First Impressions

Turns out I didn't chose a very good flight. Don't get me wrong, the service was great: they fed us and the flight was really smooth. (And the British accents were definitely a plus.) But the timing was kind of unfortunate. I landed at Ben-Gurion Airport around 5:30am, local time. Then I got a taxi to Ramla, and got to the house around 7:30 or so. That would be fine, except that my body thought that it was 12:30 at night. But, I lived through it, and I'm basically adjusted to Israeli Time now.

I chose that flight because I wasn't sure when everyone would be meeting up, and I didn't want to miss the beginning of the program. I later found out that the meeting wasn't until 5pm, but it was too late to change the flight time.

So anyway, I was just kind of chilling for the whole day waiting for the other people to arrive. I met Nir, the city coordinator, and Aviva, one of my housemates. The house is kind of run down and dirty, but it's tolerable. At around 3:30, I went exploring. I walked down Sderot Hertzl, which is the main street here in Ramla. It's pretty cool. There are a whole bunch of falafel stands, clothing stores, a couple of banks. It's slightly run down, but I like it. The impression I get is that Ramla : Tel Aviv :: Bridgeport : New York.

My other housemates arrived around 5 or 6pm. There are five of us in the "Ramla 15" ISC group; six of us in the house. We have two Martys, and they're both from Los Angeles. Sarah is from Las Vegas, and Nick is from Georgia. The sixth person in our house is Aviva, who is from California but is making Aliyah soon. She participated in an ISC program that just ended, and she decided to stay here in Israel. Everyone seems pretty cool so far.