Food Vs. Food

1:30- Lunchtime
Today, instead of taking a nap during lunch, I went to help out at the local  soup kitchen.  The soup kitchen is in a great location because it over looks the kotel and when you walk inside, it looks pretty nice and clean, almost like a restaurant.  Everyday, a different group of girls go to help out so today I went with my friends Rachel and Rachelle.  When we walked in, we went straight to the kitchen in the back to start helping out.  We put our bags down on the side and go to work.  First we put pots of soup on every table.  Then we made up plates with meat, potatoes, vegetables, and a plum.  The women were served first and then the men stood on line at the window to get their food.  After everyone was served, people were allowed to come back for seconds.  Everybody there seemed so grateful and wished us a happy new year.  It was a great way to spend my lunch and I'm looking forward to going again in two Mondays.

4:15- Break in between classes
My friend Melissa and I were hungry so we decided to go to the little store down the block called Sammi's to get something to eat.  I wanted to get wafers because we had meat for lunch and they were pareve.  We saw a bunch of different wafer flavors like lemon, coffee, and vanilla, but then we saw a big box of chocolate covered wafers and we knew that we had to get them.  We bought the box, brought it back with us, and when we looked inside, there were so many more wafers than we expected.  There were four packages inside of about 20 wafers each so we each had two packages.  We started eating wafers but then stopped after 5 or 6 because class was about to start.  Everyone started asking us for wafers but we didn't really want to give them any.  Then a bunch of things happened all at once.  Melissa and I started getting really hyper, our box of wafers was "stolen" and hidden from us, and class started.  Basically we were kinda going crazy which was lots of fun.  We eventually stopped ourselves from laughing, got through the class, and got our wafers back, and all was good... Until Melissa had control of the box and wouldn't give it to me until I gave her back her shoe, (yes, I stole her shoe, but that was only because she put her foot on my lap) but in the very end, everyone got back what was theirs and we were all happy.  Shalom V'lehitraot!

P.S. The answer to the title reference question was 'Friends'

The Beach!

Yesterday 12:30- Announcements
"Blah, blah, blah, something, something, something... oh, and we're taking you to the beach today!"

Yeah, so they took us to the beach yesterday and it was so awesome! We got on the bus at 2:00 after we ate lunch and I put on sun tan lotion as we waited for the buses to leave.  The ride was about an hour and a half, and of course I slept through most of it.  When we got to the beach, I went right into the water.  The water in the Mediterranean Sea was beautiful.  It was so clean and the temperature was amazingly warm.  The water is very shallow and doesn't really go past your knees closer to the shore.  You have to go really far out in order for it to be about shoulder height, which is good enough to swim in.  I brought my goggles and I swam about a hundred strokes.  It's actually much harder to swim in the sea than in the ocean in NY.  The tide is very strong and only wants to pull you to the shore so swimming across it requires a lot of effort.  I stayed in the water for over an hour, swimming and hanging out with my friends.
When we decided to go back to shore, everyone gathered around in a circle and a few people who brought their guitars began to play and we all started singing.  It was kinda late by the time our dinner came, so when we saw the pizza show up, everyone was so excited to eat and most of us ate at least three slices. We stayed on the beach for a little bit longer and we left at around 9:00.  On the bus ride home, the two girls behind me were singing the entire time.  It was actually very funny because they both didn't really have such good voices and the songs they were singing were just funny.  When we got back to the dorms, I was too tired to run like everybody else did to the showers so I had to wait a while before I could get all of the sand out.  I went to sleep early, at like 11:30 and I hope I will get to do the same tonight.
I know I don't talk much about my classes, but this stuff is just so much more interesting to write about it.  Don't worry though, some day I'll get around to talking about it. Until then, I hope you enjoy what I've written so far.  Shalom V'lehitraot!

The One with 3 Parts

Part 1 of this post is really exciting because it is my first of hopefully many video posts!
Check out the link on you tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbAZVf35vI0

Part 2: Tonight's Adventure!
My friends Giselle and I went to go see our friends in Shalavim, Penina and Ariella, since Mondays we have the night off.  We took the #19 bus to get there.  I was really excited because I found out that I could get a kid's bus pass since I'm under 18 and I could ride the bus for about half the price, so I bought 20 rides.  When Giselle and I got to the bus stop, Ariella and Penina were there waiting for us and then we went to go check out their dorms.  Their dorms are so nice compared to ours, it's like living they're living in a hotel.  Anyway, we then went to the mall.  To get to the mall, you have to walk down over 300 steps.  About half way down the stairs there is this huge dog that barks at you when you pass by.  It was dark outside so the first time we passed the house, the dog just jumped on the fence and started barking like crazy.  I couldn't really see anything and I basically jumped because I was so surprised.
Once we got to the mall I was so hungry because I hadn't eaten dinner.  Penina and I went to go get pizza, and Giselle and Ariella went to get meat. After I had a huge slice of pizza, I was still hungry so Penina took me to a bakery and 'forced' me to get a huge donut... which was sooooo good! When we met back up with Giselle and Ariella, Giselle started telling us this story about some random guy who just came up to her and asked her how old she was.  It was really weird and we decided that it was probably some bet that he made with his friends.  At about 10:00 Giselle and I decided it was time to go home, so we had to walk back up all those stairs, past the crazy dog, and up to the bus stop.  We got on the bus and weren't exactly sure where to get off.  We got off at the stop that we thought was ours but then we weren't exactly sure where we were.  After asking a few people where to go, we finally figured it out.  On the walk home, we walked into a huge group of soldiers who were also walking in the same direction as us, so far a good part of the way home, it was like we had our own little army surrounding us.

Part 3: I don't often write anything philosophical or thought provoking on my blog but I thought I might share a thought I had with you.  I'm in Israel. It's crazy, i'm in Israel!
I know you know that, and I know it too, but sometimes when you're sitting inside a classroom or in your bed, you kinda forget because you're just comfortable there.  But then you look outside your window and remember, oh I'm not at home... I'm in Israel!
Don't miss me too much! Shalom V'lehitraot!

PS: Anyone get the title reference?

Shabbat in Efrat!

This Friday I woke up kinda late. I woke up at around 8.  I didn't really do much for most of the morning besides for pack, get ready to go, and hang out with my friends.  I had to go out to get a gift and on the way I saw a bunch of people from camp getting lunch so I got lunch with them too. I was supposed to hang out with my friend Melissa (Hi Melissa- see I mentioned you in my blog!) but I ditched her.Don't think she's a loser, cuz she's not.  Anyway, after they left, I went back to my dorm.

I then went with my friend Abigail to Ben Yehuda street because I didn't really have anything else to do.  We walked to the train and got on.  After about 15 minutes Abigail said that she thought we missed our stop.  We checked and we did, so we got off and got on the train to go the other way.  We didn't actually know what stop we were supposed to get off at and we didn't actually know where Ben Yehuda street was so we were kinda just walking around a lot trying to get directions, but following directions from Israelis is not the easiest thing to do.  Then my friend Giselle called me because she was also going to Efrat and she wanted to meet up with me so we could take the bus together. As we were walking towards where I thought Giselle was, we saw the camp people that I had lunch with earlier.  They told me that there was a surprise party for my friend Noga's birthday that was about to happen. I really wanted to go because it was really close but I already told Giselle that I was going to meet up wither her and I didn't know where she was. I eventually gave up looking for her and we decided to meet at Big Apple Pizza which is where Noga's birthday party was happening.   I didn't know where that was either but I happened to see Brenda and she knew where to go so she started walking with us.  As we were walking, I happened to look across the street and I saw Renna and Ali.  I was so excited to see them that we stopped walking and crossed the street to say hi.  I kinda felt bad, but I think that this was the point where Abigail left me to figure out where to go by herself.  Brenda and I finally got to Big Apple Pizza just in time to say 'Surprise!' as Noga walked in. It was so much fun because almost all of my camp friends and school friends who were in Israel were there.  

I had to leave after about 15 minutes to catch my 2:45 bus.  I went with Giselle and my other friend Miriam on the train to the central bus station at about 2:25.  We got to the bus just in time at 2:45.  I got off the bus at the first Netzach Yerushalayim stop.  I knew that their house number was 63 so I saw that the first number on the block was 22 so I started walking down the street.  But as I walked down the block the numbers were going down.  I walked back to the bus stop and saw a set of stairs going down.  I then realized that I remembered from the last time that I was there, about 7 years ago that you have to go down the stairs to get to the rest of the houses on the block.  Once I realized that I quickly found their house.  When I went inside, everyone was so welcoming.  Yehuda and Millie are the parents, and their kids are Gili, Avihu, Yehonatan, Matanya, Hadar, and Naama.  Savta was there too.  We sat on the couch and talked for a little bit.  They started out speaking to me in English but once they saw that I understood most of the Hebrew and could answer them, then the rest of the Shabbat they spoke Hebrew.  We got ready for Shabbat and then the boys went to shul and the girls stayed home.  Naama took out a deck of cards and asked me if I wanted to play.  I said yes but I didn't know if we knew any of the same games.  Turns out that I knew all of the games that she knew.  Mostly we played president and Hadar kept winning.
Once everyone came home, we sat down to eat.  We had this really good fish and chicken soup.  After the meal, one of Hadar's friends came over and she invited me to go to one of their friend's houses.  I went to their house for a little bit but I came back early at around 11:00 because I was pretty tired.  The next morning I woke up at around 11:00 and I was so surprised that I slept for so long.  After I finished getting dressed, Naama wanted me to play more games with her, so we played Trouble.  We then had lunch and then afterwards everyone went to take a nap.  At around 3:00 Giselle and Miriam came over to hang out.  We were just sitting on the swing outside talking and then both of them fell asleep.  I sat there for a while watching them until they finally woke up.  We talked a little more and then they had to go back to the people that they were staying with.  The rest of shabbat was very relaxing and the family was just hanging out together.
After Shabbat, Avihu was taking Savta home and since she lives near me, he took me back also.  I got back to my dorm at around 9:00 and then went out to eat with my friends.  I was really tired because I didn't get my Shabbat nap so I went to sleep early at around 11:30 which was before either of my roommates were back.  I slept pretty well last night and now it is time for me to go to sleep again.  Shalom V'lehitraot!

My Adventure!

Today I went on an adventure during lunch with my friend Aliza.  Okay, so you have to remember that we have two hours for lunch, from 1:00-3:00.  Sounds like a lot of time right? Not really. We spent the first half hour eating chicken for lunch (and cucumbers, there are always cucumbers, so many cucumbers!)
Then we wanted to explore Jerusalem to see if we could find a place to bike because we're thinking of renting bikes.  I heard that there was a park near the central bus station which is about a 15 minute train ride/ hour walk.  We decided to take the train there so we walked the 15 minutes it takes to get to the train.  We thought we might walk for a little bit since we had so much time but we saw the train coming around the corner so we decided to take it.  We got on the train and then realized that we didn't exactly know where the park was or what it was even called.  We were wondering how to say park and bicycle in Hebrew, when a nice lady realized what we were talking about and kinda told us how to get there.
We got off the train at our stop at around 2:00 and began walking in the direction that she told us to walk in.  We had to ask for directions a couple more times because we really had no idea where we were going.  But after about 15 minutes of wandering around, we finally found it. At first glance it just looked like a soccer field where a bunch of yeshivah boys were playing soccer, but then we saw a little path and decided to follow it thinking that it would make a little circle around the field.  We walked up the path and saw that there was so much more to the park but we would still be able to follow the path around.  Still walking 15 minutes later, we realized that the park was much bigger than we thought and we still hadn't quite gone all the way around it.  We finally came back to the beginning at around 2:30 and decided that we had enough time to go to the shuk and the walk back for class.  Now it was a very hot day outside and we had just done all that walking and yet we still decided to walk a little more.  We walked a little of the way down the shuk smelling the amazing smells and looking at how cheap the prices of fruit were and then we decided to go back.  We realized we didn't have much time to get back to school so we decided to take the train... and there it was at the stop a block ahead of us.  We ran like crazy to catch the train in the boiling hot sun... and we made it!  We took the train back to our stop, walked/ jogged to our school, and made it just in time for class.  Yes, we were quite sweaty but, we had our adventure, did some exploring, and even made it to class on time in under and hour and a half. More explorations coming soon.  Shalom V'lehitraot!

My Schedule!

So, I'm kinda running out of things to write because I'm basically in  class for most of the time now and I don't know how interesting that is for you because it isn't really anything new about my Israeli experience.  All requests and questions about things that you want to know are welcome.  I did have one request to talk more about my teachers, so I guess for now I'll do that.  This is my weekly schedule in case it got a little messed up in my previous blog posts. 
Sunday
Gemara with Rav Avigdor- He's a little boring and goes through the material really fast but the topics that we learn are interesting.
Machshava with Miriam Wolf- She's pretty funny but can also get a little boring, but the topic and also her style of teaching are interesting.
Contemporary Halacha with Rav Bailey- He's the awesome one.
Torah and Psychology with Rav Krengel- He teaches some pretty advanced stuff and is kinda boring.
Hilchot Shabbat with Rav Berg- He reminds me a little bit of Rabbi Gez from Flatbush. 
Topics in the Mishneh Torah with Rav Horn- He reminds me a little bit of Rabbi Gober from Flatbush because he's very philosophical but on the other hand his class is also very chilled out.

Monday
Bekiut Torah with Rav Milstone- He is so funny!
Chumash Biyun with Rav Yonatan- He's pretty chilled out and can be pretty funny sometimes and his class is hard and challenging but really interesting.
Taamei HaMikra with Tanya- This is a really fun class and she always makes sure we understand everything.

Tuesday
Gemara Bekiut (see above)
Drama and Tanach with Devorah Starr- She is so cool and so much fun and is a great teacher.

Wednesday
Gemara Bekiut (see above)
Machshava (see above)
Yearly Calendar with Rav Krengel- Surprisingly, he's much more fun in this class than in the other class I have with him.
Derech Hashem with Rav Ron- He's kinda boring because he just lectures alot, but the topics he teaches are very interesting.
Tehillim of the  Siddur with Rav Bailey- I have the awesome one twice!

Thursday
Bekiut Torah (see above)
Chumash Biyun (see above)
Medical Ethics with Rav Weitzman- Today is wednesday and so it's been a week since I had him so I don't remember who he is... sorry
Hilchot Kashrut with Rav Berg- He's the one who reminds me of Rabbi Gez.
Hilchot Brachot with Judith Fogel- She is so nice and her class is pretty chilled out.

Okay, so that's my schedule for the week.  I know that some of the days seem much shorter/ longer than others but we do other stuff that isn't classes.  I also know that these aren't great descriptions, but they're pretty good for only having each teacher a couple of times.  I'm sure I'll get to know them much better throughout the year.  That's all for now since I'm exhausted. (I always feel tired at night for some reason) Remember, any suggestions are welcome. Shalom V'lehitraot!

Shabbat at the Goldshmidts!

This past Shabbat was the first time that I was out of Jerusalem this year except when coming from the airport. Friday morning, my friend Dalia, who came with me, and I woke up at around 6:30.  We got ready to go, finished doing laundry from the night before, (Oh, yeah, I forgot to tell you that we did laundry for the first time!) and left our dorm at around 8:00.  We walked to the bus stop near Mamilla Mall which is about 15 minutes away and caught a bus the the Central Bus Station.   I was a little nervous about what to do when I got there because it was my first time there but when we got there, I saw that it looked really similar to Penn Station so I felt better.  Anyway, we took the #400 bus to Givat Shmuel to meet my cousin, Avital.  It was about a ten minute walk from the bus stop to her apartment.  When we got to her apartment, the first thing we saw was her motorbike which I thought was so cool.  I know what you're all thinking, but no, we didn't get to ride it.
Once we dropped our stuff off, we took a bus to Tel Aviv.  We walked around for a while, checked out a bunch of little booths with pretty jewelry and other little things, and then we went to eat brunch.  After we ate, we walked down to the beach.  The beach was so pretty.  It was so clean, and the water looked absolutely gorgeous.  We walked around a little more, went to the mall in the center of town and by then Dalia and I, were exhausted so we went back to Avital's apartment.
 At around 5:00 Avital's dad came to pick us up to take us to Karnei Shomron where we would be staying for Shabbat.  When you first walk up the path to their house, the first thing you see on your right is  about ten huge cages with about 50 parrots in them. On the left are a bunch of chairs with a couple of little tables.  This is where we mostly hung out when we weren't eating or sleeping.  So, turns out, the rest of the family doesn't really speak English, so it was challenging, but we managed to have conversations in Hebrew.  Their family has seven people in it.  Chaya and Nachum are the parents, and their kids are Avital, Asaf, Avner, Mati, and Uri.  Oh, and of course there's Savta.  Dinner was really good... but then came the desserts.  Avital makes the most amazing desserts ever and they also eat a whole bunch of other stuff. They are always eating seeds.  Mostly sunflower and watermelon seeds, but by the end of the meal, everyone has a huge pile of shells next to their plate.  They also have a huge bag of gummy stuff which they are always eating from.  That night Dalia and I slept about 10 hours which was really nice.
The next morning we went to shul and came back at around 10:30 which was too early for lunch, so instead they brought out the cakes, seeds, and gummies.  We at lunch at around 1:00 and afterwards everyone went to take a nap.  I only slept for about three hours because I wanted to be able to fall asleep at night too.  When we woke up, we played cards for a little bit and then Avital took us for a walk around the settlement.  It's really such a nice, quiet settlement with about 350 families and basically everyone knows everyone.
After shabbat, we had a light dinner and the went back to our dorms.  We had about a two hour bus ride back to the central bus station.  Once we got there, we met one of our  madrichot who taught us how to take the train.  Lucky for us, since the train is still such a new thing in Jerusalem, it's free. We got back at around midnight and I pretty much went right to sleep.  This is only the beginnings of my travels around Israel.  More adventures to come soon! Shalom V'lehitraot!

The end of my first week!

Tuesday, the middle of the week in Israel is like one of my best days.  In the morning I had my Gemara Bekiut class which is the class I missed on Sunday.  In this class we are going to learn an entire Masechet of Gemara.  The masechet that we're learning is Masechet Megillah.  We learn about a page a day which is so much more than I ever learned in Flatbush.  It's really hard to keep up but I like the challenge.   Next I'm taking Drama in Tanakh.  Basically, we learn drama techniques and apply them to the bible.  Since it was our first day, it was a little slow because we did a lot of intro stuff but out teacher was telling us that it gets much better.  What we started out doing was practicing story telling and we're going to develop it more next week.  Then we had lunch and I didn't sleep because tuesdays we only have 45 minutes for lunch.  All afternoon I have volunteering but it's not starting until after the holidays because that's when all the organizations start their programs.  So we just looked at and talked about all of our options. After dinner, we had some time in the bet midrash so I reviewed what we learned in our gemara class.  At about 10:00 I met up with a bunch of people.  I saw Helene and Sara Lis who go to MMY and I saw Hannah, Noga, and Brenda from Nishmat.  I took Hannah and Noga to get milkshakes and then we went to the square to hang out.  At around 12, I took Brenda, Noga, and Hannah to check out my dorm.  We hung out for a little bit longer but then they had to go back to school and I went to sleep.
Wednesday morning is the same as sunday morning.  I have Gemara Bekiut and Machshava.  My first class after lunch was Yearly Calendar but the teacher didn't come so we had an interesting lesson on the ethics of telling lies/ white lies.  Next I had class called Derech Hashem.  This is basically about the ways of god.  I'm not exactly sure of anything else about it because the first day was mostly an intro.  My last class of the day was called Tehillim of the Siddur.  We're learning about all the pesukim in the Shirei Shel Yom/ Psalms of the Day that are said at the end of prayer.  This class is taught by the same teacher who teaches Contemporary Halacha who is such an amazing teacher.  It doesn't really matter what topic this rabbi teaches, he always makes the class so interesting.  Basically, we break down and analyze the text of every pasuk/ verse.  In our first class we worked on the first two verses.  We had pizza for dinner and then we had an activity.  20 girls went to five different houses of people that work in our school.  I went to our 'house mother's' house which was about a five minute walk away.  We ate cake, we talked, and hung out.  I got back to my dorm at around nine, while the rest of my roommates got back at around eleven because some of the other houses were over a half hour away.  During that time I re-organized all of my shelves and then got an early night's sleep.  It was a little bit of a sad night for my room because one of my roommates had to go home.  The room seems quieter now with her gone.
Thursday mornings are the same as monday mornings.  We had torah Bekiut in the morning.  We were learning the first six chapters getting ready for the test on them as our teacher went around singing, "Thursday is the best day because it is test day!" In the last half hour of the class we took the test.  I'm a little embarrassed because I only got 7/15 right.  I mean I also got some half points here and there and we didn't count the extra credit but it's still pretty sad.  I'm gonna have to try a lot harder for next week.  Then we had Chumash Beiyun.  Not surprisingly, a few people already dropped the class.  Then we had lunch.  After lunch I had Medical Ethics which was really cool.  We were discussing the definition of life.  Dr. Fruchter would be proud to know that I remembered from freshmen year that 'life is the absence of death.' Then I had Hilchot Kashrut, the laws of keeping kosher.  Last I had Hilchot Brachot, the laws of blessings.  The hi-light of my night was meeting one of the Israeli girls, Ranana.  I finally had my first conversation completely in hebrew which was so exciting for me!  She said that I actually had pretty good hebrew!
Anyway, that was my first week of learning.  It's 11:30 now and I'm pretty exhausted so I'm gonna stop typing for now and go to sleep.  Shalom V'lehitraot!

First day of classes!

Sorry about the late post.  The laptop I was using yesterday suddenly just passed away so I was quite sad.  However, today it has been resurrected.  As you can tell from the title, today we had our first day of classes.  The way things work in Israel is that the week starts on Sunday and ends Thursday. It's the weirdest thing.  Every day since I got here, I've been able to wake up by myself at around 7:30.  So I woke up today on time for my classes.  We didn't have our first class today because that's when we got our schedules. Everything on my schedule right now is subject to change. My first class was Machshava, literally translated as thought, but it basically means philosophy. It's a three hour class because for about half the time we're sitting in the bet midrash/ library looking at different sources and then we get together and try to understand them better and connect them.  Then we had lunch for two hours.  After about an hour of lunch I went up to my room to get something but I accidentally laid down on my bed and fell asleep for the other hour.
After lunch I had contemporary halacha.  Basically this class deals with modern day issues and we discuss why or why not we might be allowed to do something.  The rabbi who teachers this class is amazing because he just loves teaching so much and he makes everything so exciting. Next I had torah and psychology which is  basically showing similarities and differences between psychology and the torah.   Last I have hilchot shabbat, or laws of the sabbath.

Since today is Tuesday, I'll also tell you today's schedule.  First we have Torah Bekiut.  In this class we are going to finish the entire torah by the end of the year.  Every week we will do six- eight chapters, some with commentary, and by the end of the year we will have finished.  My second morning class is Chumash Beiyun. This is a class where we will study different topics by taking sources from different rabbis and seeing what they have to say about it.  The lesson and the sources are all in hebrew, and the hebrew of the sources is very complicated, but hopefully this will help me learn more hebrew.
During lunch, I fell asleep again, but this time it was on purpose because the long days are so exhausting.  My next class is Israeli Chavrutot which is learning with an Israeli student, but since the Israeli students don't get here for another month, we just had a Q&A session with one of the teachers.  My next class is called Taamei Hamikra.  We are going to be learning how to properly read the torah with punctuation and the traditional tune.  My last class is given by the head of the school to the entire school.  In theory, this is a very nice idea, however in reality, stuffing over 100 girls in a room that would maybe hold 75 girls at the end of a very long day is not the best idea.  I happened to get a seat in the very back and I have no idea what he class was about.
Monday night is our night off so we didn't have anything after this.  I went out with a couple of friends for icecream and I got Belgian chocolate with rainbow sprinkles in a cone that had chocolate on it.  I wanted to get an early night so I'm probably going to sleep after I sign off at around 11:00.  I miss you all! Shalom V'lehitraot!

First Shabbat in the Midrasha!

Every friday is free for the girls at Midreshet Harova.  Some girls go shopping, others go to visit friends and family.  I started off my day by going to meet the girls going to Migdal Oz who just got off the plane and went to the kotel.  I was so happy to see Ahuva and other friends from camp.  Then I hung out with some of my friends for a few hours and at around one o' clock, I met up with my cousin Avital.  We walked around the Rova, got pizza, and just talked about my new school, her new job, and family back home.  After a while it was time to get ready for shabbat.
We started shabbat at around six o' clock with everyone lighting candles.  As we started to walk down to the kotel to pray, we saw a large group of Israeli soldiers singing in a circle the middle of the main square right outside of the school.  As they saw us walk by, they opened up the circle for us and we joined them.  It was such a cool sight to see a bunch of Israeli soldiers singing in the same circle with a bunch of semianry girls.  When we got to the kotel, the same thing happened.  We joined a group of soldiers who were singing to welcome in the shabbat.
 After we finished praying, we went back to Harova for dinner.  There was salad as usual, chicken soup with croutons, and of course there was chicken.  After dinner, all the girls sat together singing, sharing experiences and pieces of advice until 12:30 in  the morning.  The next day we woke up and went to pray at Yeshivat Hakotel.  We had lunch and then we had free time.  Most girls went to sleep because it was an exhausting week but I stayed up and played cards and bananagrams with the people who were still awake.  We had a cute small activity about shabbat and then we went down to the kotel.  When we came back, we ate dinner and then finished off shabbat with some beautiful songs.
After shabbat, most of us really couldn't decide what to do, so we kinda just hung out for a while but we eventually decided to walk to Emek Refaim.  It was a really nice long walk and when we got there, there were some really nice restaurants.  I was exhausted because I didn't nap, so I went back a little early, around 11:30.  So, that was my first shabbat.
I know you're all thinking," But today is Sunday." Right, so today you get lucky because I'm going to write two posts! The next one will hopefully be up in a little while!

First Thursday!

Today is Thursday and for those of you wondering how I survived... I had bagels for dinner!  The food here is pretty good.  There is always salad at every meal.  Usually there are cucumbers and tomatoes but sometimes there's also lettuce or peppers.  I always have cereal for breakfast along with salad and some cottage cheese.  Lunch is always meat and breakfast, six hours later, is dairy.  I saw Cap'n Crunch in a store today and I was so tempted to buy it, but I wanted to go full out Israeli.
Anyway I'm finally starting to adjust to living in the Rova.  I know how to get from the dorms to the school, I know how to get to the kotel, and I know all the stores that are down the block, like the pizza store, burger's bar, an italian store, marzipan,  and the ice cream shop.
We went on a hike this afternoon which was fun but also pretty tiring. We had to take these huge liter and a half bottles of water, which is like bigger than a bottle of seltzer. We went to Sataf which is in the mountains of Judah where thousands of years ago they grew lots of crops.  At the end of the hike, there was this small tunnel that you had to crouch as low as you could, or crawl through, with a river flowing through it that you could walk through.
The internet still isn't working so I'm still borrowing laptops.  More to come on my class schedule and other stuff!  Shalom V'lehitraot!