Acharei Ha-Chagim

Acharei Ha-Chagim is a phrase that HUC students have heard since the day we arrived in Israel. I assume it will be a term that we will continue to hear throughout the rest of our education as well as in our careers. Acharei Ha-Chagim simply means, "after the Holidays". For those of you who don't know, the beginning of the academic calendar year begins with holiday after holiday after holiday. I wrote in a previous post about Rosh Hashanah. Just 10 days later was Yom Kippur.

Highlights from...
YOM KIPPUR IN JERUSALEM:
-Before Kol Nidre, Ally, Allie, and I hosted 30 of our classmates for a pot luck pre-fast meal
-After being sick for an entire week, I got to leave the apartment!
-HUC services were held in Blaustein Hall which is a beautiful room with a giant window overlooking the Old City
-No one drives on YK...NO ONE! All of the stop lights are flashing and you are able to walking down the center of some of the main intersections in the city. The streets were filled with children riding bikes.
-a short 3 day school week followed by...

SUKKOT BREAK:
-before I left for my trip, I got a glimpse of the amazing sukkot around Jerusalem
-For 8 days I traveled with three of my friends, Mindy, Carolan, and Kelly to Europe

DUBLIN:
-we took a hop on hop off bus tour with an amazing tour guide with an awesome Irish accent
-walked through a park talking about how we wanted to meet Irish people and a man approached us and asked where we were from. He had just come from lunch with a man from Chicago...who was a professor at U of I!
-Visited the Guinness Factory!
-went to an Irish pub with live Irish music
-at SUBWAY!!!

PARIS:
-I wasn't too impressed with Paris, it's a city, I saw it and don't need to go back
-we got on a tour bus and saw the main sights (including the Monna Lisa and the Eiffel Tower)
-ate creme brulee

GLASGOW:
-saw Scotland
-wasn't too eventful
-took a tour bus

LONDON:
-My FAVORITE of all of the places we went!
-Went to all of the main tourist sites
-The War Rooms was my favorite "museum"
-had Starbucks
-walked around the main city center
-saw WICKED for the first time
-On our way home, we were offered to bump for 600 Euro CASH! Individual hotel rooms for the night, free breakfast, free dinner...it was awesome! We were offered it again in the morning, but we had to come back because Simchat Torah was ending and classes were starting up again Acharei Ha-Chagim.

So now we are in full swing. Three FULL months of classes with NO days off (except for Shabbat of course). It's been a bit of a rough adjustment back to school, but the end of the week isn't turning out so bad. We went to Yad Vashem (the Israel Holocaust Museum) and Har Hertzl with Isreal Seminar today. Since I have been to Israel a few times previously and have spent a significant time in the country, I am in a group with other students with the similar experiences. It's very interesting to be going to the same sights we've been to (sometimes more than once) but to learn about them in different ways.

Speaking of learning, I must go finish my homework for tomorrow. I will try to be better at updating now that we are- Acharei Ha-Chagim!