Day Two - Monday 8th April

This is Holly, reporting live from the Dan Panorama Hotel in Tel Aviv.  Today was our first proper day being in Israel altogether and beginning our adventure.

We had to be up by seven o’clock so we set a wake up call to get us up.  I’m sure everyone else put the phone down correctly, but when our call came through, I was so fast asleep that I couldn’t find the receiver to put the phone down!

After a massive, gimungus typical Israeli breakfast, we headed off in the minibus to Kibbutz Sdot Yam (which means ‘field sea’) to see the Hana Senesh museum. As we were coming through the car park, I saw a painting on the wall of a building and I thought it was Hana Senesh.  But the mums informed me that it was a picture of the Mona Lisa!!

_{As we arrived, at 10 am precisely we heard a really loud high-pitched siren, which was the start of the two minutes’ silence for Yom HaShoa, the Holocaust Memorial Day.}

_{It was very interesting learning all about Hana, who was 18 when she left her home and family in Hungary and moved to Israel and lived on the kibbutz.  During the Second World War, she joined the Palmach and then the British Army and was parachuted on a mission into Slovakia. She was captured entering Hungary and eventually tortured and killed.} I’m sure, on behalf of all the others, we all gained a lot from learning about her life.  We learned that even though life can sometimes be really bad, you can always find something to cheer yourself up or to help others.

_{After that we went to Zichron Ya’acov, which was one of the first agricultural settlements in Palestine,} and searched for somewhere to have lunch. On the way, we saw a group of Israeli soldiers dressed in their uniforms. Charlotte S had the courage to go up and ask them if we could have a picture with them.  We sat down for lunch but got scared that we were going to get bitten by all the stray cats and get rabies so we ended up putting our feet up on the chairs.  Even Lisa Silverbeck did!

We went to an amazing ice cream shop for our desserts and everyone had ice cream all over their mouths.

We left Zichron Ya’acov and went to Ramat Hanadiv, a nature reserve that means ‘Heights of the Benefactor’. We were due to do a 1.5 km tiyul (walk) but it was due to close about 40 minutes after we got there.  Pesah parked the bus in one place but then we realized we had to be somewhere else to start our walk, and as we didn’t have very much time, we got straight back on the bus and asked him to drive us over.  He said ‘Is that it?’ meaning was that all the walking we were going to do?

Our walk lasted about 30 minutes over a rocky path and led us to some old ruins with a nice view.  Debbie Hougie had done a little quiz for us to do as we walked and we learned a lot about the place we were visiting.  Charlotte U said she really enjoyed the walk and I did too,

The bus took us to Netanya and we walked down to the beach for a swim.  Even though the water was cold, all of us girls went in swimming and it was great fun.  We swam for nearly an hour and then got changed before going to Mervyn and Nina’s house for a BBQ.  They have three such cute dogs – Boots, Socks and Casey.  My favourite was Socks.  They also have a parrot called Cookie who danced every time they mentioned dancing.

There were some people from ESRA there and we were told about what ESRA does and about the Bat mitzvah party we are going to with the Ethiopian Bat mitzvah girls on Wednesday.  We’re really looking forward to it.

Everyone was very tired as we’ve had a long day but it was really good.