From Tzfat, with love

Today we woke up at the Kibbutz and saw a glorious peacock. It was so majestic! After breakfast, our journey led us to Tzfat. Tzfat is one of the four holy cities of Israel. It is an incredible place with many blue accents which we were told is said to ward off the evil eye. We were fortunate to be able to visit Ha’ari synagogue. There, we were told a story about how when Israel was being terrorized by shrapnel bombs- a piece of shrapnel went through the front door and just missed a man who happened to be bent over in prayer. This story shows that prayer can save you. We then visited the Livnot building where we learned about future opportunities to spend time in Israel. We walked around in the artist colony where we were able to browse and speak to shop owners and artists. Then we got on the bus and headed to Haifa! Haifa is Boston’s sister city. Here we did volunteer work at a school. We played with a group of children, most of whom were the children of immigrants from Ethiopia. This experience was both fun and gratifying. We split into three groups where we were able to choose to either read to the children, teach them English or play soccer with them. As a whole we enjoyed this experience immensely. From the school we traveled to the Carmel forest (which was not made out of caramel). Our Israeli travel buddies told us about their personal connection to Haifa and the devastating fire that recently took place in the Carmel forest. Here we had the pleasure of hand making pita over a fire and slathering it in delicious Israeli chocolate spread. Finally we filed back on the bus and went off to Tel Aviv. Arriving at the Sea Net hotel we quickly settled into our rooms and had dinner at the hotel restaurant. Later that night we got all dolled up and headed out on the town to take Tel Aviv by storm….until 11:45.