AMSTERDAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Holy Moley it's incredible here. I can't begin to explain, so I won't (for now).

Monday we had class, but so many kids had left/ were in winter break mode, it was a pretty ho-hum day. It was pretty to be honest. Late in the day I got caught up in transfering stuff from the apartment to hostel, finding where everyone was hanging out that night, goodbyes and other stuff. Eli, Avi and I had planned to hang out at the apartments and get picked up there at 4 in the morning to go to the Ben Gurion airport in Tel-Aviv, but we ended up staying at the hostel so we could hang out with more people. Mike was at the apartments because we thought people were coming there, so I didn't get to hang out with him. Saying goodbye to him was ROUGHHHHH. We were both so excited for eachother and ourselves, but I was still sad to say goodbye to him. It was stupid because I'm seeing in 10 days and I had to say goodbye to life-long friends for 9 months in september, but it was more than that. It was an intimation to what it's going to be like at the end of year course. Not only that, but I could potentially rarely see him from march to june because we could choose different Israel Experiences. It really sucked thinking about it. It made everyone think about the end of year course. Saying goodbye and having it be a real goodbye. I know for a 100 % fact that I'll see Mike down the road, same goes a lot of my friends on year course, but not most. It's going to be a sad, sad day.

So our cab was picking us up at 4:15 outside the Hostel. We opted to stay up all night with the intention of sleeping on the whole plane ride ( which worked out exactly to plan. All three of us slept the entire way, from takeoff to landing). Our british girls stayed up with us and we just hung out and drank tea all night. I was sad to say goodbye to them as well, but I was also ecstatic to embark on our journey. I tried dancing, smiling, and singing to diffuse the sad goodbye. It didn't work. It was really sweet of them to stay up with us when they had class in the morning; these girls are awesome (Sam, Amy, Bianca and Ilana)!

Our cab driver was the man! He made amazing time, taught us about the jewish mafia, and played a pretty cool array of music from techno to whitney houston. Really weird incident ( I know the mommas don't wanna hear this), right before Eli, Avi and I stepped foot into the airport, a guard blows his whistle and 30 security guards come running out the door right next to us. We all stood there kind of shocked until we were calmly ushered to step aside and carry on. Checking into our flight couldn't have been any easier. We were blatenly tourists not from Israel, and they didn't even check our bags. ( Kind of disturbing but whatever).

We arrived to Amsterdam five hours later where I met Eli's mom Mini, and his step-dad Abraham, who we call Seno. It wasn't to hard to tell from the moment I met them they were extraordinarily nice people. They treated us to lunch, and then the three of us took a much needed nap in the apartment. Later we went to dinner in an absolutely gorgeous part of Amsterdam. Since it's christmas time, the streets are illuminated by lights of all colors. The buildings are made of bricks, with the roof tops pointed like a castle. They're magnifacent. After dinner, the boys and I visited the Red Light District....................... I was in shock. Prostitutes dancing in front of windows, the smell of marijuana flooding out of cafes, and all of it legal! I couldn't believe my eyes and ears! When we left it took me awhile to fully understand what I just saw. If vegas is sin city, this is the devil's backyard.

Today we woke up around 9:30 and had breakfast before catching a tram to downtown. Eli's mom had a painting class, and very close to it was Anne Franks house, which was preserved and formed in to an exhibit ( as Anne Frank and her father had wanted it). It was very powerful; I really enjoyed it. We walked from room to room, reading quotes on the wall from Anne's dairy. There were videos in some rooms of interviews from those who lived in the building and knew of the Frank familys hiding. Some artifacts that Anne Frank had wrote about were still there: Her theatre magazines here father got for here, the pictures she posted on the wall in her room, Peter's ( her crush) board game he got for his birthday. The pamphlet we got for the exhibit was great, so I took about two dozen or more to bring back to people. We got to see a great part of Amsterdam during the day today. Water ways seperate streets, it's just gorgeous. And the bikes!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's insanity, everyone here rides bikes. They have the right of way on the streets! It's nuts, It's weird, It's awesome. On bridges that connect streets over the water, there will be 300 bikes locked on the sides of a bridge thats 100 feet long. Madness I tell you, madness.

Afterwards we met up with Minny and Seno, had lunch, and then Eli and I went to a gym right across the street from the apartment. Eli's parents bought us each five day passes to the gym which is great. I had taken a 9 day break from the gym at the Hostel not to long ago without thinking about this trip, so luckily I should be able to stick to my routine somewhat. Tomorrow is Christmas so we might not be up to much. Friday we may go to Belgium, we haven't decided yet. Seno has a break from work over the next couple of days for Christmas so we'll be able to be with him and Minny when we travel which is great. On Monday I think the three of us will go to Paris and stay the night ( so freaking excited!!!!!!!!). We have a lot of things on our to do list, hopefully we get around to all of them. Trust me, there will be plenty of pictures.

All the best,
Jakey G