The last couple of weeks have been great, although very busy. I've had a lot of visitors, a few weeks ago my friend louis from home came to visit, which was great. We went to Jerusalem together for a night, toured around the city, then he came and stayed in Haifa for several days. After that he went to Jerusalem to go stay with another friend there. I went with the international school on a nice day trip to akko---a really great arab city that's traded off with Yaffo being the main port in this region for the last few thousand years until the building of Haifa and Ashdod after the founding of the state. There we walked around the "underground city," the old city from Crusader times and before that was buried by the sands of time (and the mamluk armies, who leveled the city) until the last hundred years or so when it was excavated. That night we camped out and then went on a nice hike to the montfort--a cool old fort. After we got back I went back to tel aviv to hang out with Louis some more. We had a nice morning walking around until I went to the airport to go meet Mom Dad and Eliot who came for a visit.

We had a great time. For a few days they came here to hang out in Haifa, they came and saw campus, we went back to akko, then went and stayed in Tsfat for 2 nights in a beautiful hotel. One day we drove around the kinneret (sea of galilee) and visited a bunch of neat sites there. The next day we drove down to Jerusalem and toured around and went to the wall for קבלת שבת (kabbalat shabbat--the recieving of shabbat)---truly an amazing experience. There were hundreds of people there praying and dancing---very cool to be part of. The next day we went to massada and the dead sea, very hot, but definitely worth it. The next day I was supposed to go home but instead I decided to stay and go to yad vashem with my family.

After Yad Vashem returned to Haifa for the evening and classes the next day. The next day I went back and met up with the family again in Tel Aviv for dinner at a phenomenal fish restaurant on the beach and then returned to Haifa and they flew home the next morning.

Taking a walk in the mountains near school.

We all went out to dinner at fatoush, a wonderful restaurant in the german colony in haifa.

Eating a schwarma lunch in akko.
Going on a tram ride around the ein gev kibbutz on the shores of the kinneret.

Eating lunch at the kibbutz.