Shalom from Israel!!
Everyone arrived at the Newark airport ready to go, just dreading the flights ahead. Nir and Laura, our awesome advisors, designated numbers for roll call in the form of an icebreaker. All forty of the Americans introduced themselves: hometown, school, year, etc! Apparently, there are a bunch of people from Iowa! Lucky for us, the flight to Frankfurt was only six and a half hours and then our second was under three and a half. We arrived in Tel Aviv at the Ben Gurion airport, got our passports stamped, met our Israeli counterparts, and now we are on our way to our first stop: THE GOLAN HEIGHTS! Although all of us are confused why it is not early morning (silly, time change), we are all excited for the adventures ahead of us in the next ten days!
-Sammie Marks, University of Iowa

