Tel Aviv, Day 1

We touched down in Tel Aviv around 3:30am, and worried about Shabbat we stuck around eating a goat milk version of our familiar parfaits and face timing those who we knew with iPhones. around 7 am our hunger and aversion to airport prices forced us out and into a cab... 150 NIS later, we found ourselves (with my 2 month supply of luggage) in front of the earliest-opening breakfast places in town. And it was not open. As I mourned the distance between myself and a proper breakfast that was a 20 minute cab ride away in a city that seemed to be completely asleep, we began to walk the twelve blocks to our hostel, where check in would not begin until 11. Needless to say, the start of our journey was a little rocky. It has since improved, and we have met some great people from Brazil, Russia, Canada and France...and that's just in our hostel. Today we worked on staying awake to get on proper Israel time, and it is taking its toll at 9:04 pm local time, where all I can think of is how nice it will be to sleep. Tomorrow we head to Eilat en route to Petra, which should give me plenty of time to work on my lesson plans for the first week of camp. It's true what they say about the region. You can't begin to understand "it" until you are here, and I have barely scratched the surface.