ISS: The First Day

We are finally here!! After a very, very long journey, we landed on time, got all our bags, and rushed straight into our touring. After meeting with our junior counsellors, we hauled all of our bags to the bus, which is very nice and big. The only complaint I have is that supposedly the bus has a blind spot detector, and every single time it goes off it makes a very loud beep.

First, we made our way to Neot Kdumim, a biblical park in Modi'in. We ate a nice lunch there, and then we did a bunch of activities outside about working together, like getting water out of a cistern while blindfolded and herding goats and sheep (which was actually really fun, even though we were all bad at it). The biblical park is very strange, in that there are many plants that grow there with opposite needs. For example, the tour guide showed us that two trees which require opposite conditions to thrive coexist there. She mentioned how a community needs diversity in order to survive, and that the different groups within it do not need to clash with each other to succeed. 

After that, we took a bit of a drive to Mini Israel, which is a scaled model of the whole country of Israel with little buildings and replicas of the Western Wall, the Dome of the Rock, and other important sites. We only stayed there for a little while, since a lot of us were really tired, but we did play a fun amazing race activity while we were there. We had to run around the park looking for different buildings and complete challenges there. I had a bit of an advantage, because I had already heard of most of the buildings and knew which cities they were located in. My team finished really quickly and won!

Last, we went to a really nice lookout over the city of Jerusalem. We could see the dome of the rock, which was shining really beautifully in the sun. By this point, I was practically dead, so after we said shechecheyanu (with grape juice), I fell to the ground and took a little nap on the grass. 

We got to the hotel around 7 o'clock, put our bags into our rooms and went back to the lobby to eat dinner. After that, we had an hour of free time until our ma'agal Laila (night circle). At our ma'agal laila, we summarize our day and talk about what we want to get out of tomorrow. On top of that, tonight we talked about what we want to get out of the trip and how we're going to do it. The ma'agal (circle) was finished after half an hour, so we are all going to bed. The mattresses are actually pretty comfy and there's air conditioning in the room, so it should be a pretty good sleep. Tomorrow, we're going to volunteer at Save a Child's Heart, the beach, and a blind museum, which is supposed to be really amazing. I can't wait!

Written by Theo Cape