Tours, tours and a few more tours...

Shalom Friends and Family,

I would first like to apologize for the lack of blogging. Orientation week has been extremely busy and my free time has been quite limited. As a supplement for the lack of blogging this entry will be quite detailed and long! So it begins...

The beginning of the week began with conversations with the NYU Tel Aviv staff about expectations and goals for the term abroad. The conversation was a good way to get to know the people that I am living with for the next few months. So far, everyone is sababa (awesome/excellent in hebrew). We are all getting along extremely well and the group dynamic is great. More on this later. Anyway, here's just a little, mini list of some of the wonderful things that we have done this week in Tel Aviv:

-Tour of Ben Gurion's private home

-Tour of Tel Aviv University (we have access to their library for academic use....for those of you who are wondering, Israeli libraries are just as boring as American ones)

-Dinner with our Professors at the Port in Tel Aviv(free wine on NYU, SABABA!)

-Met with the Security Director from the US Consulate to discuss security (dont worry mom, I'm safe, just in case he gave us the number of the Marines here :) )

-Toured Yafo (a part of Tel Aviv or separate city depending on who you ask, the tour was really interesting, we had both a Jewish and Arab tour guide who gave us different stories, from different point of views, about the history of the city)

-Asaf Avidan concert (you tube him, it was a good night)

-Watched a sunset on top of the Azireli Tower, one of the tallest buildings in Tel Aviv, we had the privilege of hanging out on the Heli-pad, and relaxing while the sun set

So, in a nut shell that was a recap of my first week in Tel Aviv. Most of the nights, we went out as a group. The night life here is pretty fun. There are lots of bars and clubs and cafes and there are always people out and about. Dont worry, I'm not drinking, thats illegal! ;)

As the first week in Tel Aviv came to an end, we all got on a bus and drove to Jerusalem for a three day excursion in the holiest and most controversial cities in the entire world. For me, it was a some what of a home-coming. The last time I had been in Jerusalem was on the March of the Living with BBYO and I had waited 4years to return and finally I was back. Going back to the Kotel again was an incredible experience, especially because we went on Shabbat. Here is a brief list of things that we did while in Jerusalem:

-Tour of Har Herzl (place where Theodore Herzl and many other important Israeli figures are buried) and the military cemetery

-Tour of Katamon neighborhood (this is what they call the projects of Jerusalem, this tour was more for academic purpose to bring up a controversial discussion later)

-Group Shabbat dinner

-Visit the Kotel

Toured the city of David

Toured the Old City and the holy sites (this included the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, as a first time visitor this was an extremely interesting aspect of the tour, the atmosphere was indescribable, no matter what religion every person should visit this holy site)

-Sound an Light Show at the David Citadel(awesome.)

-Ir Amim tour of the Security Barrier and East Jerusalem, this was by far the most incredible and moving part of entire weekend in Jerusalem. I will dedicate a separate post to this topic tomorrow. Check back

-Tour of the Knesset(Israeli Parliament)

Again, in a nutshell this was Jerusalem. I will most definitely return to Jerusalem many times before this term is over.

As you can tell, this week was pretty packed with lots of different activities. Overall, I enjoyed most of the tours around Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. The best part of all of this was being able to get to know the people that are on my program, so far so good!

Anyway, last night I went to an American sports bar called Mikes on the beach to watch the football games. All I have to say is J-E-T-S! The bar was really nice, just like a little slice of America in Israel, the chicken fingers were delicious.

Today we started classes, more detail on these to come as dinner is being served in a few minutes and I am starving! Just know that the classes are really good and I am looking forward to the rest of the academic term...

I will try to write on a more regular basis, I apologize to those of you, like Danny Silver, who dont have patience for my sporadic posts. I hope everyone who reads this is doing well!