Ashdod Beach Campout and Not Tiberias

Every Wednesday, we have a "social night" scheduled. The social nights are aimed to strengthen the group and such. We've had things like a human knot, a game of "Mafia," or a semi-spontaneous dance party on yoga mats. This week, instead of our normally scheduled evening, we met the Nes Tziona and Tel Aviv groups at a community center in Tel Aviv for a couple of get-to-know-you games and some friendly competition. The competition was several rounds of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Israeli history edition. We totally owned the other two cities. It was awesome.

On Thursday night, we headed to the beach in Ashdod for a camp-out. Because Israel is ancient and awesome, this beach just happens to have ruins of a fortress right next to it. We set up tents, had a barbeque, had some drinks, and enjoyed the night on the beach. And we woke up early Friday morning and watched the sunrise, which was beautiful.

Sarah and I attempt to figure out how to pitch the tent...

Natasha and I enjoy grilled kabobs.

Then, on Saturday, I was going to take a day trip up to Tiberias to visit Evan (my brother, who is here on a NFTY trip for four weeks). But that kind of failed. Egged, the national bus company, annoyingly doesn't operate on Shabbat, so I was going to take a sherut (the shared taxi I mentioned before). I took a sherut from Ramla to Tel Aviv, and then at the Central Bus Station in Tel Aviv, I was looking for a sherut to take me to Tiberias, but I couldn't find one. I'm 85% sure that a sherut exists between the two cities, but I must have just missed one, or it's just not as popular of a destination as some other cities. I was looking for about a half-hour, and I finally gave up and just headed down to the beach. I brought my Hebrew homework with me, so I could do it on the bus ride back from Tiberias. So I got a sandwich from Aroma (which is amazing) and sat looking out at the sea while doing my Hebrew homework. So the day wasn't a complete failure.