I can’t believe I have been here for 4 months. I want this time in my life to last forever and ever.  

We started the week off by boarding a bus up and heading north up to Haifa for Shabbat. Shabbat at Muss is amazing. I think I’ve mentioned it before but I love having Shabbat with my friends. It’s amazing. We get ready together, laugh, plan and just relax. It truly is my favorite day of the week. This Tiyul was a 4 day long journey; our last trip together with Muss.  We spent our Shabbat at a youth hostel close to the beach. We played games, walked around, and just enjoyed life. On Shabbos morning, we ventured out to Haifa beach where we swam, had lunch, tanned (we always check out the UV status for tanning purposes everywhere we go :)) and just soaked up the good life. It was such a fun day. 

The next day was probably one of my favorite days of this adventure I’ve been on. And when I say adventure I mean physically, spiritually, emotionally and academically. It’s been all of that and more! We hiked in a river all the way up to our shoulders. It was actually so much fun. We walked all the way through the freezing cold water together laughing, screaming, splashing. I literally will never forget this day, and after our “hike”, we drove to the Jordan River where we went water rafting. I’ve been river rafting with my family but doing it with friends is a whole another level. I got onto the raft with 5 of my close friends and we navigated the river together. Please note that 6 Jewish girls who have never done this before and who have no idea what the heck they are doing is a recipe for the best of my life. We actually got lost, no surprise there and ended up being the last people out of the water.  Again, no surprise there. It was quite an adventure to say the least. When we saw a place to get out. These random Arab men were around and put us into a white van. Imagine 6 teenage girls, in bikinis, with no phones! Super Safe, right? Anyway we were really nervous and scared as we knew we needed to be in a van but nobody from our school was around us so it was definitely sketchy. I guess if we were all going down, it was a one for all mentality. After a very scary 5 minute drive, we pulled up to the meeting spot of where everyone from our school was and reunited with our other friends. Seriously the most fun EVER and the most scary EVER. 

After flying down the Jordan River practically blindfolded with nothing but my best friends, we continued our adventure by boarding the bus and heading to a lookout over the Golan Heights and Kinerate. Our teachers told us a story about an Israeli spy by the of name of Eli Cohen and how he pretended to be Syrian in a war. Sasha Baron Cohen actually played this role in The Spy which is based on this same true story our teachers told us. It was really inspiring to hear how this one man literally faked them all out and changed the course of history. Thanks to Eli Cohen, we were blessed to sit under the eucalyptus trees he planted. Later, we drove to a Kibbutz where we spent the night. I was in a room with 2 of my best friends, Talia and Bella and no surprise here, we had the absolute best time.

The next morning we hiked up to an insanely gorgeous waterfall in the Golan Heights.  It was absolutely paradise. All of us turned into fish and went swimming in and around the waterfall and  jumped off the rocks. It was a pure bliss. After our swim, we hiked back up to the bus which was an insanely long and HOT journey, but we made it. It was a miracle for sure. We drove all the way to Zecron Yakov for DOTS. I went out to dinner with my friend Mia, and we shopped as well. The day could not have been more perfect. 

The 4th day we arrived back onto to campus completely exhausted, sunstroked, dehydrated all the while being totally exhilarated. It was an insane 4 days that we did, but we did it!! I couldn’t have felt more proud of us that we did it. 

We had school for half the day, then we drove south to BeerSheba to the Alexander Muss High School in Israel southern campus. There was a new Torah unveiling ceremony with a lot of JNF donors. It was a long drive down as there was so much traffic but it was worth while with all of the food trucks they had. It was fun, we danced with all of our Israeli flags and sorta promoted our school. 

We closed off the week by continuing to study for AP tests and attending classes like usual. I took my AP test on a Friday and hopefully it went well! My whole class spent very long nights every day studying together. After our test, we all left campus one last time for an open weekend!

Stay tuned for next week!

Xoxo,