Funny Story- January 30,2014

So lets have story time.....

Jenna was running and stepped on a pine cone and now her ankle is in an ACE bandage. 

The End.

First injury of the trip YAYY!

Homework- January 29, 2014

I've actually started my homework. 

I'm actually not procrastinating. 

I'm actually studying with friends. 

I'm actually doing homework. 

Israel may just have been a miracle for my grades. 

And So It Begins (School that is)- January 29, 2014

I never thought I would be excited for school. I guess it had to happen eventually. I'm not complaining. I'm super excited for school in Israel. Now if you're wondering if I'm going to an Israeli school, you're wrong, but thats okay. EIE has its own schooling program. Its pretty cool actually. All American classes, my normal classes plus three hours of Jewish History, which is amazing and two hours of Hebrew. I've been put in the highest Hebrew class, I'm a little unsure of how I'll do considering everyone in that class are very good speakers. I'm very good at reading and writing and I think I can speak fairly well but if that is not the case, I'll definitely be dropping down. I will be having Hebrew later so further down in this post there will be something about it. 

Right now it is 10:42 and I'm currently in Jewish History with Aaron Gertz. He's one of the coolest and most knowledgeable person I've met so far. He knows so much about Israel and religions. Its such an interesting class, I should probably get back to learning. Or sitting listening to my computer be obnoxious....

Hebrew class may just be my favorite class. I have Eitana as my teacher and I'm in love with this class. Barb and I started out in the second level learning the aleph-bet and we just looked at each other like we knew we were not in the right class. The main Hebrew teacher came in pointed at us and took us to the right class. Which happened to be Eitanas or the highest class with all the fluent speakers and readers. Hebrew is my favorite so far. Its quite wonderful.

So the rest of my classes are interesting. Considering everyone is at different levels for every class. All the classrooms are super duper cold. Its very hard to concentrate with the cold air from the open windows. I can't wait until its warm it'll be so much nicer to walk to class. 

Life in Israel is absolutely wonderful so far. I'm in love.

January 29, 2014

To miss your best friends birthday is a little heartbreaking for both you and them. Today is Bailey Jayne Knowles' seventeenth birthday and I'm very upset that I can't be there to hug her and give her her present. (Which is the greatest present ever) so I wanted to dedicate a post to one if the most important people in my life. 

Bailey,

I miss you tons, you really are like my sister and I'm really sorry I can't be there today but I'm planning on waking you up with a phone call. I know you get to sleep until like nine but this call will be coming in at around 6:30 because you must know how much I love you. My mom is hopefully getting your present to you by the end of the well. I hope you have the greatest birthday of your life (even though I'm not there). Just know you're a wonderful human being and in the words of Peter Pan, "Never say goodbye because saying goodbye means going away and going away means forgetting." I love you! Happy Birthday baby girl!!!!

Holy Orientations Batman: January 27-28, 2014

I don't think I have sat through this many orientations in my life. We had so many in just two days. When arriving at Tzuba we went to the lobby (Belmont) and had the principal and vice principal speak to us about everything. Baruch is the principal and David Solomon (DSol) is the vice principal. They both had some very great things to say. None of those things do I remember though. After that we went to our rooms to unpack, I barely unpacked. I was way too lazy. I love all my roommates. Arianna is from Texas, Ilana is from Ohio, and Rachel is from California. They really pick people that don't live anywhere near me. Its perfectly fine though. The rest of the day is honestly a blur.

The next day was truly a day of Orientations. We got one for services, we got one for Jewish History class, we had one for regular classes, we had a tour of the campus. So much learning. It was crazy. But regardless of that today was truly amazing. I learned the history of the Castle at Tzuba, of which I cannot recite back but I can tell you right now my madrichim did not explain it. Another student, Ben Ross one of my new besties, literally knew everything about it. It was pretty impressive. Its a beautiful castle. So many great pictures taken of it. One is below.

I currently love my teachers from first impressions. I am currently taking US History, Chemistry, English 11, Algebra 2 and an ACT prep course. The required classes that I am taking are Jewish History and Hebrew.
I don't think I've ever been so excited to start school. Even if it is for 11 hours a day.

I must go to bed now because it is 11:40 and I must sleep.
Lilah Tov.

The First Day: January 26, 2014

Arriving in New York,

Lets talk about New York.

First we landed late.2:05. Five minutes after we were supposed to be at orientation. Getting out luggage was easy, but then we find out the airtram is broken and we needed to catch a bus to our terminal. We had to wait about an hour for that bus. In the cold. With two 50 pound bags each until a really nice lady named Deanna helped us get on a bus that wasn't going to our terminal, but she convinced the bus driver to go to Terminal 4 finally. And I don't think I thanked her enough. Should have given her tzedakah. Would have been the perfect opportunity to! Oops. Guess not... Once we got to our terminal we found Robin Kulwin who got us checked in within fifteen minutes of meeting her. When you go to Israel, you get asked a lot of questions before you get your boarding pass. The lady asking me questions seemed like she was nice smiling when I answered questions, asked very nicely but I could definitely tell she was VERY serious. And extremely intimidating. But the lady at the desk that gave me my boarding pass was very sweet.

We ended up missing the majority of orientation and stood outside the door with everyone facing us, getting some pretty awkward looks. I just ended up standing there awkwardly waving at people. They announced our arrival which made things more uncomfortable. 
Going through security at JFK took so long. You know, about 70 people having to go through all at once was pretty bad. We did make our flight though, which wasn't as bad as expected to be honest. So many people were willing to introduce themselves and sit with me during the flight, the whole time we were pretty obnoxiously loud, apparently EIE participants have never been this bad. Oops. We just really like talking, we're meeting new people, having fun, what else can you honestly expect from a group of teenagers. The entire flight was just teenagers being really excited and ready to bond with people they will be with for the next four months. I maybe slept for half an hour the entire flight. But I was totally exhausted and couldn't sleep anymore than that. Maybe the most incredible thing I saw was the orthodox Jews getting up to pray. Its like nothing I've ever seen before and I'm so glad that I did.The views over Israel were incredible and my anxiety and excitement grew with every mile we got closer. Once we finally landed in Tel Aviv, the wait to get off the plane was maybe 15 minutes considering we were all the way in the back. Customs was a pain in the but, then again when isn't it. While waiting in another line, everyone was uncomfortably hot. I was obviously complaining because its my thing but I loved that I wasn't freezing my but off. 
Baggage claim took a while. Lots of baggage for lots of people.
We left baggage claim and went to our buses and thats where the journey truly began in Israel.

(pictures are to follow.)