Yad Vashem

Of all the days on this Israel MTrek adventure, I thought the first part of the day was more emotionally demanding than most for the group.  It started with a tour of the Yad Vashem Museum.  It's interesting to see how my new classmates reacted to this experience; some in the group were indifferent, most curious about the history, and a few were personally affected by the memory of the tragic event.  Having visited other Holocaust museums in the U.S. and even watching Schindler's list with my grandmother ( a survivor of Auschitwz), I felt the museum did an amazing job of taking the guest through the rise of the anti-semitism movement in Germany, the life or death struggle of the victims, and the relief of the end of WWII.  Every feature of the museum was built with a specific purpose in mind. For example, the triangle-shaped main corridor which let in a few rays of sunlight in order to simulate the feeling of being enclosed, the downward sloping floors at the start of the tour to recreate the feeling of falling and then the upward sloping floors that led to the light at the end of tunnel all helped to build a great experience. I only wish we had more time to tour the rest of the complex.  Overall, our group thoroughly enjoyed the museum.

After the museum visit, Travelujah organized a fun challenge/scavenger-hunt for the group in the Jerusalem market.  The game was setup in such a way that 4 groups were given a shopping list of food items [written in Hebrew] and the objective was to find the items and return back to the bus with the most amount of change. Afterwards we would have a picnic at the Rose Garden near the Supreme Court.  Unfortunately my group did not win, but we bargained hard in broken Hebrew for as many discounts and samples as possible.  The scavenger hunt was a fun way to explore the market and see all the variety of fruits, different flavored pita breads, and all the cheese shops.  We found this great ice cream shop with some exotic flavors too!  Of course, lunch was tasty!