Day 8: Travel Begins

July 31, 2014
By: Dani Stancer
Well hello, World Wide Web. How are y'all? I'm doing splendid. It's incredibly hot here and unbearably humid. So guess what? I woke up at 6:30 in the freaking morning because we had to be at the library for 8am and I still had to finish packing. Procrastination is my middle name. While at the library, yesterday's day leaders led a wrap up program for the week. They asked questions like 'what is something you learned about yourself?' Yada, yada, yada. After that invigorating experience, we headed onto the thankfully air conditioned bus (one of the only ones we've had with air conditioning, woohoo!). From then on, we travelled for about 3 hours until we reached this beautiful place called Masada. I mostly slept on the bus so I can't give you a play by play on what happened. Sorry, I like my sleep too much.
So, if you haven't figured it out already, we're currently at Masada until Sunday staying at the hostel. The rooms aren't cramped and the place is pretty cool. After we brought our luggage into the hostel, we boarded the bus once again, but we headed to the actual place called Masada. We took the cable car up and once there, we split into four groups and had a competition based learning program. We had to figure out five interesting facts, find a Diller hat (there was only one!), debate on the interesting topic of whether the story of Masada was an act of heroism by the Jews or of cowardice, and, lastly, take a Diller-esque photo. Once the mini competition was over, we walked down the Roman Ramp, which isn't actually a ramp, and headed onto the bus (again, I know). We took the bus over to the Bedouin community near us. The culture and atmosphere there was phenomenal. The energy was unbelievable. Their way of life is so intriguing and I wish we stayed the night. We had a surprise camel ride and the camel I rode on with at Tomer was named Antigone. The one behind us was named BoBo, and she kept rubbing her head on Tomer's leg. I was scared she'd bite me, but I still have all ten toes. We had a Bedouin style dinner and then were invited into one of the community member's tents. While there, I had the honour of thanking them for hosting us and was then considered the man's ninth daughter and twenty-fourth child. My favourite part of the whole night there was the nice temperature. The area had a slight breeze and fantastic temperatures. Once we were finished there, we boarded the bus for the final time and got back to the hostel in about an hour. Well, the World Wide Web, it's pretty late and my bed is once again calling my name, so this is me signing off. Nighty night. Don't let the bed bugs bite, and if they do, take your shoe, and whack 'em till they're black and blue. Xoxoxoxo Dani