's stories (we hung out with one of our roommates, a girl from Scotland)
Friday April 17
- One of my favorite days of vacation began with a cheese/cracker lunch in Syntagma Square in Athens, near the Parliament building. Today, if any of you know what the Freedom Trail of Boston is, Larissa and I did the same type of walking trail around Athens. We had a great walking Athens in 1 day book that took us all over the city to see the sites.
- We watched the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, which happens on the hour every hour. It's a very ornate process, but very cool to watch
- Then we walked through the National Gardens, which are very beautiful and made me miss my mom, as she really loves botanical gardens
- We passed by the Panathenaic Stadium, which is built of white marble and used to hold some of the athletic portions of the Olympic Games in ancient times, and in the 2004 Athens games, held the archery competition
- Next we walked through the small streets of an area called Plaka, which is very cute and full of little shops and cafes
- Continuing on, we walked through parts of the ancient agora and saw the Roman Agora and Library of Hadrian
- After that we continued our walking tour by the Temple of Olympian Zeus (well the ruins of it) and by Hadrian's Arch/Gate, which was pretty cool, but it looked out of place standing next to telephone poles
- Finally, we got to the the Acropolis! We saw lots of ancient Greek buildings such as the Dionysos Ancient Theater (which wasn't on the top of the Acropolis but on the slope of it). On the top we saw: the Propylaea which is a gateway to the rest of the buildings, the Temple of Athena Nike, the Parthenon (and from this spot you could also see the St. Georges Church on the Lycavittos hill and the Fetchigie Mosque)...sorry I'm throwing out all these names, I just jotted them down as we went, and you'll see the pictures of them in my slideshow
- Went back to Plaka for dinner and this is where I had my ill-fated accident with my camera and accidentally lost ALL my pictures (and for those of you who missed out on my hysterical email, I did eventually get most of them back, but some I lost to file corruption)
- For our last night in Greece, we met a group of kids from Wake Forrest who were on their break from studying abroad as well, who pulled us into their group and we all went to this really cool ice bar. You couldn't stay in the bar long because it was so cold (they gave us parkas and gloves to wear inside) but then came out and just danced to the great music that was playing. It was really fun to be able to sit on couchs completely made of ice!!
Saturday April 18
- trying to kill some time before going to the airport, Larissa and I went to the big archaelogical museum, where many of the actual statues and paintings of the sites we had been seeing (and seeing the replicas) were.
- also checked out Monastiraki Square, which is a big public area and on Saturdays I guess, they sell lots of cheese!
- finally checked out and went to the airport for a very long trip home (through Latvia again)
And that, folks, is my trip to Greece in a quick nutshell... I know, it doesn't seem like a short blog to you, but let me tell you, I cut out details so as to fit it all here. Here are some other observations I made while traveling abroad:
- Traveling in Europe, or at least on the Euro, is expensive!
- Keeping kosher for Pesach and not eating bread makes it even more expensive because you can't eat the cheap street food
- Greek men are VERY aggressive and slightly creepy
- there is nothing to see or do in the Latvia airport, don't ever go there :)
- Greece is very touristy and loves to play to tourists' expectations, but it's also very pretty if you go for relaxing vacation and for the beaches
Ok ok, I'm done with the typing. Stay tuned for the photo slideshow!!
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Pesach Break Part 1- Netanya
This is WAAAAYY overdue, but I had to hit the ground running after I came home from vacation, so here are my vacation blogs. Also, because there's so much to say (because I did so much) my blogs are going to be in bullet format. If you would like more information on anything I did, feel free to actually email me (what a concept!!!) Pictures will follow in another blog, similar to my Petra photo slideshow.
Friday April 3
Friday April 3
- took a bus to Netanya to spend a few days with my sister Dena and her husband Amit
- had a wonderful Nepalese Shabbat dinner made by Amit's grandmother's caretaker Mina, while being joined by my friend (and Amit's cousin) Abby
Saturday April 4
- went to Tel Aviv at night to join in the celebrations for Tel Aviv's 100th birthday
- met up with Amit's cousin Eitan and his girlfriend Maayan and went to a cute little bar called Backy's where Eitan's friend was a bartender
Sunday April 5
- didn't really do much except run some travel errands with Dena and Amit
- sat on the beach for awhile
Monday April 6
- went Passover food shopping with Dena, only to be severely disappointed
- discovered that most of Israel eats Kitniyot, which I don't, which makes all the food that says Kosher L'Pesach NOT kosher at all!!!! Realized that if I don't eat kitniyot, it's actually easier to celebrate Pesach in the States
Tuesday April 7
- sat on the beach for a few hours, it was beautiful weather!
- Mina made this dinner called Pansaroti, which everyone loves, it was delicious!
Wednesday April 8
- went to Eitan's parents' house in Herzliyya for Seder
- this seder was amazing, tons of amazing food that was kosher for me and Dena (we were the only ones not eating kitniyot)
- surprisingly, almost every guest at this seder was American, but it still made it quite interesting
- it really made me miss my family's seder, and more specifically having all my family together for it
- left for the airport right after Seder to catch my 5 am flight to Greece!
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