B'ruchim Habaim

Hi everyone sand welcome to our blog!

We landed in Tel Aviv yesterday after a couple of long flights. We were so excited to meet our Israeli friends and we jumped around with them in the airport and screamed about being brothers, and how happy we were to finally were to be together and start our adventure. We got on the bus and headed to Caesarea, where he had our first photo op, got to touch the water, and opened our week together.

We headed back to the bus and started heading to Kibbutz Shomrat, where we are staying for the first few nights. We interviewed the Israeli participants on the way to the Kibbutz to get them know better. When we got to the Kibbutz we had dinner, and we were so exhausted we went straight to bed.

We woke up early this morning to have a delicious breakfast and head out on our day. We went on our first hike, called Nahal Betzet. A nahal is a river, but it's really more of a stream. A nahal is a river that is dry during part of the year, and right now it's mostly dry. Halfway through we went through a cave. It was slippery, but we handled it well :) Some people were nervous, but we all did it together! We were excited to get ice cream at the end, but the stand was closed.

After the hike we headed to Tzvat, a city of Jewish mysticism. Tzvat is a very holy city, it is the home of Kabbalah, one of the four oldest Jewish cities in the world, and representative of the element of air. We met with a great artist, Avraham Loewenthal, who was AWESOME! He taught us about Kabbalah and his art, and taught us about his really cool work. We stopped by a beautiful view, and checked out the artists' shuk. We stopped in Davidka square to talk about the War of Independence and the miracle of the Israeli victory there. We had an incredible time in Tzvat.

We have a great day scheduled tomorrow too. We have another hike in the morning and then some lookouts where we will get to see our neighboring countries. Can't wait, stay tuned!