Traveled up to Haifa which is such a beautiful city. It is much less dirty and crowded than Tel Aviv and around the gardens there are beautiful homes! As you get closer to the port it seems to get a little grungier but overall a very beautiful city, I hope to be able to go back and spend more time there in the future! Haifa is known by tourists for its Baha'i gardens which are sacred to those of the religion and hold a shrine within them. Unfortunately, I coul...

Had a great time visiting Jerusalem! Went with with one of my roommates who knows the city well and it was nice to have a travel buddy! We went around the old city and he helped me bargain with one of the vendors and I got a really pretty tapestry to hide one of my many white walls in my apartment in Ann Arbor! After grabbing lunch in the old city we went over to East Jerusalem, to the Muslim area where my roommate wanted to say hi to an old friend, Ibrahim. Ib...

Its my last week here! I am so sad I dont want to leave! There really is a high that comes with being in this country. I dont really know how to explain it. But, nonetheless I dont want to leave and my friend Elissa has already told me shes going to do everything in her power to steal my passport :) Since I am done with working, I now have time to explore even more! Yesterday I rented a bike in Tel Aviv (and a helmet too!) and rode up the coast. There is a ...

Yesterday after work I went with two Sackler students to volunteer at "Save a Child's Heart." It is a non-profit that runs a large house in a Tel Aviv suburb that holds children (and their mothers) from third world countries with heart defects while they wait to have surgery (and recoup after surgery) at one of the local children's hospitals--all at no cost to them. I dont know what the exact conditions these children have but the majority of congenita...

Shabbat Shalom! Had my first Israeli shabbat dinner last night! Went with my friend Nadav to his family's house--his dad is the pediatrician whom I set up my rotation here with. It was great! They live about 20 minutes outside Tel Aviv on a Moshav which historically was like a co-op with lots of shared agriculture but now it reminds me of Boca West in Boca Lago where its just a large complex with houses and parkland (though there still is some agriculture, but ...