We're past our monthly flickr limit...but never fear - we're going to change photo hosting sites so you can see the rest of these beautiful pictures.
We have great pictures from Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, the desert, Budapest, etc...

Update!

We're !n Budapest!!
We flew in two days ago and have already fallen in love with the city!
There's so much to do here - we're worried about fitting everything.


Here's what we have (very) tentatively planned:

Saturday, Feb. 27th - Orava Castle. This castle is apparently incredibly foreboding and intimidating. They actually shot Dracula here. (the movie, obviously)
Sunday, Feb. 28th - Hop On, Hop Off Tour, Parliament Tour, Boat Tour, and then meeting some people.
Monday, Mar. 1st - Visiting a school, Szentendre, Jewish Section.
Tuesday, Mar. 2nd - Baths, Arena Plaza, Ice Skating.
Wednesday, Mar. 3rd - National Art Museum, Press Photo Exhibition, Tchaikovsky ballet at the Opera House.
Thursday, Mar. 4th - National History Museum, Market Hall.
Friday, Mar. 5th - Vienna!
Saturday, Mar. 6th - Morning concert, Liszt Academy.
Sunday, Mar. 7th - Eger or Pecs.
Monday, Mar. 9th - Fly to Spain!

Today we went to the Hapsburg Castle on the Buda side of the Danube River. Inside is an art museum that is mostly Hungarian artists. We saw works by people like the German-Hungarian painter, Karoly Lotz, and Romantic painter, Bertalan Szekely. There were a whole bunch of artists, but Lotz and Szekely were among the most memorable. We made sure to pick up a few postcards and I found a great picture of the HUGE parliamentary building (one of the biggest government buildings in the world...MUCH bigger than our capital).
This art museum was really interesting, but I'm also looking forward to seeing works by Courbet, Corot, Degas, Manet, Monet, Renoir, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec, Cézanne, Matisse and Picasso, etc...
there's an exhibit of all these at the National Art Museum!!!!!1

I'll be uploading photos tonight...so check those out too.
Also be expecting two people of the the week this week...one for last week and one for this week.

Emily =]

What we've been doing!

Well, as you may have heard, our trip to the Dead Sea failed. Twice, actually. But it's alright, because we've been doing other fun stuff! On Friday night (Shabbat), we were at Kibbutz Keturah and although we're not old enough to be official volunteers, our host was nice enough to let us help out with setting up for Shabbat dinner. Sure, we didn't get the full volunteer experience, but it was a nice little sample. Saturday on kibbutz was still the Shabbat, which meant that people basically just relaxed all day. It was definitely a nice chance to pack up for our move on Sunday.

Our next stop was Tel Aviv, which we spent two days in. On the first, we spent most of our time on Dizengoff Street, which was this fun street packed with little shops and cafes! The rest of the day was spent on trains, all but one of which actually went to the stop we wanted. No one, including the Station Master, thought to inform us that our stop was only an actual stop on a few trains a day. Four hours of the day were wasted from that lovely little attempt to get home.

The second day was much more productive. We started out the morning at Yafo, one of the oldest cities in the world and a port of the Mediterranean. We took pictures of it so you can see, but basically there were cobblestone paths, sweeping stairs and vendors all around! We also spent some time at the Yafo flea market after that, which had almost everything you could possibly imagine! Next, we went into Tel Aviv and saw a few popular streets and the Tel Aviv port. Definitely a fun last day in Israel!

And now, we are in Budapest! Today is our first full day and we are (I think) going right into the center of the city just to start getting a feel for the city. I'm so excited! We have so many fun ideas for our two weeks in Budapest and we should go get started on them now!

Word of the Week 2

Lehafil mone = Put on the meter
Pronunciation: Lay-ah-feel moh-nay
This helpful little phrase is what you would like to say immediately after entering any Israeli taxi cabs. Luckily, our hosts told us this before we ever needed to take a taxi, because they will rip you off otherwise. However, the driver is required to put on the meter if you asked. This phrase was so helpful! Sometimes, you just can't figure out which bus goes where you want and a taxi is the best option, so saving the money from putting on the meter was great!

A few other things

Sorry we haven't been updating very often, the Internet access has been very spotty wherever we've been. It might also be a while before we post much again because on top of limited access, our new voltage converter has broke. Sorry! Not our fault either time, I promise. It's pretty annoying though, trust us. So we are limiting our time on electronics and hopefully we will get a working voltage converter and easier Internet access another time.
Also, our weekly posts (Word of the Week, Person of the Week, etc.) will almost certainly be later than a week. We apologize.

Photo of the Week

This is from the top of Masada. You can see the Roman quarter (that little square).
It was really high up. I think it was 350 meters plus vertically.

it's been too long!

so...let's see if i can remember everything we've done in the past week.
we went to lake agmon-hulu...a crane conservatory. if i can remember correctly, what makes this place unique is the way that the farmers and the "green people" (environmentalists)work together. the birds eat the seeds that the farmers plant unless the farmers get rid of them. so in this particular spot, instead of killing the cranes, the farmers just play loud music and make lots of noise to keep them away - so everybody wins. the cranes are alive and the farmers can grow their crops.some
we'll post a cool video we took of the thousands of cranes flying around on our youtube channel later (check the link on the side bar for the channel link).

ahh ariel is going to kill me for not using proper capitalization and punctuation in this post.

anyway...we spent about a week in jerusalem after K'far Giladi (a northern kibbutz). it was incredible! we basically went into the old city every day. on the first day we took a walking tour of the old city with the "bar mitzvah crew" (friends of the mondlaks from boston were visiting jerusalem for their son's bar mitzvah)...it was interesting to see things like mount olives and the place where the Last Supper supposedly took place. we took lots of pictures so we'll eventually put them up on our flickr (again, check the side bar).
1
we did a little shopping...they have a topshop! my favorite store!
and we took a tour of the western wall tunnels, which was amazing! we were so far below the highest point of the city and could see civilizations piled on top of each other. it was wicked weird, but really cool...we learned about the styles of building each era used. for example, we saw the huge framed rocks that Herrod used to build centuries ago.

we also found a neighborhood that had street names with all the names of the Joseph's brothers...which was cool.

at the end of the week shabbat started. we stayed right in jerusalem for the night in order to get the best possible experience of an israeli shabbat. we went to a service and then to dinner with a really sweet family that we sang all night with. i love all the singing in judaism!! so fun!

also last week, we went to masada national park! it was so cool! we have some videos and pictures to put up of that too.
it was so high! and a lot of the original artifacts and roman-influenced structure remains on the very top, and also the roman quarters on the ground (see our picture of the week)

oh i had falafel! yummmmmmmmmmmm! they eat a lot of that here. i'm not sure what it is but it's these ball-like things in pita with hummus and vegetables. it's good. ariel could probably tell you what it is. i should probably know what i'm eating.

so now we're in a kibbutz down south in the DESERT!!! it's soooo hot here!!!! i can't believe it! the kibbutz is called ketura. it's a traditional kibbutz...so everything is shared here and all meals are provided. free food =]

on our first full day here we went into the city of Eilat and went swimming in the ocean! they made us pay five dollars (about 20 shekels) for a chair. pshh.

and today we went back to Eilat to go to the underwater observatory! there were lots of cool fish and sharks and turtles and things. our favorite was the sting ray. we have a video of it swimming around. we were in awe.

we took lots of pictures...so check our flickr sometime!

tomorrow we're going to the dead sea!!

keep checking back...
i'll be posting the picture and word of the week ASAP =]

Word of the Week/Other

Unfortunately, we ran into a slight bit of technological trouble, which explains why the Word Week is late and we haven't posted in a while. Our voltage converter broke, so we basically can't charge anything (including our dead-since-Tuesday camera batteries and dying computer) until we get a new one. Once we do, we will tell all about walking around the Old City, Masada, the Western Wall and its tunnels and more.

So, now that we've explained that, here's the late Word of the Week! We apologize for any possible spelling mistakes in this; Hebrew uses a different alphabet so words can be spelled many different ways.
Ma nishna?- What's up?
It's pronounced pretty much exactly how it sounds and is used by almost everyone as a friendly greeting, much like "what's up?" in English.

Well, I promise more posts when we get the voltage converter, so in the meantime, bye!

Person of the Week

This week we chose a park ranger at Lake Agmon-Hulu who works to conserve the part of the cranes' migratory path that lies here.
Here at Lake Agmon-Hulu, the cranes gather to rest and feed during their migration. Once, they recorded 32,000 cranes in this one spot at one time!
You can also see water buffalo and jungle cats here at the right time.
The ranger explained the mating rituals and life cycle of the crane.

A synopsis:
Boy meets girl
Boy dances
Girl judges harshly
Girl dances if she likes what she sees
Mating (with the exception of a partner's death, crane couples are together for life! Aw...)
Babies!
Parents teach babies migratory path and all that's involved
Babies leave nest after 1 year
As 4 year olds, they mate and the cycle repeats

During the 1st year of a baby's life...parents teach the following:
How to avoid jungle cats and warn other cranes of them ("Jungle cat! Jungle cat!")
How to eat and not get eaten
The migratory path

We'll hopefully be posting a video soon showing the cranes and explaining some more about the area.

Food of the Week

Pita Druze is our food for the week.
It is a thin, flat pita filled with goat cheese, olive oil, and spices. It is then heated on a rounded stove top.
We enjoyed it immensely!

Photo of the Week

This is the memorial site where 2 helicopters containing 73 soldiers went down almost exactly 13 years before the day we were there. In the past two years, a memorial site for them was built. The site has small hanging stones and large glass panels with the names on them as well as large rocks. There is also a fountain running through part of the memorial where people can throw coins into and flowers everywhere.

The Second Full Day - More Travel!

We are now in the northern part of Israel, on a kibbutz near Kiryat Shmona. Although the bus was long (about three and a half hours), it was nowhere near as long as all the travel to get here. I'm just so glad that we're here! I mean, Emily and I have worked overall for months and months getting this trip together. Finding hosts, planning the itinerary, arranging the school credits, everything. It's all finally paid off!

The kibbutz is beautiful, much like the rest of Israel. I love it here! On our way into our hosts' house, there were fruit trees growning in the lawn. I mean huge trees full of oranges and lemons! It's so different from Vermont. It was a little cold and rainy today, but not at all too cold for us.

We've adjusted fine to the weather, but the seven hour time difference is still a little rough. I'm just hoping that it won't be as rainy tomorrow and we'll be more adjusted to the time difference, so we can go outside more. I just want to walk around the kibbutz and see it all. Everything here is new to us, and I can't wait to explore it all!

Unfortunately, we don't speak more than a couple words of Hebrew. Many people speak English here, and some just look at us and automatically switch to English. But then there are the people who may or may not be yelling something mean at you, or may simply be calling for their dog to come and you just can't tell the difference. This actually happened to us yesterday, but after a few Hebrew explanations, the woman realized that we don't have a clue what she's saying and told us in English. I guess it's not impossible to get around without knowing Hebrew, but I think knowing more words would be better, so we'll try.

Article Link

oops - i forgot to add the link!

http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20100202/NEWS04/2020355/1002/NEWS01

Rutland Herald Article

Article written about our trip:

First day in Israel!

Here we are! It's breezy but warm and extremely beautiful. The plants are so awesome!! We love all the flowers and the palm trees, etc...

The flight went without a hitch but it was SO LONG. SO LONG.
We're now staying with the sweetest family with lots of kids and good food.

So far today we've slept. and slept and slept.
and gone on a walk around the neighborhood, which was interesting - it's so different than Vermont.

Oh and we heard Vermont has snow. HAHA IN YOUR FACE VERMONT. it's like spring/summer here.

Ariel made friends with a cat on the street.
and a baby. How gregarious.

We'll be getting a cell phone here soon which will be convenient for when we start having daily outings.

we'll be posting pictures as soon as we can! promise!

More soon!!
Ariel and Emily =] =] =]
xxx