By Mitchell Himmel & Emily Franklin Peiper
After a fun filled night out in Tel Aviv and roughly 4 hours of sleep, we woke up to a beautiful breakfast at our hotel in Natanya, which overlooked the Mediterranean Sea. We the loaded up the bus and hit the road, heading to Rabin Square, which is where Yitzhak Rabin’s Memorial is located. At the Square, we learned about Yitzhak Rabin and the political ideals he exemplified, as well as his tragic death. We were given an assignment to talk to locals about this great man. The locals knew the exact date and the place they were when they heard the news of Rabin’s Death.
From there we headed to the old city of Jaffa for lunch and shopping in the shook. Before we headed in to shop and eat, we were all given a “Secret Moses” for which we were supposed to buy a present for. For lunch we went with a few people to a place that serves only hummus and pita. Never did I think I would ever eat just hummus and pita as a meal, but we did and it really was the best. After lunch we went through the shook and practiced out bargaining skills, which were not so up to par, but luckily they didn’t need to be since shop owners would do anything to sell to taglit.
We met up as a group a few hours later and began a tour of the old city of Jaffa. The most interesting portion of this tour was looking at the beautiful panoramic view of the Mediteranian Sea. Our tour tour guide, Daniel told us a story about a sea monster that, according to greek mythology used to come on land and terrorize the city every day until the town offered up the princess of the city and the monster stopped his rampage.
After our tour of Jaffa and the shoreline, we headed over to the barren desert of the south to spend the night in Bedouin tents, a huge change from the city high rises of Tel Aviv. Once there, we put our bags in our designated tents on our oh-so-cozy cots accompanied by luxury communal showers and one ply toilet paper. We were greeted with coffee from a Bedouin and learned about his life and culture, then proceeded to a communal dinner of one large pot of rice, chicken, laffa, hummus, tahini, and Israeli salad to be shared by four people. Dinner was followed by authentic Bedouin tea and cookies which were really really tasty.
After dinner we took advantage of the scenery and walked 5 minutes outside of the camp. Our group gathered into a circle (in the FREEZING COLD weather) and looked up at the stars in awe and silence. At this time we reflected on the past 8 days of our Israel trip, as we are starting to realize that it is coming to an end.
We walked back into our Bedouin camp and were welcomed by a camp fire. At the fire we exchanged our thoughts an highlights about the trip. The conversation was filled with nostalgic stories and followed by our exchange of out “secret moses” gifts. Following our group “goodbye” session, the girls split off for some girl talk and the guys for some bonding time. The day ended with funny stories and priceless bonding time that we will most definitely never forget!
After a fun filled night out in Tel Aviv and roughly 4 hours of sleep, we woke up to a beautiful breakfast at our hotel in Natanya, which overlooked the Mediterranean Sea. We the loaded up the bus and hit the road, heading to Rabin Square, which is where Yitzhak Rabin’s Memorial is located. At the Square, we learned about Yitzhak Rabin and the political ideals he exemplified, as well as his tragic death. We were given an assignment to talk to locals about this great man. The locals knew the exact date and the place they were when they heard the news of Rabin’s Death.
From there we headed to the old city of Jaffa for lunch and shopping in the shook. Before we headed in to shop and eat, we were all given a “Secret Moses” for which we were supposed to buy a present for. For lunch we went with a few people to a place that serves only hummus and pita. Never did I think I would ever eat just hummus and pita as a meal, but we did and it really was the best. After lunch we went through the shook and practiced out bargaining skills, which were not so up to par, but luckily they didn’t need to be since shop owners would do anything to sell to taglit.
We met up as a group a few hours later and began a tour of the old city of Jaffa. The most interesting portion of this tour was looking at the beautiful panoramic view of the Mediteranian Sea. Our tour tour guide, Daniel told us a story about a sea monster that, according to greek mythology used to come on land and terrorize the city every day until the town offered up the princess of the city and the monster stopped his rampage.
After our tour of Jaffa and the shoreline, we headed over to the barren desert of the south to spend the night in Bedouin tents, a huge change from the city high rises of Tel Aviv. Once there, we put our bags in our designated tents on our oh-so-cozy cots accompanied by luxury communal showers and one ply toilet paper. We were greeted with coffee from a Bedouin and learned about his life and culture, then proceeded to a communal dinner of one large pot of rice, chicken, laffa, hummus, tahini, and Israeli salad to be shared by four people. Dinner was followed by authentic Bedouin tea and cookies which were really really tasty.
After dinner we took advantage of the scenery and walked 5 minutes outside of the camp. Our group gathered into a circle (in the FREEZING COLD weather) and looked up at the stars in awe and silence. At this time we reflected on the past 8 days of our Israel trip, as we are starting to realize that it is coming to an end.
We walked back into our Bedouin camp and were welcomed by a camp fire. At the fire we exchanged our thoughts an highlights about the trip. The conversation was filled with nostalgic stories and followed by our exchange of out “secret moses” gifts. Following our group “goodbye” session, the girls split off for some girl talk and the guys for some bonding time. The day ended with funny stories and priceless bonding time that we will most definitely never forget!
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