EILAT of FUN with the Class

Finals are Finally over (except for 2 more papers due this week)! In order to celebrate an intense semester, the school took us on a trip to Eilat. Unfortunately, Oren had to stay home and bring home the bacon! We had a private bus, tour guide and 2 body guards to accompany us. The drive from Jerusalem to Eilat should only take 4 hours and 30 minutes, but instead it took 9 hours! Although, for good reasons. One is we went on an awesome hiking trip! We went to this place called Wadi Tamar (Wadi is a dry river bed). No one knew what to expect and to put it politely some people are just not meant to go hiking (see pictures). The trail is in a dried out river bed in the Negev (dessert). The obstacle began with walking down a steep hill. After the steep hill we climbed down steep ladders and ropes until we got to the bottom of the wadi. Some people were so scared of this hike, it took us almost 2 1/2 hours to finish when we probably could have done it in 1 hour. Although, it was quite humorous watching people try to push them-selves to get to the end of the trail. I hope Oren and I will do more stuff like this in Israel! The other reasons it took 9 hours to get to Eilat is because we made a ton of stops. Jokingly, I told Oren, "the bus is nicer than you" because it will stop all the time to let me go to the bathroom. When I was a youth director, I cut off my water intake at 11am if we were going on a retreat. This was to avoid the walk of shame to the bathroom in the back of the bus. One of the better stops was to Yot Veta, a kibbutz that produces milk products. We all enjoyed buying ice cream and taking pictures with fake cows. Now to Eilat details. The school booked us at a nice hotel called the Palamaro. Our stay included a huge breakfast and dinner buffet. One day we went to the aquarium which Oren and I talked about in a previous blog and rested by the pool. I found it very interesting that a bunch of my classmates have never seen or heard about a hot tub before. It was exciting experiencing this with them for the first time. They became addicted like me! Also, several of my classmates went in a swimming pool for the first time in there lives. I tried to teach a couple of them how to float, but wasn't so successful. On our last evening, I went to this place called King Cities with 3 of my classmates. It is an indoor amusement park that tells stories of the bible. We had a great time! It had an indoor water ride, a 4D movie, an obstacle course, illusion exhibit and a story telling maze. It was very well done. Even the 20 something crowd could enjoy it! My friend Luis from the Dominican Republic went with us to King Cities. It is amazing watching him go through all of this stuff. He has never experienced stuff like this. Everything we do is amazing to him. It really makes you appreciate the activities we do. Other things that took place during our vacation is visiting the Jordan and Egypt borders, walking around the strip, shopping, dancing and mainly just relaxing. The only thing missing was Oren. I wish that he could have come. My next blog will be about me and Oren's trip to the north.

All the Eilat pictures can be seen at this link below: http://www.dotphoto.com/go.asp?l=ominc&AID=4340764