living the simple life

I'm writing to waste time before dinner- one of our excitments of the day. I had class today and it went well, we are reading, writing and speaking Hebrew in each class and it is paying off, I am learning and feeling more confident every day. We have a great teacher, Gili, and she is so patient and sweet. Danielle, who is from Houston and went to UT, is the only other girl in my class and we sit next to each other and just like look around because sometimes it feels like the class is a joke. The boys in there can be so immature, talking all the time and asking stupid questions, but boys will be boys. After I got out of class and Mirelle got out of work we walked around and took some pics of the kibbutz. We took a pic of Mivrag, the factory where I work and then just some randoms...of cows and stuff. haha. Just got off the phone with mom and it really made me miss her and everyone else.

We took our first trip with the Ulpan students and the volunteers here at the kibbutz yesterday to Ramat Hagolan and it was beautiful! We first went mountain biking for about an hour, which kicked our butts! Then had a nice lunch at this park in the Golan where we paid a tribute to a soldier named Gilad Shalit, who was kidnapped by Palestinians in 2006 and who is still alive being held captive, by releasing 100's of balloons with his picture on them into the sky- it was a sight to see. For his return the Palestinians are demanding that the Israeli army release hundreds of their men who are murders and who are in Israeli prisons...sad story. People here are trying their best to keep him in mind at all times and remind him that we are still trying to get him back, its a huge campaign. At malls and stuff they pass out bumper stickers with his picture on them and ribbons to tie on your side view mirrors. Anyways, after we ate we went to see this "fire show" put on by tanks where they were like firing at each other- it was crazy, we were at this place where they were kind of trying to recruit people for the army...yeah sure.

Anyways, that was our trip, Elka said we are going to Jerusalem in about 2 weeks for our next trip- should be fun! Going to dinner now, will write later!