I came into the fall semester with very high expectations...

I came into the fall semester with very high expectations and I can happily say my expectations were exceeded. Looking back on my first blog and the goals I set for myself and my fears going into the program I feel like I matured. The fears that I had written about in my first blog including, not being able to speak Hebrew, living in a foreign country, and being away from being away from friends and family for the whole semester.

At the end of the semester I can see they are reasonable fears but Israel isn't a foreign country for me because I have so much family here that are so welcoming also everybody in Israel treats you like family. For me I would say that Israel is not a foreign country but a second home. Being an English speaker was not a problem in Israel its almost everybody’s second language. I also made it a goal to try to get at least small talk down which I feel like I accomplished. My biggest fear was being away from home for eighteen weeks, but being as busy as we were during our semester there wasn't that much time to be homesick. My goals were to make new friends and to connect/build roots with Israel. Both of my goals were accomplished I became friends with everybody at AMHSI. I made so many connections in Israel including meeting a ton of family on open weekend where I was going to a new host every time. Israel studies also did by teaching me the history of Israel and it made me proud to be a Jew and thankful we had the state of Israel. I had an amazing experience at AMHSI semester and anybody considering going should.