Young Judaea Year Course:

Year Course is a gap year program in Israel for teens who just graduated high school before entering college. Our nine months are divided into three sections. I start off the Year in Bat Yam, just south of Tel Aviv, where we volunteer in the community. In the winter, we head down to the Negev (Israel's desert) hopefully to do outdoor work. Finally, we end the year in Jerusalem studying and also volunteering. Throughout the year, we study hebrew and live in apartments with fellow Year Course participants.

I am participating in the Social Action track of Year Course, traveling to Rwanda for the entire month of February. We are living at a youth village (made by Year Course alumni) working with orphaned children.

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

The Beginning

About 90 kids leaving from JFK arrived in Tel Aviv Monday afternoon, two hours late. Then we waited another hour and half for our luggage. It was a long time waiting, but good getting to know people. Once we got out of customs and the craziness of entering Israel, we divided up into sections, saying "Goodbye" to many of the new friends we had met on the flight over the Atlantic.

Section two, the best section, headed straight to Bat Yam, just south of Tel Aviv, where we would be living for the next few months. After lots of ice breakers, we finally headed back to our apartments where we had quickly dropped off our bags before. My 3 American roommates (Yael, Robyn and Ilyssa) and one Israeli roommate (Noy) all got on our computers and slowly unpacked.

Our day started off with jet lag, then at 9 AM, we actually started our day. After having long lectures about rules, how to use our phones, etc. Around mid day, the fun started. The roommates and I, along with all of section two, walked to Super Douche to fill our kitchens with food. I think we spent the most out of all the other apartments, almost $140. After a long walk home and up 4 flights of stairs (no elevators in our apartment), we had 10 minutes until the Israeli scouts who are living with us ran a program. Finally, the day was over and we headed home to make an awesome meal of Israeli salad (made by me) and pasta (made by Yael) with horrible canned tomato sauce (Yael and Robyn added what we had to make the sweetness of the sauce go away...for some reason, i was the only one who didn't like the final product).

Right now, we are heading off to the bus for our first night out on the town of Tel Aviv!

Comment with any questions.
-Tamar
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1 comment:

  1. David CahnSeptember 4, 2010 at 8:13 AM

    Great stuff. I look forward to following your adventures throughout the year.

    xoxo
    Uncle David

    ReplyDelete

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