First Day!

Monday January 27 

Front room 

One of the school house

Front room (my bed and kitchen)

Washroom

Back room

rooms

Row of houses 

My view

After a very long flight and a 30-minute bus ride from the airport in Tel- Aviv to Jerusalem we arrived at Kibbutz Tzuba located 15 minutes outside Jerusalem overlooking the Judean Hills!!! Before collecting our bags we all gathered together and said the shehecheyanu, to mark the beginning of our journey on EIE. After that we were given our room assignments! EIE takes over one section of Kibbutz Tzuba. The housing is apartment style, all the buildings are in a row and there are 4 rooms to one building. There are four people to a room; there’s one bathroom, two beds in a back room, a couch bed, and two cots, which are in the main room with a kitchenette.  For the first month I am rooming with three girls, Avi Goldstein who is from New York, Amit Netanel who from San Francisco, and Carmel Huppert from Minnesota.  They are all really nice!  I go to school in class rooms right across from my room so I can just roll out of bed and go to class! Today we were also giving our schedules so this is a typical day for me Sunday through Thursday:

Morning 

7:15- Wake up

7:45- Breakfast

8:15-10:00- Jewish History (Teacher: Aaron)

10:15-1:00- Hebrew (Teacher: Sima)

General Studies

Period 1: 1:05-1:50: Lunch 

Period 2: 1:55-2:40: Math (Teacher: Bonnie Singer)

Period 3: 2:50-3:35: Free Period

Period 4: 3:45-4:30- Free Period

Period 5: 4:40-5:25- Free Period

Period 6: 5:35-6:20- Free Period

Period 7: 6:30-7:15- Biology (Teacher: Graciela) 

Dinner

Evening announcements

11:00- In Rooms

11:30- Lights Out

In Israel Fridays and Saturdays are the weekends. 

The Flight To Israel!

Tuesday January 26, 2014

The day has official come I can’t believe I leave for NFTY EIE today! My tummy hurts and my knees are shaking but I think it is a mix of nerves and excitement! I have two giant rolling duffels, a small carry on duffle, a backpack, a winter jacket, and a pillow pet! I got to the airport and it was just crazy and a bit intimidating. The big group of EIE students and most of their parents were waiting inside the terminal at JFK. All the students dragged their bags into a line to be individually interviewed by El Al staff. They asked me questions such as: do you belong to a temple? What’s on the Passover seder plate? Why are you going to Israel? After that my bags were sent through! Now that all the bags are checked all the students said goodbye to their families and headed off to security, which took awhile to get everyone through. We all met at the gate in which our flight was departing from. As soon as I got to the gate, the first thing that really made me feel like I was going to Israel was seeing the ultra orthodox men who stood by the window and faced the plane. They stood there praying until they were asked to board. Just seeing a variety of different types of ultra orthodox, Jew flying to Israel to visit family, and the crazy loud group of EIE students, all come together on one flight to go to Israel. It is just an amazing feeling! For the flight I sat in row 48 K which is a window seat. In my row I sat with two girls named Hanna London and Jamie Lief. We got two meals on the plane dinner and breakfast and I was lucky enough to have slept for a decent amount of the flight! During the flight, we got yelled at by the flight attendants multiple times to take our seats, not jump over seats, only three people to a row, don’t stand in the aisle, etc. It really felt like I was on a bus going to a NFTY-NEL event.  I am excited to get off the plane and land in Israel for the first time!