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).
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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 =]