A crazy week that's just beginning...

A quick update before the whirlwind of the next few days begins:

This weekend my program took us on a trip to the Negev desert in the south. We hiked all three days, which was both fun and really painful, but we saw some amazing things. On Friday we went to the Makhtesh Ramon, it's a huge crater in Israel. I've actually done the hike before (it was hands down the worst part of my Birthright trip--when I saw the mountain in front of us I was sooo mad that I had to do the hike again) but it was better this time. The hike on Saturday was much harder but I also thought it was a lot better. It was hard because it lasted over 4 hours, it was really hot out and the last part was allll uphill. But it was really beautiful--there was nothing manmade around us at all, just mountains and desert. I have a ton of pictures that will be able to express that better than any description can, I'm going to put them all up next week.

We also went to an alpaca farm and to the Dead Sea! The alpacas were really fun, and the Dead Sea was of course amazing, but so sad because it's completely drying up. My friends that were last here 3 years ago noticed the difference, and you can see that there used to be so much more water on the shore. Just another thing to add to the list of Israel's problems haha.

Anyway, today is Purim, which I've been describing to everyone as Jewish Halloween. But Halloween cannot match Purim in Israel. Last night we all got dressed up and went to Florentine St. in downtown Tel Aviv. It was one of the craziest experiences ever. The street was packed, you could barely move and everyone was dressed up in ridiculous costumes. We had so much fun just wandering, talking to people, and running into pretty much every study abroad student from Tel Aviv University. Tonight we're going to Jerusalem, which should be an experience as well!

And here's the big one--after all this, I'm leaving for Istanbul tomorrow night! It's definitely going to be an adventure, and I'm sure I'll have a lot to post when I get back. :)