I’ve been here exactly two weeks and it feels like so much longer.  Israel really gives you this feeling the you’re welcome and part of the family.  It also makes you want to shower 3 times a day.  Everyone told me Tel Aviv was hot in the summer and they weren’t lying.  I spent the first week here with family in Rechovot, traveling to Jerusalem, seeing Gratz College people and having a great time.  The second week started my life at Tel Aviv University.  I moved into the dorms and immediately I saw the truly international community I would be living and studying in.  We had a few days to get oriented, unpack, meet new friends and have fun.  I’m proud to say I now have friends from Bryn Mawr, Boston, Philadelphia, California, Germany, London, Switzerland, Argentina, Ukraine, France, Canada, Israel, Spain and many more.  This week my classes started and I felt like I was back in Ilana Margolis’s Hebrew classes at Gratz  I spend 5 hours a day, 5 days a week in class so it’s rather intense.  The class is taught almost entirely in Hebrew and so I’m working hard to keep up.  Outside of the classroom I’ve been lucky enough to travel to Jerusalem twice and Haifa once.  I have plans to: head to my family’s moshav to see their bee farm and taste some fresh honey, travel to Tzfat with friends, sing with my new friends on the roof of my dorms and anywhere else we can get at least 3 people in a room with as many guitars as possible, visiting friends in Nazareth Elite and anything else that might come up.  My trip has been wonderful and I wish I could extend it to stay longer.