By Danielle Towers, NFTY in Israel Participant, Bus 3
A day on NTFY always starts with a bang… literally we are woken up at the crack of dawn on a regular basis. Each new day poses new challenges and experiences for the group.
A day that truly captures the spirit of the NTFY in Israel day-to-day agenda in particular was first spent in the Negev Desert. After arriving late that afternoon and working together to set up out campsite, we embarked on a evening hike. After taking in all the views we ate dinner as a group by a glowing campfire. Given that there was much planned for the next day we all fell right asleep, gazing up at the sky above us sprinkled with stars.
Five o’clock sharp the next day is started with that classic NFTY in Israel early wake up call. The morning hike gets us started on our day and we eat breakfast as the morning desert chill turns to intense Israel heat. As the day continues on we are constantly reminded to keep our hats on,drink lots of water, and reapply sunscreen. After a few days in the desert and a few painful sunburns later you learn that these habits make the trip much more comfortable! The next event for this day was to swim in the Red Sea, a rewarding and relaxing break from the hikes. After a refreshing swim in the salty water, lunch is prepared and eaten. It is common to mix up meals on a NFTY in Israel trip, given that lunch feels like breakfast time and dinner feels like lunch time with such jam-packed days. After being in the sun and cooling down the real relaxation time comes… the bus. Any kid on a NFTY in Israel trip knows that if you want to take a nice cat-nap the bus is the best place to do that. As the bus pulls back up to out campsite (home for the next four days) we have our second hike of the day, a simple mountain… no biggie. The day comes to a close with another dinner in the mountains. The biggest takeaway from these few days on NFTY in Israel would have to be my newfound appreciation of a shower, and of course Israel.
