Orientation 9/2-9/3

Greetings from Jerusalem!

We made it here safely but not without a hitch...We sat on the tarmac for 2 hrs in Philly since 20 planes were in front of us on the tarmac. SOOO ANNOYING! I slept a bit, but the flight wasn't long enough to get a good amount of sleep. Think about it...I tried to go to sleep at 10pm EST ( sooo early) and we landed at 1:30am EST. I arrived in Amsterdam tired and starving. I basically passed out on the flight from Amsterdam to Tel Aviv. Of course, they showed the same movie on the way to Tel Aviv that they showed on the way to Amsterdam. I am looking forward to flying direct in the winter with individual monitors.

We made it through customs with no problems and found the taxi that took us to our meeting point. Gabrielle and I were the last to arrive since most ppl had been in Israel for some time or had arrived that afternoon on the El Al JFK flight. We made introductions and then hopped on the bus to our youth hostel. The hostel is very nice; there are 4 ppl in the room and there are bunkbeds. I share the room with Gaby and two other girls ( one from LA and the other from CT).

Today was filled with lots of information about how the next 9 months is going to play out. I still can't believe this is going to be my home for awhile; it still feels like I am just vacationing. During the afternoon, we went on a scavenger hunt throughout the city of Jerusalem. Thank goodness two of my team members speak excellent conversational Hebrew. We won the hunt :) I feel completely out of the loop when they converse in Hebrew; I am looking forward to learning conversational Hebrew. Tonight, we had drinks at Ben Yehuda Street and met with our part two coordinators. I will be living in Netivot, which is in Southern Israel. It sounds like a wonderful city (population 30,000). Our apt with have wifi and cable :) I am hoping to work with kids while there as well teaching computer skills/marketing.

Tomorrow night is Shabbat and we are going to the wall. On Sunday AM bright and early, we leave for a hike followed by swimming in the Dead Sea, a camel ride, and sleeping in a bedoiun tent. There really is no time for jet lag! Hopefully, I will be able to write more when we arrive at our part one housing in Ashkelon!