I cannot believe how fast this trip is going! It feels like just yesterday I walked into my dorm for the first time, worrying about making friends. Now I have some of my best friends ever and am totally in love with the state of Israel and HSI. This past week, we had so many amazing tiyuls filled with cave crawling, hot springs, art galleries and so much more. One part of our tiyul that stuck out to me was when we visited Yad Lakashish, Lifeline for the Aged. This is a place were people ages 60 and above can go to have a sense of fulfillment and do things they love. These people work to create beautiful crafts and pieces of all different genres. It was amazing to see people be so passionate about art. I really enjoy different kinds of art like metal arts and photography so I especially enjoyed seeing those parts of the organization. Plus, the fact that all of the people are from all over the world, speaking all different languages makes me appreciate it even more. Each person is there just doing what they love. Being able to buy the artwork that they made was also cool. I got some presents for my family back home.

Another highlight of the past week was definitely spending Shabbat in Jerusalem. It was different from our other tiyuls because we walked everywhere and didn’t have a tight packed schedule. On Friday, we started with a trip to the shuk. Because it was mid-afternoon on Friday, everyone was doing their last minute shopping for Shabbat dinner. Although it was extremely hectic the food was amazing and I had so much fun. That night we went to the Kotel. Even though we were there before, this experience was completely different. This time we danced in big circles with other people at the wall. It was so cool to see so many strangers come together as a community. Then on Saturday, we slept in,took a walking tour around Jerusalem and went to Ben Yehuda street for dinner on the streets. Last week was definitely a success and I cannot wait to visit Tel Aviv in the next few days!