I left the United States nearly about 3 weeks ago and arrived in Israel. When I first stepped off the plane to get on the bus that brought us to AMHSI everything felt a little different. Obviously the big differences that I noticed first were the amazing architecture, it's so diverse from what I see in America. Another big difference is the people, they have different versions of manners here. Israelis will tell you the truth straight up and definitely don't wait in line. 

An amazing difference that I enjoy is having some kind of separate cuisine, the food here is so amazing and cultured unlike just having pizza and junk food all the time. I enjoy the falafels,schnitzel,shawarma, and of course the baba ganoush. Along with the food the money is something that interests me but confuses me a lot of the time. Everything looks so expensive all the time because of how much they label the item and shekels are less than a dollar, when I came here I didn't know how much anything was until I learned the conversion factor and now I have to whip out my calculator every time I go to the store, I wish that one day I will get used to shekels. Something else that shocked me was the informality the teachers allow us to use with them. In America, teachers would never let us call them by their first names and in Israel that is the norm here, along with texting your teachers through Whatsapp. In America we are only allowed to email teachers and anything else is considered inappropriate. I like how this system works though because it makes you actually know the teacher and allows you to ask for help much easier.

One of the biggest differences though is the big cultural and religious ideas of the country. Israel is the only Jewish country and its a specifically special place for Jews because they think of Israel as their homeland, we must all return home to Israel. In America there are many different religions but most people are Christian or Catholic and I have never really met a lot of other Jews. I have always been the odd one out, but here I have met so many other Jews and they are all proud to be Jewish as well.