Tuesday April 20--- Yom Ha'atzmaut

Israels independence dayyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!! Woke up this morning, everyone needed some time to recover. On Yom Ha'atmaut it is tradition in Israel to go to a park and have a huge bar b que with all your family and friends. Again, the school didnt have anything planned I guess because its a huge family holiday. SO we all had to figure out stuff to do. A lot opf people got things to bar b que and went to all different parks. The twins were with their parents, rosie was roaming around going to some strange places, and people Im friends with were just going to places--- no one I really know was hosting anything. Lauren and her whole apartment and some other people were going to their camp from, Lees, Bar b que at the park. HIs parents are here visiting him, hes studying somewhere, and they sponsored this huge bar b que for all his friends. They bought a ton of food and drinks, paid for it all, and told him to invite his friends. So a bunch of us went. I dont really know him so it was kind of awkward but all my friends were there. It was really fun. We went to this giant park, it took us forever to find them. The park was packeddddddddd with millions of people-- family bar b ques going on everywhereee!! Ice cream trucks, cotton candy machines, blow up moon bounces, everything!! I've never seen a park so full in my life. Everyone was bar b queing everywherreee!! People went all out with tents, tables, chairs etc... Its a huge family holiday so everyones families were there and there were tons of kids playng, it was reallty nice and the weather was beautiful. The people are also really really really nice-- everyone shares food even if you dont know them. People kept coming up to us giving us food and talking to us. We had lots of salads, pita, hummus, it was really weir-d- htey didnt have hamburgers and hot dogs they had all this vegetarian gross stuff like veggie patties, corn patties, grilled vegetbales. I really wanted a hamburger im supirsed they didnt have it!! There was so much food but no hamburgers or hot dogs!! So maddd... But it was fun. They had a giant watermelon that weighed like 10 pounds. People were playing frisbee and flying kites everywhere. Theres a ton of parks in jerusalem where people go but this was the most popular and it was packeddd!! The weather was great. July 4th is nothinggggggggggggg like it is here. We look like wimps compared to israel on independence day. I think because the country is soo new, people are SOOOOO spirited about it. It was really nice to see. We had a really fun holiday, it was interesting to finally be in Israel for it. Binghamton does a hugeeeeeeeeeeeeee thing for it every year, its my favorite day of the year- they bring in all this israeli food, camels, pita staktions, bedioin tea, t shrts-, israeli djs and alll this coool stuff. I missed it this year, its always my favorit day of the year. But im glad I was in Israel for this, it was reallly really cool to seee!! Our country has to step it up on independencne day