Finishing up basic sciences

Hey everyone!!

I've gotten a lot of messages about the lack of updates. Sorry! I've been working pretty much non-stop since I got back from Egypt, and aside from school there really hasn't been that much going on. I am, however, now done with the typical first year curriculum of basic medical sciences (hopefully...we haven't gotten all of the results from our finals back yet). Here we have pretty much a straight month of finals, which has its pluses and minuses. On the up side, you get, usually, 4 or so days between finals so you can really pack in some good study time before hand, but on the down side, it is a long stinking time to be shutting yourself away from the world to hull up in a room with just your books. Luckily this time around, there were quite a few of us using the same building for studying and I had a good hour or so break almost every day playing volleyball with Dan after we'd had enough of the books. We finished up with our last final on Tuesday, and then on Wednesday, jumped straight into the systems based medical approach which we will be using for the next year of our studies. We're starting off with hematology, and it looks promising. The way it works is that you learn pretty much everything you can about the one system you're studying, then move onto another system until you cover the whole body. It seems like it should be a lot more comprehensive than what we've had so far.

Because we just finished up what most schools would call the first year (we still technically have one more system after hematology), pretty much everybody decided to get out of town for the weekend. One girl in my class, Lara, has a family vacation home up right above Tel Aviv and she kindly offered to host a party for the whole class on Thursday night. Problem was, we also had an AMSA (American medical student association) international potluck that night, which I had already agreed to cook food for. But, there were a few of us who would have to stay behind to go to the AMSA thing, and Susan had already decided that she would rent a car for the weekend to peruse around the countryside, and so a few of us could head up after the dinner was over and just make it to the party a little late--which is exactly what we did.

The party was fun...good BBQ and a lot of laughs, but the rest of the vacation was what really rocked! The first half of the day was spent driving back and forth between Tel Aviv, Hertzliyya, and Netanya, hanging out with 3 girls from my class and one of their Israeli friends. We got breakfast (at 2pm) at this amazing little cafe called Benedicts. It was an hour wait, but the food was amazing (this coming from someone who doesn't really like breakfast foods that much).

Yeah, great food huh? We had way, way, way too much for the table, but we made it work.

After that we wandered around Tel Aviv at the local artisan's street fair. There was a ton of cool stuff there and I definitely got some ideas for birthday presents for some of you guys back home.

:) Then it was back to Hertzliyya for Susan and I to pick up 2 of the guys in our class and then to head up to Caesarea. The original plan for the weekend had been to camp on the beach somewhere up there and check out some of the old ancient ruins from the time of the Crusades, but had pretty much no idea where stuff actually was or which beaches were really camp-able (I like to just role with the punches and am really not much for planning). Luckily for us, our friend from our class, Jared, who happened to be with us had an uncle up in Caesarea and was planning on going up there for the weekend anyway. He showed us around for a bit, then headed to his uncle's house, leaving Susan, Thomas, and me to wander around the old city of Caesarea where all of the ruins were and the few places where we could eat. We made it to the ruins just in time to watch the sun set, then found a great restaurant (the cheapest of the 4 in town) where we spent probably close to 3 hours talking and laughing and just having a genuinely good time.

After dinner, we drove around for a while just exploring the area, but couldn't find that much to do, so we headed off to try to find a good camping spot. We stopped randomly right outside of the national part where some more of the ruins were, and found a little pathway down a big cliff by the beach and after wandering a bit more found the ideal camping spot. There was this little patch of sand jutting out, surrounded by rocks. To make it even better, we found a little pathway up to the car that was a lot shorter--and safer--than the one we had taken down. We hauled 2 tents and our sleeping bags down to our newfound camping spot and as Susan and Thomas set up the tents I went off looking for firewood. At first I thought that we were going to be out of luck, at best having a fire that would last for about 10 minutes because there was pretty much no wood to be found. Then I happened upon a huge pile of wood--limbs, palm fronds, little logs--the perfect stuff for making a fire aside from being a little damp. I hauled some of it back and then Susan and Thomas came with me to bring enough for a fire that would last at least a few hours. Thomas started the fire and we sat around it, playing guitar and relaxing about 30 feet from the lapping waves. By the end of the night we had tried to pick out the Star Spangled Banner, America the Beautiful, O Holy Night, and a bunch of other completely random songs on the guitar. Finally at 4 in the morning we decided to call it a night and headed off to bed.

The next morning we woke up around 7 to some fishermen walking around our tents and some pretty extreme heat. We were all too exhausted to care though, so just unzipped our tent doors to let the breeze in and tried to block out the noise of the fishermen. Around 10 I finally couldn't really stand the heat so I got up and got to really take in the sites of the beach we'd picked in the middle of the night. I have to say, we did a pretty stinking good job! On either side of us there were ruins of the old city, and before us was some of the clearest, most beautiful water I have ever seen.

You can see some of the ruins in the distance

The view from our camping spot of the old aqueduct that runs along the whole city

I decided to take a dip in the water, and my goodness, it was amazing! Aside from somewhat sharp rocks on the bottom, there was really nothing to complain about. I swam around a little bit by myself, the Thomas woke up and came out with me. We ended up swimming out to some rocks a little further out, where we found a bunch of crabs, some little fish, a ton of shells, a star fish, and some cool little rock formations.

Needless to say, I didn't put on sunscreen, and so got a horrible sun burn that is still nice and red and tender. Once we came in from the ocean, we headed back to the same restaurant that we had dinner at and got lunch, and then played some paddle ball with a group of Muslim school girls visiting from Jerusalem.

Then we went over to Jared's uncle's house to hang out for a bit. They had a trampoline right next to the pool, built for the sole purpose of jumping into the pool. Thomas gave it a go, and the trampoline ended up breaking because there was a ladder stored under it that ripped through the fabric. We spent a little more time hanging out at the house, which had a gorgeous yard and great view

From there we headed up to a Druze town, Daliyat el-Carmel, where Jared claimed we could get the best falafel in all of Israel (and I have to admit, it was pretty good) and where there was a handmade fabric shop that Jared wanted to check out to possibly order some new covers for his couch. Once Keiko and I figure out for sure where we're living next year, I'm hoping to head back up there to get some furnishings for our place. After that we just drove around the city a little bit, went up to a monastery that was closed for the day and went on a couple of little hikes to check out the view of the surrounding area.

What a great weekend. Now we're back to classes, although we had today off and tomorrow as well for Shavuot (a Jewish holiday). On the agenda for next weekend (not this one) is horseback riding in the Negev desert. Good times!