THURSDAY:
Today I had to wake up at 6:30 to get on a coach that was supposed to be there at 7. The alarm didn’t go off, but luckily one of Miki’s apartmentmates woke me up. I got ready quickly. We picked the Aussie’s up, except now they live in Ashkolon. The bus was a long drive, but eventually we got to where we met up with the Desert Queens. We were in a parking lot and there was a huge field of huge sunflowers (I first wrote sunflower seeds hahaha). They were so pretty. I think sunflowers are one of my favorite flowers. After breakfast we got into different cars (about 22 or something) that are good for off-road driving. We stopped at this one memorial to look at Gaza. The memorial was for a pilot who died in the plane crash between 2 Israeli planes. He was one of the 71 who died. The memorial consisted of a big wind chime thing. It was beautiful. In Israel, whenever I see memorials, I don’t get creeped out, but I find them to be really nice- and I know that I should be happy there to honor them. It was a clear day out so we could see all of Gaza and the sea behind it. While driving we drove along the border of Gaza and eventually of Egypt. I fell asleep for some of that. It was impossible to sleep when we were off the main road. So bumpy and a little nauseating. Lunch was so so so good. Potluck including many salads and pastas. There was this huge German Sheppard who was such a cutie pooch. He wanted to play fetch and use a rock as a ball. I played with him and his tongue was all sandy from trying to pick up the rocks. Right after lunch, we began the huge stretch of being off road. A car got stuck and a few of us went up on a sand dune while others tried to get the car unstuck from being in the sand. It was so much fun to climb up. So much sand got into my shoe. Later that night, I found out that a lot of sand also got into my sock. One of the three desert queen women in the car along with Rach, Ale, Naomi, and me, drove for most of the time. The passanger and her at one point switched and her driving was so much different. Instead of going slow, she would stop to wait for the car in front of her to get ahead and then she would go really fast. We were jumping all around. I was pretty happy when we finally got to the main road. After a pee stop, Ale wanted to drive, so she did. She was a good driver and I fell asleep.

Our last stop before dinner was at this other memorial. There we danced and then in pairs, I was with Elana, made and decorated our own kites to fly because it was so windy. Elana’s and mine was the best. It was an Israeli flag with different colored squiggles. After flying the kite for a bit, we got back into the car and went to a park where we had dinner and hung around a bonfire to keep us warm after the sun went down. The bus was about an hour late, and I didn’t get back to Beit Ar-El until 11:30ish. I took a bus with Cara back to Katie’s and after showering, I have been blogging. It is now 2:30. Must get to bed!!!