Yom Ha'atzmaut

I LOVE ISRAEL SO MUCH. HAPPY 65TH BIRTHDAY ISRAEL <3 <3 <3
In case you were unsure, Yom Ha'atzmaut is Israeli Independence day. There are many street parties and bbqs going on! It is similar to the 4th of July in America.

Rachel, Sydney, & I celebrating Yom Ha'atzmaut in Tel-Aviv!

Lexie

My apartment! 

SPORTS DAY

So we had a Sports day for all of year course. Dani and I ended up just talking on the grass for hours because we had not seen each other in like 3 weeks. But it was a fun day even though I played no sports haha. Our whole section had to wear tie dye as well so that's why we are all wearing it. These are also all my roommates...well except for Kate.

It's a Eurotrip

So I wasn’t really going to blog about my spring break in Europe, but because I’m sitting in the airport waiting for my next flight and I have nothing better to do I decided to blog about it. My friend Yael and I went to Amsterdam for five days and then flew to London for five days. We went to Amsterdam to see my family then we went to London to see Yael’s family. Amsterdam was a fun and small city. It was also really pretty. My family lives near town, so it was easy to get to.  We went to a lot of museums and explored the city.  It was really cold and windy though, so it was hard to be outside for a long period of time.  I really hate the cold, but it was fine because I really liked the city. Just saying I will never live in a place that has a cold climate. I really can’t deal with that…well I guess because I grew up in a warm climate.

Heineken experience

                                       


Then we flew to London…it was also really cold. I mean I didn’t really expect it to be warm. It was a lot colder than Amsterdam…it even snowed a little bit, but not that much. When we got to the airport we took a train then a bus to get to her aunts house. The train ride was an hour and it was really cold on the train. Oh I forgot to mention when we arrived at the airport in London, Yael and I were searched and I’m not talking about a small search. Like they literally opened our suitcases with us there of course and took out each item I had in my suitcase. They opened every single pocket they could find and every little thing I owned. They questioned us for an hour as well. They asked really weird questions like, “How much money is in your bank account?” or “Why are you Israeli?” Yael and I were the only ones they did this too. They claimed they did it to everyone, but I know that was a lie because there was no one there except us. I don’t really know why they searched us though…like I’m not a terrorists and I don’t have drugs or alcohol.  I’m not dumb, why would I hide drugs or alcohol in my suitcase? They also kept Yael’s Israeli passport in Amsterdam…so that was an issue. I don’t know the whole situation was really weird. We were only supposed to be in the airport plus flying time for like three hours but it ended up being a day at the airport thing. So that was really annoying, but what can you do? So anyways once we got to her families house, we called the airport and stuff about her passport….but that went down the drain because no one was helpful. They kept transferring her like five million times….typical. No one knows what they are doing haha. But Yael never got it back anyways. We basically just explored and did some touristy stuff in London. It was fun, but I was just ready to go back to Israel. While I was there, it really hit me in just two short months I have to leave Israel and return to America. I honestly don’t know how I feel about that. I feel like Israel is my true home.

View from the London Eye

Big Ben in the background

First night in Bat Yam

So the night before I left for Amsterdam I had to go to the mall to get a few last minute things.....just a quick trip. The malls like a 10 minute walk through the park so it's pretty nice. It was like around 8 or 9 when I decided to go. Yael and Gaby came with me as we'll because we had to get some food for our apartment. What we thought would take about 45 minutes turned into like a 3 hour trip. It's funny because as we were walking to the mall I don't remember who but either yael or Gaby brought up about when Slava (our Russian goat herder at Yemin orde) said something like, "always remember the experience you have while getting somewhere" I don't remember the exact quote but it was something like that. Ok so anyway we finally get to the mall and we went into a few stores. Then we all walk out of the store and then Gaby walked away. Yael and I thought she went back into the store we had just walked out of for some reason. So Yael and I went to another store for like 5 minutes then we realized we had no idea where Gaby went. We looked for her everywhere but she was no where to be seen. I really don't know why we didn't just call each other but whatever. But we searched like the whole mall then we see Gaby running around and she looked so confused. She went down a level while Yael and I were on the floor above her. So we just watched her freaking out...it was so funny. Yael and I were just laughing at her. We kept screaming her name but she didn't hear us. Finally she saw us laughing at her and she started laughing too. So this was just the beginning of the night. Then, we decided to go to one of the photo booths...well we thought it was a photo booth. After we took the pictures, we realized it was a passport photo booth. haha It was really funny at the time...we felt so dumb though. After that, we went food shopping to pick up a few things. When we were done, we started walking back to our apartment. In order to get back to the apartment, we have to walk through this park again. As we were walking in the park, Gaby noticed her bag ripped. So we all stopped to think for a second and then Yael realized her bag was also ripped. For some weird reason, we all decided to sit down in the middle of the sidewalk....in the middle of the park. We just started laughing and tried to figure out what to do because we did not have any extra plastic bags. Then the most random people who came out of no where decided to sit down with us. We just died laughing because we really had no idea what to say or do. It was the funniest moment ever. They started talking to us and asked if they were invited to our "picnic"...we just started laughing again because it was so weird. Then more of their friends came over and sat with us. So by that time there were like 15 of us sitting in the middle of the sidewalk. Some of them knew english and some did not. I forgot what we all talked about, but we sat with them for a good 30 minutes. In the end, a few of the people said they would give us extra plastic bags they had. They offered to help us carry everything, but we said no thanks. It was just a really weird experience. Something like this would actually never happen in America..........only Israel.