My First Two Weeks at TRY

These two weeks that I have been in Israel have been the most amazing of my life. Right now, I am experiencing Israel like never before. Instead of a family trip, or a Temple trip, I am surrounded by Jewish teens, like me., who love Israel as much as I.

When we landed in Tel Aviv, it was really awkward. No one knew each other. We then took a bus to Jerusalem, and went to a mountain, with a view of all of Jerusalem. It was very dark, so no one could really see anything, but we all sat down and sang songs, and said sheyechianu. We then got back on the bus, and drove to the campus. We were given our rooms, and then we were told to go eat dinner, and don't even get me started on the food. NEVER EAT ISRAELI INSTITUTIONAL FOOD. The Next day we went to the Negev. We went to the Negev Brigade memorial, where we commemorated the soldiers who fell to capture the Negev. We sat down, and we sang Oseh Shalom. We went to the place nearby were Abraham was told to leave, and we learned more about Abraham. We then went to a Beduin village, were we rode camels and we slept. We had a campfire at the end of the night, and everyone was singing and dancing, it was amazing. After we got back and took showers, we had more boring orientations. 

Shabbat was quickly approaching so we got to chose temples we wanted to go to. On saturday morning, I went to a Modern Orthodox temple, which was an amazing experience for me. It was really cool because there was a mehitza and the women were wearing tallit and reading from the Torah. After that we came back and had bonding activities. 


The next day, we started school. School is 10 hours a day but it is worth it because every tuesday and thursday we go on a field trip. On tuesday we went to Sataf, which was a nature hike to were the Judges lived. We climbed into a cave, turned off our lights and sang. Our next field trip was to Ein Gedi. Ein Gedi is a water spring, in the middle of the desert near the dead sea which is a miracle, because it is in the middle of the desert surrounded by beauty and trees. We then had Shabbat, and we were allowed to stay at a friends house for Shabbat. The bed was slanted, so I woke up on the floor three times. Yesterday, we went to the City of David. We did an underground water cave walk for about an hour, and when we came up, we walked up to the Kotel. It was an extremely emotional moment for me, because for the first time, I really understood what it meant to be Jewish, and to be able to touch the Wall. I was overwhelmed with emotions. It was one of the most powerful moments of my lives. 
I've never had two weeks gone by so fast, I feel like I arrived only yesterday. I feel like I have known the people on this trip for years, I am very close to everyone. Oh and school isn't really that bad even though it's long, but the food they give us is. I am living off of cups of noodles, and tea. 

Here is also a video of The Campus so you can see where I live!