I'd like to begin by saying that I'm not injury prone, I'm ADVENTUROUS.

I'd like to begin by saying that I'm not injury prone, I'm ADVENTUROUS. After an excellent and long night of bonding with my 40 new friends, filled with the usual afterhours sporting games, new Israeli juices and snacks, nargela and Israeli soldiers with M16s, sleep was in order. Lior had told us to be ready to wake up at 10:30 earlier that evening so I set the alarm on my awesome rented Telit Cellphone so I wouldn't have to later cause honestly who are we kidding there was no way I was going to remember to do it later, and apparently neither were my roomates Derek and Ben YAH MEEEEEEEEN. Lesson #1, dont use the Talit phone to set an alarm.

With the limited time available I brushed my pearly whites, threw on some clothes and put on my sandles and started to rush down to meet with the group. Unfortunately for me I dont run too well with sandles so I took them off and started to bolt twords the activities center, I didn't mind being barefoot I do it all the time and this was the kibbutz not the street of NYC. Mistake number 1. While rushing to get down the hill I felt a little prick (thats what she said) in my foot. Confused as to what just happened I looked down and noticed something I've seen many times before. Awesome! I had just stepped on a piece of broken glass and ripped out a nice size chunk of my foot. I have really good luck with glass just a month earlier I sliced my finger on a broken piece and got 6 stitches. Fortunately this episode wasn't as bad as the previous one it only needed to be wrapped up. It was here when I really met our medic/security, Tal for the first time. Tal is a really cool guy, He is 26 and was born near Ethiopia. Tal's family faced many hardships, mainly the constant fighting between Arabs and Jews in the area. At the ripe young age of 2 Tal and his family came to Israel. He became a paramedic when joining the army, forshadowing of things to come for him. Nowadays he travels with birthright and this is his 4th group trip. He lives in Haifa, likes the Cameroon soccer team in the world cup, prefers his M1A1 Carbine over an M16 because it's more accurate, and long walks on the beach. He is a really awesome guy and helps out alot on this trip, I don't know what the group would do without him.

Anyway you think stepping on broken glass would be it, but no never with me. After being fixed up by Tal I decided to go play some basketball, I needed to burn off the cals from the night before. Mistake number 2. So after being totally faked out by our very own Sammy Sweetheart I crashed to the concrete surface and landed square on my left hip which left me with a huge bruise on my side, super! But wait there's more!!! The next morning we had to get up at 6:30 so after getting dressed I was ready leave for breakfast but I had forgotten my hat on the other side of my bed and not wanting to feel the wrath of Benji went to go get it. Mistake number 3. Bang! I had just nailed my knee of the metal bed frame and immediately a huge lump rose up. Ohh yea did I mention we had a 2 hour hike through rocky cliffs and a 3 hour scavenger hunt around Tel Aviv planned for that day too. As you could tell I really wasn't looking forward to it that much. It was an excrustiatingly painful day but the greatness of the giant waterfall and the hunt took my mind off it. I survived and was able to write a blog about it. Not all bad came out of it, I'm gonna have a sweet scar, I got to know Tal, I'm gonna have an amazing war story for when I hit the dead sea, and the sympathy was great. Simon even carried my bag up the stairs for me at the hotel, what a great guy. What will I do for an encore? Guess we'll just have to wait and see.

-Medical Correspondent and Bus Blogger Steve Abkin