Recap on my first week of winter break!!!

So as of last Thursday, yearcourse has been on winter break :p Now, most of my friends have either gone home, gone to Europe or have family visiting them. Me? I decided to be a nomad for two weeks visiting friends that I haven't had the chance to see yet. What I didn't think through was that no one else in Israel is on break. My friends in school still have school and my friends in the army are still there! In Israel, they only have break for Hannukah because they don't celebrate Christmas (obviously) and New Years isn't a big deal here (it's called sylvester).
My break started off really good because it was my camp friend's birthday! She was hosting a party at an American bar in Tel Aviv called Mike's Place. I had the best night because I got to see so many Israelis that I know from camp that I didn't get the chance to see before!!! I was on cloud nine all night :) I even got to hang out with my counselor from 2009 and meet his girlfriend!!!

The next day I had a really nice Shabbat dinner with my grandparents and my second family, The Amranis (really old friends of my mom's). It's always nice to feel like I have family here and big Shabbat dinners are a really great way to get rid of homesickness :) The following days were spent at my grandparents. I was there from Saturday to Tuesday and it was soooo relaxing. I just got a few days to myself and I got some time to do work that I wouldn't have time to do otherwise :)

When I got back to Jerusalem on Tuesday afternoon, literally Beit Ar-El was a ghost town. I live in a 15 girl apartment and currently only one other girl is here with me! I hung out with a few people who were still here and I went with a friend to a local community center to watch a game of wheelchair basketball! That was super fun!

The next day me and a few girls woke up bright and early to get to Haifa!!! After spending about three hours traveling, we finally got to the Bahai Gardens to find out that we came on the only day that no tours are offered and all the shrines were already closed.... COOL. So we walked around the gardens and took a million pictures because everything was so pretty. Also let me add that Haifa is just like San Francisco... the streets are so steep I literally was going to pass out when we went from one garden to the next....

And to end my travels in Haifa I met up with a friend from camp that I haven't seen since August!!! Missed this kid :) He took me to a place called "Sof Haolam" which means in Hebrew end of the world. When he camp to California this summer I took him to a lookout point near my house and lets just say that this place is way prettier than Strawberry Hill :p

Now I'm going to go do my homework..... boooooooo