OK, so as many of you know, I recently landed an apartment just west of the BGU campus, and the coolest part is that I'm splitting it with three other MAPMES students. We have a four-bedroom place on the top floor of a building that overlooks a local park with a rent rate that would make many of my friends still living in Los Angeles quite jealous - a whole $350 a month for the whole place ;) To the right is a picture of our living room and just below to the left is a photo of my bedroom. It's quite cozy, and we all share a central bathroom. 
Right now in Be'er Sheva, the weather has been quite warm...settling temperatures at night have ranged from probably 75-80 degrees F (roughly 28-30 C), so we've been able to keep the windows open at night and enjoy the warm Israeli desert nights. And we have about a 10-minute walk to the BGU campus, which isn't too bad especially since we pass the best schwarma and fallafel stands in the entire city on the way to class :)The coolest part of this past weekend occurred before it even started! I got the lucky chance to meet up with a special visitor from Greene Family Camp in Jerusalem: Mr. Loui Dobin!
It was great to see our GFC camp director here in Israel and to visit outside the stress and intensity that is Greene Family Camp during the summer. And it was also great to meet up with some other great camp friends here in Israel either working here or studying, including Adam, Lauren, Carly, and several others from our Israeli delegation from years past. We went out to a restaurant called Foccaccia in Jerusalem and ordered excellent some amazing pasta dishes and had just had blast visiting! Afterward, we visited an amazing waffle place near Kikar Zion...and wow was it delicious crepe-style waffles! (And Loui gave me the first distributed copies of the published camp DVD here...hahaha!)
From Jerusalem, I went from Tel Aviv to Netanya, where I met up with the group travelling by bus from Be'er Sheva toward the hike and sabbath trip in Tzfat, which is one of Israel's four holy cities. Now travelling with the OSP group, we hiked near a place outside of Haifa and snagged a great view of the Mediterranian Sea as well as went "spelunking", or rather hiking in caves in the mountains. From there we stayed in a hostel in Tzfat...where it was here I got invited to my first ever Orthodox service...and boy was it intense! Let's just call it an experience to have in a mystical city on a sabbath...and I was grateful to have an orthodox Israeli on this trip to sort of escort us (me and my roommate Max as well as other OSP and MAPMES students) as to what to do so we didn't stick out as much as totally clueless as to what was going on! For those who are unfamiliar with this sort of religious service, it is basically a processional where men are at prayer in Jewish tradition serparately from women, who at this particular synagogue, were upstairs from where the men were sitting. Men are not allowed to look at the women in these kinds of services (Funny thing here...I truly didn't even know they were upstairs above us until after the service!) and vice versa for the women. The service is of course all done in Hebrew, and it is very difficult to follow along because they go so quickly. But long story short, we stayed up late, had a blast and slept in until noon the next day...fully observing a much-deserved day of rest!! Finally, we went on a hike around Tzfat on Saturday morning, and shortly after, it became time to head back to Be'er Sheva! Some pictures of my trip with captions are below.
The old city of Tzfat on the Shabbat, with no one on the streets!
Lunch at a Druse village on the way to Tzfat! Great food!
A beautiful view from near the city municipal building in Tzfat
This week is the first week of classes at BGU, and I'll be getting all of my classes situated in the next couple of days. I'll keep you all posted as to what I will be officially taking while I'm here. AND I'm enjoying all of your comments! Please stay in touch, and look for more adventures soon... Jerusalem possibly next weekend, and Eilat the weekend after that. Until then, take care :)
