So as you guys know im in Israel for 6 weeks working and learning Hebrew on the Kibbutz Mishmar HaSharon. During this time we have a total of 12 work days and 12 days of learning and every shabat/saturday free to do as we wish along with an additional day. There are a couple of day trips to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv along with a 4 day trip to southern israel and another 4 day trip to northern israel. Afterwards i am going to be here for a few days most likely visiting Jerusalem since we only are spending a day in that city. We will see where i end up for those and who is staying after also to travel with.

The plane flight over was very long with a 10hr layover in London where i was going to see but accidentally went through check and could not get back out so i was stuck in the airport for the entire time. If you follow tennis at all you know that this was during the time of the wimbledon mens final and for the last set(turned out really long) i was sitting in a bar next to a swiss man. It was cool since the final was Federer (Swiss) vs Roddick (US). That along with an old man waking me up and a flight attendant making fun of my long hair summed up my time at the airport and london.

THere are 30 students in the Ulpan program, 2 from turkey, 1 Netherlands,1 swiss and the rest split about equally between England, Canada and the States. It has been interesting to see the different cultures interact as well as the different faiths. On the first day i was the 3rd person here and one was gone so i got to know annie fairly well. It turned out that she is the only other christian on the trip so that was a blessing getting to know her well first off. All the rest are Jewish (vary from most non-religious to slightly religious) and one girl who is neither jewish nor religious. I have been involved in quite a few discussions about religion already and have learned a bit about Judaism and peoples views in general. During these they also ask alot of questions of me since i am in the minority religously, but as before it has been a blessing having another christian around to help and discuss thing with. Everyone minus the three of us non-jews have been here before so they know the area and the sites so they are just visiting mainly for the culture/expereince not necisarrily the sites, but that always interests them still.

Travel here is great and i know im going to be going alot. My first experience with travel was to Netanya (about 15 min by taxi away) and the beach in california has nothing on the mediteranean-amazing and warm water beautiful beaches. But had lots of adventures there since we dont know much hebrew, but we got through it. Best thing was eating a burger, dont realize how good it is till it was gone and was going into withdrawls even being on the kibbutz for only a few days. The food is fairly minimal but it gets us throught the day somehow.

Work generally starts about 6am till noon and either have a free afternoon or everyonce in while a seminar-of which we have had one a couple days ago on the Israel-palestinian conflict. Other than that there was a swine flu with one of the kids from England and an adventure to Haifa this past weekend which i might write about later if i stay unlazy-doubtful.



On the first day i was here i was reading through matthew and had the reminder of 5:13/14 and that struck me about how i needed to act here instead of going along with everything to experience israel as most people visiting the kibbutz are.