Well, I should be doing math or studying Inferno but since you, my faithful readers, are more important to me than circumference or Dante I will write about Israel.
I know I haven't written in a while. I'm sorry about that. It's just that traveling can take it out of a girl. As I write this, I'm currently blowing my nose. Yes I caught the travel bug's mean older brother, the travel cold bug. We really need to start working on a cure for the common cold. Youth of the world, take heed! This is your mission when you grow up.
Okay, anyways...
Last Wednesday my other-trip-of-a-lifetime started. I caught the train after running around Gorizia with Claudia trying to get my permesso di soggiorno. I should've gotten it months ago but the immigration offices never called. Oops. As the train pulled up to the station, my eyes filled with tears as I hugged my new mom goodbye. The reason I believe is because she was going to America a few days after I left and I wouldn't see her until April. Plus, I was a little scared. The Annie scared?! Yes, l'Annie was scared! Because of a small country and the not knowing of what it would bring for her. Did this happen when I left for Italy? Yeah but it was at the airport and I was leaving my family. You try not crying.
I caught the train and then met up with my friend. We took the train to a small town where we would be hosted by one of the guys going to Israel with us. That night the new pope was elected too. I can now say I was in Italy when the pope was elected. If only I could have been at the Vatican.
The next morning we were up at 3 am to drive to Venice. We were meeting everyone else at the airport at 5:30 and our flight for Vienna left at 7:25. We checked in and it was all good. We left and it was raining. We fly into Vienna and it's snowing. Wait it gets even weirder! When we landed in Tel Aviv, it was sunny! Rain, snow, sun. Three different weather conditions in one day.
We headed off to Ben Shemen youth village where the conference would be held and has a relatively quiet night. I met one of my roommates, Myraslava from Ukraine. We spent the night talking and then at 4 am we met our 3rd roommate Derin from Turkey.
Friday was the first day of the conference. In the morning after breakfast we were split into our groups. My group was the youngest group and also the biggest. We were 22 in all. In the morning we did a toast game where we filled small cups with what ever drink we wanted and then we had to explain what our drink represented for leadership. I chose water because a leader should be clear in their actions and levelheaded.
After lunch we headed to a place outside of Tel Aviv for our opening ceremonies. There we found out that there were 21 nations and 140 participants in the conference. Just a few. The Rotary president of the whole world was also there. He's this very sweet Japanese man. I also got a photo with him. Rotary misson complete!
Then we went and had a lecture at Ben Shemen. Our speaker was Gal Lusky, who does all these rescue missions. She's better than the UN. She actually breaks the law sometimes if the people are in danger. She was so inspiring. I've never seen someone with so much courage and selflessness. I want to be her! Later I met my last roommate, Polina from Israel. Originally I though she was from Russia because her last name ended with -ski. No, her parents are.
Saturday we had class in the morning and the afternoon. We mostly played games and talked about the outcomes of each game. Each game was centered on breaking down stereotypes and teaching us that we're all the same regardless of age, gender, religion and such.
Saturday night though was our big night. We all went to Google Tel-Aviv and had a hackathon.
Hackathon
(N) When a group of people get together to make a difference in the world though the use of social networks and the internet.
We all split into different groups based on the ideas of everyone. My group was made up of 5 girls and no guys. Heh, some technical issues there. Still our idea was to make information on countries easier to access for future exchange students and/or young travelers. We came up with this because before we came to Israel we tried looking up information on Israel. All we could come up with though was land, climate, how much rainfall, ect... So we decided that we should make a website for people who want to know about the culture and people of another country. It was a lot of fun. We spent more than 16 hours on our project. Needless to say, I didn't sleep at all and I drank over 5 cups of coffee. During our hackathon we had a wireless headset party. That was amazing. You would take off the headhphones and everyone would be singing to the music! That was a nice break.
From 9:30pm to 11:30am Sunday morning, we slaved over our website. In the end we got it to platform form and we're going to create it soon. We presented our idea to everyone else and almost all the Google employees too. Then we went back to Ben Shemen and crashed.
Monday, we got to go to Jerusalem. Our first stop was the Mormon University. It's a branch of BYU in the states. We watched a video and then listen to an organ concert that overlooked the city. After that we did the big tour of the old city. We started at the city wall and then moved in. We did the same walk Jesus did on the day he died. We ended our tour at the western wall or the wailing wall. My AP text book last year had a picture of the wall on the cover. The only thing they didn't say was that it was gender separated. The males get about 75% of the wall while us females get about 20% of the wall. The other 5% is where the fence is. That ticked me off. I'm not a fan of being squished against people while the males get all the space in the world. I think we should change that. I put my wish in the wall and for the second time in 5 days, I cried. There are no words to describe that wall. It's just so powerful and there's so much magic in it. Or should I say hope?
Later, we drove to Tel Aviv for dinner and two hours of free time. I went to a chocolate bar with Polina and Derin. That was some good chocolate.
The next day was our last full day in Israel. So we went up north to Halfa and took tours of three different places. We went to a holocaust museum, a Christian Kibbutz and then to the Baha'i gardens. The holocaust museum was the saddest thing ever! I've never been to a holocaust museum before so it was the first time. I only got to see a part of the exhibit but I got the point. Seeing all the old propaganda films saying that Jews were rats really got me. It made me sick. Then we saw a movie on three genocides in the last century. Pretty much they were trying to scare us into making peace. I think it worked.
Then we went to the kibbutz. It's right next to the boarder and they have these two towers constructed in the hills to shoot down any missiles. Yeah I felt protected. Since the kibbutz was after lunch we were all a little tired. Plus I think everyone just wanted to steal wifi. Anyways we did the tour of the kibbutz. Yes it was a little boring but also cool. We learned that they bring people from all over the world together. It's always nice to hear about peace going on.
Later we went to the Baha'i gardens. The Baha'i gardens are a holy site for the Baha'i religion. It's where all the documents are and the tomb of the profit. So yeah, big deal. I liked how it was all neo-Roman style
After that we went to Polina's school for our closing ceremonies. We had dinner there and then went into the auditorium for the ceremony. After the ceremonies we watched a musical on Muslim/Jewish relationships through teens. Think Romeo and Juliet but not really.
My last night in Ben Shemen was spent talking with the girls. We learned more about each other and when it came to parting time the next day it was hard to say goodbye.
So now you all know about my Israeli adventure. It was so much fun and I can't believe I got the opportunity to go! I want to go back!
