Day 2 cont'

Shalom Abbas and Emmas,
Today we learned another hebrew word of the day, manishma meaning how are you doing, what's up, what's happening. We woke at 6:30 had breakfast and loaded the buses to head to the Golan Heights Region. We saw the Kineret (Sea of Galilee), then we headed to our adventurous hike where we hiked down the Jeelabon Valley. It was very steep and required great skill. We climbed down hills, up rocks, through jungle areas, and across streams. It took us about two and a half hours, taking pictures every step of the way, videos cheering each other on and acutally ate different plants such as asparagas plants and ate "poison ivy" that helps prevent hair loss. From there we headed to the olive oil factory, tried the cosmetic protects (face and hand creams) and tasted different olive oils with bread. After we had lunch and got to relax, some people played frisbee. We then got on the bus and headed to an open area where we circled up and sang happy birthday to Craig (he's 20). Oren, Sam, and Dan made a chair for Craig to sit in and celebrated with our traditional raising of the chair. We also now have a song that we all sing, the birthright tenth anniversary song. It says one love, one heart, one home and we now listen to Israeli music everytime we travel on the bus. We then went to Mount Bental where Shabat (our tourguide) told us about the 1973 Yom Kippur war and on a clear day you can clearly see the Syria and Israeli border. We walked down into the bunker and saw where the Soldiers hid during the firing of the missles. Once we finised with the bunker we went to the hot springs right on the border of Jordan. The hot pools of water were like a pool club where the water reached 110 degress. From the sulfur we all smelled like eggs but had a ton of fun and very refreshing after the 40 degree weather on Bental. Then we came back to the hotel, had dinner, washed up, and went on the boardwalk to a club right on the Galilee. We had so much fun, dancing, bonding, and singing to our current popular American music. Now we are all back, changed, in bed, and ready to get some sleep for our 7:15 wake up call. You should have seen how excited we all were and how loud we cheered to know we got to wake up at 7:15 not 6:30! Lylah Tov (goodnight) well wished from Israel, until tomorrow....
-Sarah Wexler 2013 & Shaina Stiefel 2012