Day 6

Today, I woke up after a long night of celebrating the new year! So again, happy new year everyone! I started off my day by enjoying a delicious Israeli breakfast that consisted of eggs, chocolate croissants, apple turnover, Israeli yogurt (which is actually pudding), tuna salad, fresh sliced tomatoes anddddd green peppers. They do breakfast big here….ain’t nobody got time for some tiny continental breakfast.

After my delicious breakfast, some of the group made their way to the kotel (western wall) for the “kotel club.” The “kotel club” is a group of people that go to the western wall every morning to pray and say hello to G_d, and in return, they get a spot on the Akiva 2 trip, which is the continuation of the trip we are on.

After our chit-chat with G_d, we made our way to the yeshivah center for our first class of the day. The class, “World Perfect” by Ken Spiro, talked about the values and ethics that Jews and Judaism has introduced into the world. It was a very interesting discussion and made a lot of people very proud to be Jewish. The next class, taught by Rabbi Gavriel Freidman, discussed a saying by King Solomon. The saying goes, “it is better to go to a house of morning, than to a house of drinking.” The debate raged on for quite a while, but in the end we were able to see the true beauty and wisdom of Solomon’s words. If you are ever in the mood for a long discussion, please don’t hesitate to ask me what we discussed.

This concluded our classes for the day and we were set free for the rest of our time, until 7:00pm when we went on a tunnel tour of the old city. I spent my free time in the shuk (outdoor market) haggling and bartering with the various stall owners. I will be going back, so I will post pictures of it next time. I didn’t want to lug my camera around this time around. I was unable to go on the tunnel tour due to an unfortunate event with another participant on the trip. Aaron had to go into camp counselor mode and take care of him. He is all better and they have tried to schedule a tour for us later in the trip. Love from the holy land!!