Departing Jerusalem - by Riley G.

Today was a bittersweet day; we had to say our goodbyes to all of the new friends we made at St. Georges College. While we were waiting, a small blind kitten ran into the driveway. Cats run around like squirrels. We played with the Kitten and tried to give it food although it didn’t want anything. It made many of us, especially Nate, sad to leave the kitten behind. Our bus finally arrived, after all of the other groups had left, to take us to Tel Aviv. The city is one of the only major cities in the country so it is like the Las Vegas, New York, Miami and LA of Israel all mixed into one. More on this later.

Our rooms were not all ready, so we left our luggage in one of the available rooms and toured around the city. Ben Gurion, the first Prime Minister of Israel owned a house, which has been transformed into a Museum. The history in this house showed the serious attempt that the country had at unifying its people and creating a peaceful country.

After walking around for about 2 hours, our rooms were ready. We all changed into our swimming gear and took a dive into the Mediterranean. In comparison, the Dead Sea contains 14% salt; the Mediterranean has only 7% salt content. It still left a bad taste in my mouth, but was enjoyable to swim in such warm, yet refreshing water. The waves came in as perfect waves, which many people in the water were either surfing of body surfing. I tried to body surf although the salt water would get into my nose and burned for a long while.

We returned to the Hotel to dry off before leaving for dinner. A group of kids, about our age walked in from a tour bus that was parked outside. There were so many of them, and they all spoke French. I was told they were “ Birth Right Jews.” I didn’t know what that meant. From what I am told, Jewish Youth have the option of traveling to the Israel (which is commonly known as the Jewish Homeland) and is paid for by many American Jewish Communities. Because the Israeli Government sponsors it, I don’t believe that those visitors have an accurate representation of what is happening in the country. We’ve seen so much more than the local government wants us to see! We’ve talked to Arabs and Palestinians and seen the discrimination from locals. Water is the biggest issue.