!אני גר בתל אביב עכשיו

(I live in Tel Aviv now!)
Just got showered and ready for shabbat, I am going to my friend Raanan's family's house. He is a friend from Seattle visiting his family here in Israel. Anyway, I moved in to my apartment for the next 5 months last week here in Tel Aviv and it is amazing. The location is literally the best it can possibly get and the people in my program are awesome. I also met with my internship and they were very friendly and the work I will be doing is incredibly fascinating and exciting.

Before I moved to Tel Aviv I spent 5 days in Jerusalem for orientation for the program I am on. We toured around the city and for the most part I have seen most of it before. The stuff I hadn't seen was the Dome of the Rock and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Both were fascinating and beautiful. I had to pull my shorts down a little since men should have their knees covered to go up to the dome of the rock. While I did it the guy informed me that it was enough and seemed afraid I was gonna drop my pants completely ;) We also met with a Palestinian man who is the head of the YMCA in Jerusalem. He got his mba from Harvard and undergrad from Stanford. He was very smart and we all had a very interesting discussion with him. He said he is a proud Israeli but also a Palestinian. His main point was that Israel needed to empower the arabs living in Israel (not in the west bank/gaza) to help to stop extremism. The Arabs/Palestinians living in Israel already have representatives in the parliament but the main problem is they are only interested in their own interests (not much different from the USA) and also for establishing a Palestinian state. They don't seem to care much about the interests of the arabs currently living in Israel. He had some very interesting points.

So my life in Tel Aviv! It is amazing here, I can't over emphasize that. I am going to ulpan, hebrew school, 5 days a week and am starting to learn hebrew a bit. I already moved up to a higher level class :) We also did a "field trip" to a museum across the street from my school which is about the immigration to Israel and the way things were during British rule here. Too many stories to get into there so I will promise to share them with you and take you there when you come visit me :) I have also been exploring the city as well and going to the beach, insanely nice beach here. Been eating more shawarma and hummus than you would think is possible and will start brushing my teeth with it soon ;)

yalla bye!