Taxi Cab Ride in Jerusalem

Market in Jerusalem

Ramla Courtyard

Ramla Market

Jaffa

Walking to Jaffa

Dinner on the Beach in Tel Aviv

Day 2

It was time for a time change to a 6 hour time difference. We had a 3 hour stop-over in Milan, the fashion capital of the world. I will be visiting this city in one month.
It was raining and around 14degrees Celsius. Our landing was horrible, with giant dips and swerves and dives. Once that flight was over I was not looking forward to another. We arrived in Milan at 7am and our plane to Tel Aviv, Israel, left at 10:00am. We did an outdoor boarding and were shuttled to our plane. In the distance was mountain ranges with snow still on the peaks.
I slept for the majority of this flight. We arrived in Tel Aviv at 3:00pm Israel time, 2:00 Italy time, and 8:00am Canada time. A 7hour difference between Israel and home.
I had no problems getting through customs. Masha Etkind, one of our professors, greeted us at the arrival gates in Tel Aviv in Ben Gurion Airport. We then boarded our own private bus to our hotel.
The country is in full bloom and much more green and lush than I expected. The buildings are quite modern and there are apartment buildings everywhere.
Masha mentioned that yesterday was a sandstorm and the days before were stormy. Today was 26degrees Celsius when we arrived, hot, sunny, and with a nice breeze.
We arrived safely at our hotel, called Hotel Adiv. It is in the core of downtown Tel Aviv. It is a 2-minute walk to the Mediterranean Sea and the beach. I'm sharing a hotel room with Aaron, my roommate from my apartment.
We are staying here for a month.
We all met in the lobby of our hotel at 7pm to go for dinner together. We headed through the small streets to the beautiful beach on the Mediterranean.
Our restaurant was right on the beach. We sat in beach chairs in the sand right near the sea and all gathered together in a group. It was an awesome experience, taking in the beauty of the coast with amazing weather to go with it. We sat eating and socializing for a few hours while the sky began to darken. We ate hummus with pita bread, salad, and French fries. Masha's daughter visited us, she works at the Embassy and if we have any problems with the authorities, we just have to give her a call. Later, around 10 pm the mayor of Ramla came and visited us on the beach. We introduced ourselves and tomorrow he's taking us around the city of Ramla, the city that we will be doing the majority of our work on.
With jet lag setting in, we paid our bills [35 shekels each] and went to our hotel.

A Safe Trip

[copied from my journal]

"May 14, 2005

The day we left for our 5-week stay in Israel and Italy. We [myself, Aaron my roommate, and Sana] grabbed a taxi to the airport and left at 12:00 noon. We arrived at Pearson International Airport, checked in, and met up with the rest of the group. There are 17 students traveling and 2 professors. Our plane for Milan, Italy left at 5:00pm. It was a long flight, about 7.5 hours on Alitalia Airlines. The served us supper at 6pm and then breakfast at 1am."
This is a photo of the new Terminal 1 at Pearson.

The Rye in the Ram-la

This blog will be used for posting my 'journal' of my travels to Israel and Italy for whoever wants to read and be kept up in my day-to-day adventures.
I have no idea if I'll actually use it for my trip but it seems like the best way to reach the most people with the least effort hehehe.
The title "The Rye in the Ram-la" is connected to a few ideas. First, "Rye" stands for Ryerson University. And our school's pub is called "The Ram in the Rye". And the city my group is visiting is called Ramla. So through a brilliant play on words, I came up with "The Rye in the Ram-la". I take all the credit.
So hopefully this blog will give you an idea of what I'm doing, or at least what I'd like you to think I'm doing...