2/16/2011-3/6/2011: visit with my parents, settling into Lod, Shabbat in Efrat

After finally getting my parents from the airport,we headed to the Crowne Plaza in Tel Aviv to start my parents' Israel vacation. It was about 4am on Thursday morning, so we were hungry so after getting "breakfast" we all went to sleep until 2pm, see we were going to do some sightseeing on Thursday but we didn't have that much time after our sleep until 2pm. But we did have time to meet up with my boyfriend so that my parents could finally meet him for dinner. Friday morning, we spent the morning at the Diaspora museum at the Tel Aviv University and then a tour of Caesarea, including Dad's kibbutz, the neighboring Sdot Yam. We then ended our day at Dad's old friends from the kibbutz who live in Pardes Hanna-Karkur, and we stayed the weekend for Shabbat, it was very relaxing with lots of tea and a lot of catching up for everyone. Sunday, we first went to Zikhron Yaakov for breakfast to see the place that my stepmom spent the year at for ulpan, after that we went to my stepmom's cousins in Beit Oved to visit and get ourselves settled, we did tons of visiting the first couple of days. After my stepmom's parents arrival the night after we arrived in Beit Oved, we had a lot of catching up to do after two years of not seeing them, it was so nice to see them and I was very excited for our week in Israel together. The next day on Wednesday we went to Jerusalem for the first of two days in the Old City, we visited the Kotel and went through the Arab shuk which is always an experience. In the Arab shuk, my father has a tendency to bargain with all the vendors who are there, he does this every time he has the opportunity to, this time he met his match, he got kicked out of one of the stores it was quite unbelievable, I never thought it would happen. We went home to see family and have teat catch up some more and the next day we continued our tour of Jerusalem with a visit to Yad Vashem. It is one of the most amazing holocaust museums, it takes about 2 hours to walk through and it really gives you a true history and understanding of the holocaust it's a really great experience especially on the second time going it was even better than the first time. After a moving tour of Yad Vashem we then went to Abu Gosh for the best hummus and food that I've had in Israel. That night we went to our cousins for dinner and so more visiting. That Shabbat, we continued our task of visiting everyone who's family and friends in Israel we went back to dad's kibbutz friends in Binyamina and friday visited one cousin in Raanana and then to his brother on Saturday in Binyamina, after that me and dad went to Herzliyya to have dinner with my boyfriend's dad. Sunday, I went shopping with my stepmom and her mom to buy gifts for the family we stayed at. Monday, after breakfast with my dad, my boyfriend and his dad we continued to go to Lod so I could start getting settled. After saying my farewells to my dad we started off our afternoon in Lod with a huge house meeting to discuss food budget per week, house chores and schedule and house rules. The meeting was similar to trying to get cats and dogs to sit in a room together without fighting, there was a lot of arguing about stupid things, but somehow we got through it and agreed on most of the plan. The rest of Monday was spent getting settled and acquainted with Lod, we had a city tour and then we chose our volunteering jobs. I'm working at a school teaching English. Tuesday we met the teachers at the school and started working, we've helping the 8th grade students how to write argumentative essays because they need to write one for their entrance exam for high school. Wednesday and Thursday were the same from 9-12:45am we all go to work and then come back for lunch we have some kind of activity in the afternoon and evening or a free night then we sleep. Thursday night was free, so a couple of us went to Jerusalem, I went to dinner with some of my boyfriend's friends, my boyfriend and his dad to a nice restaurant on Emek Refaim. We saw our bartender friend Roni at his bar and hung out for a while before going back to Lod. Friday afternoon we went to Efrat to start our group Shabbat, we had Maariv, shabbat dinner, games and a little bit of singing, then we went back to our host families to sleep. Saturday was very relaxed we didn't have to do anything until about 4:30 so we played my favorite Munchkin and then just chatted about random stuff with some of the friends we've made on previous trips to Efrat, then we had Maariv, Seuda Shlishit, and then Havdallah, we all went back to our host families after that and then went home to Lod.