shalom!

Hey, sorry for not writing earlier. Life in ha'aretz is very busy, and the internet is difficult to access. I arrived in Israel 24 hours late after a flight delay in Reagan airport, but the wait was while worth it - we came to Israel in 70 degree weather on a beautiful spring day. Anyways - aside from our in-school learning, we go out on various tiyulim, or field trips, one or two times a week. Yesterday, on Sunday, we went on our first tiyul to Tel Gezer. Tel Gezer is an arachaelogical site located at the site of the ancient city of Gezer, located off route 44 today but in the old days at the cross roads of the ancient Via Maris (sea road), and the Ayalon. We went for a three hour hike around the tel and learned the history of the place, and about archaelogical digs in general. Today, of course, was Yom ha'Zicaron (Remembrance day) in Israel. Well the day started out normally with our history class, and then our general studies, around 6:30 a sombre mood began to settle in... all the sounds in the city of hod ha'sharon slowly became muted. We walked over to the city square and there met with a huge portion of hod hasharon's population and watched a ceremony which included the reciting of the names of all Hod Hasharon's citizens killed in wars, and singing by a children's choir. Sorry for the length of this post, but I have experienced a lot in the last few days, -Roxanne Gordon