First off I would like to say that today was probably the most exciting and hardest day we will have in Israel. It was extremely fun, but it ended with a little bit of sadness and confusion.
The day started in the wee hours of the night at approximately 4:15 in the morning. At that point in time we were woken up by our Israeli tour guide Yuval to start our journey to a long and adventurous day. When we woke up no one really wanted to get up because like I said it was 4:15 and it was too hard for any of us to move at all. We knew that we had to, though, because we were about to climb Masada, which if you don't know was a shelter for the Jews against the Romans many many years ago. When we started to climb the mountain it was still pretty dark outside and we could see just the slightest amount of light, but enough to see where we were going. Going up the mountain wasn't too hard for anyone because we went up which was considered the "easy" trail. Once we got to the top we waited at the highest point to take pictures and to see when the sunrise was to happen. At approximately 5:45 am one of the most beautiful things any of us had ever seen happened, the sunrise, it was just such a great thing to see and even though all of us were struggling to stay awake at that moment we all became extremely happy. For the next hour we walked around the top of Masada and learned about the history of the old mountain until we went back down to the bus at the bottom.
After Masada we got back on the bus and went back to the Bedouin tent where we started the day. This time we were there to ride camels, which is a very weird and fun experience. I rode a camel with Dana Coleman and we decided together once we got on it to name the camel Yitzhak. We rode the camel for about 30 minutes and it was really cool. Most of the group decided to name our camels because we thought "why not?" Yitzhak was an interesting fellow because he struggled to stay in line like he was supposed to, I started to call him a "race camel" because he kept going really fast and almost passed the camel in front of us. Nonetheless it was a great experience for Dana and I and we had a lot of fun together.
Next came the most fun part of the day, the saltiness of the Dead Sea. We had to drive about an hour there, but when we got there we were all ecstatic. When we got there we had to all change into bathing suits in the changing rooms. Then when we were all ready to go, we made our way out to the sea. Before we made it to the water, we put mud on all of our bodies because it is very good for your skin, and then it is great to get in the salt water right after and float on top of the sea. Once we got into the Dead Sea it wasn't the most comfortable of things for all of us because many of us were in a little pain from the salt water on any scrapes or sunburns we had on our bodies. This wasn't the worst of pain that was experienced in the Dead Sea. Right before the group was about to get out Matt Steinberg, Dan Ginsburg, and myself decided to dunk our heads under the water even though we knew the risk we were going to take. When we all came up, we were all expressing our obvious pain. None of us three could even try to open our eyes because it burned way too much. Then when we most needed it Abby Solomon and Jessie Seibold came to the rescue and directed us three to showers where we could wash our eyes out. Lets just say that was a terrible time in the moment, but now it is funny to look back on and a great memory we will not soon forget. At the same area where we went into the sea there was a pool where we all decided to swim afterwards. This was a fun time for us because we started to take cool pictures together with underwater cameras and we hadn't got to swim the whole entire trip before that so that was great for all of us.
We then made our way on the bus to Tel Aviv which was a trip across the country of Israel. This was a long trip, but it was worth it for the things we saw when we finally made it. On the other hand this marked the start to the sad and confusing part to the day. Tonight is the start to the Israeli holiday Yom HaZikaron or Israel's Memorial Day. So us as a group went to a special ceremony for the occasion which was different for us because we are not used to much for our Memorial Day, which pools open and we get a day off of school. In Israel this day has a whole different meaning because in Israel everyone at least knows someone who has died fighting in IDF whereas in America most people do not even know one person in the army. We got to experience here how emotional this day is for Israelis and how hard it is for them to make it through the day. That was just so hard for any of us to understand because we would never fully get what the Israelis are actually going through on this day. The marked the end of a wonderful day in Israel. It will probably be a long time till any of us experience something quite like this again.
-Drew Eichel
May 4, 2014
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