Fourth Week in Israel

It has been a while since I last posted (I have been so busy!), but I will give a brief overview of everything. Last week was the last week of camp already which was crazy. It was a good last week...the kids started to kind of try to do whatever they wanted, but overall, I really liked my kids and will miss them a lot. The last day of camp, they had big moonbounces outside with water, so the kids loved that. A couple of my campers gave me birthday gifts and cards, and I was definitely sad to say goodbye to them on the last day. A lot of my campers have friended me on facebook (crazy, since they are 9 years old), and now we chat (in Hebrew, which is a challenge) sometimes on there.

We also did a lot of fun things outside of camp last week! We went on a jeep tour all throughout the desert, which had amazing views and lookouts of the Dead Sea. We went on a bike tour around Arad which was fun, although challenging, because my bike was too big and because we went on desert/mountain paths. The guy at the bike shop's only solution for my bike being big was to stretch me... I don't know how well that was going to work. Thursday night, we had a final party for camp at Lior's house. We had a bbq with all the Israeli and American counselors and also did the Israel form of "backstrokes" (where we all got notebooks, opening in the opposite direction of course, and we wrote a little note in each person's book).

Friday we went to Tel Aviv for the weekend! We took a direct bus from Arad (which is great - costs less than $10) and got to Tel Aviv in the morning. The girls stayed in an apartment (basically like a hotel room) on Ben Yehuda Street (2 blocks from the beach!), and after we dropped our stuff there, we went to the Shuk HaCarmel. On Fridays, they have a ton of people selling jewelry and handmade craft things...which we all loved. There were a ton of Americans (from birthright and other groups) there, and I had a feeling that I would run into someone that I knew. Turns out, I ran into a girl in my Hebrew class...so funny. I actually saw her the following day as well. We also had a great lunch of falafel and frozen yogurt. At night, we ate dinner on the beach and watched the sunset (amazing) and had a fun relaxing evening.

Saturday we finally got to sleep in...and then we went to the beach. We had a relaxing day there and at night headed out to dinner with the other girls. We ate at an Italian restaurant (also not kosher), which was delicious. It was funny to be eating Italian food in Israel. Then at night, we celebrated my birthday at midnight and went out to a couple bars around Tel Aviv. When we got back to our apartment, we started talking to the people who were staying next door to us, and turns out, they were doing Kefiada in Beer Sheva. They were all from Montreal...it was so random but fun to meet other Kefiada people. A lot of the major cities in the US have partnerships with cities in Israel...so Kefiada happens all over Israel.

Sunday (my birthday), we woke up and went out for a great breakfast with everyone for my birthday...then shopped around Tel Aviv. We took a bus back to Arad in the afternoon, and when we got back to Arad, we were SO happy to be back. As much as we liked Tel Aviv, we all love Arad and the simplicity of the city. At night, we had cake for my birthday and made dinner for the whole group, and then we went out to celebrate my birthday. It was a fun birthday...hard to believe that I am now 23!

I will update more later....trip to Jerusalem and last few days in Arad! We leave tomorrow night and we are all so sad to leave. It's so hard to believe that 5 weeks has gone by!