Jerusalem May 23rd, 2006

Well the organized Birthright trip ended yesterday and i'm now back in Jerusalem at my Uncle Motti's place using the internet. Its been such a crazy 10 days. we've done so much! here's a list of some of the highlights:

- clubbing in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv
- Yad Vashem Holocaust museum. was very moving.
- camel riding in the desert. camels are so funny looking!
- planting a tree
- floating in the dead sea
- taking part in an actual archeological dig site
- camping 2 nights, one in a bedouin camp, the other in a campground in the desert
- doing a military exercise the night in the desert with the 7 Israeli's that accompanied us for 5 days
- many hikes all over Israel. one of them included a British geologist informing us of the area which was interesting. another involved getting up at 4am to catch the sunrise atop Massada.
- many discussions and debates with each other and Israeli's about the purpose and history of the state of Israel, the holocaust, moral issues, etc.
-rapelling down a waterfall
-rafting down the Jordan river

I'd say maybe thats about half of what we did! our days were so packed with activities, we were always soo tired, but of course it was worth it. The 7 Israeli's that were with us for 5 days are our age and its just so amazing what different lives they live, having to go to the army for 3 years when they turn 18.

Oron (or Pinto as he's called) is in Shesh Shesh Tesha (669, rescue unit) told us a story for example of how one mission involved helicoptering for 1-2 hours into Gaza (thats alot of gas btw) to save a Palestinian boy who had just been shot by an Israeli soldier just before he was about to throw a molotov cocktail at an Israeli jeep containing 4 people. they saved the boy so thats great, but this kid was about to kill 4 of his friends! and its not like he had any choice in the matter anyway, he is just given orders. Its just crazy how while we're going to univeristy and partying, people our age living in another developped democratic country have to deal with these issues.

Our guide Aviad was awesome too, told some funny stories. one was, apparently, a few years ago he was doing a birthright trip and when they went to the dead sea, 2 people in the group decided it'd be a great idea to have sex in the dead sea. Now its so salty and contains so many minerals and who knows what else that even the smallest cut stings, it would really hurt to pee, and having sex would just be a terrible idea! so the girl comes running out, runs to the medic, says ahh! it burns! and the medic didn't know what to do, so he told her to get a popsicle haha

Any way i could go on, but i'll end here. the highlight of the trip for me i think was the people, met some great friends all over Canada, and just had an amazing fun packed week and a half.

Finally Pictures! although many didn't burn correctly onto CD so i'll only get those when i'm back in Canada and get pics off people's facebooks etc