Arrival in Israel

I had a middle seat on the flight to Tel Aviv. I slept some and it was an easy flight. I landed in Israel at 4:30 am and was able to take the 5 am train to Jerusalem. I obviously got an iced aroma coffee from the airport before the train. The train took 30 minutes to get to Jerusalem and then I had to take the lite rail to the hostel. I finally arrived around 5:45 to the hostel. Zach was asleep when I arrived and there was another roommate in the room. This first week in Israel I am doing a volunteer program. I woke up around 11 am and Zach and I got ginger shots from the etrog man and walked to Gan Sacher park. We sat and caught up in the grass and oriented ourselves together for the journey ahead. Around 13:00 we headed to our first volunteering experience, the food pantry. I began to meet some people in our 40 person volunteering group. **It was funny because people began to ask me "where do you live" and "what do you do for work".** I knew these questions would inevitably come but it still was funny to think how to answer it for the first time. The truth is I do not live anywhere, only here in the present moment! I had to explain that I was traveling and adventuring around the world and just quit my job. It's always fun to have that conversation but usually people think it is really cool. At the food pantry I had the special role of boxing and taping the food. It was 1.5 hours and went by pretty fast and I did not mind it. After i crashed and took a nap. Then Zach and I walked to the shuk and ate dinner. I had veal kabob. **Overall I love Jerusalem, it's a special place.** The weather is great and people are living here with real purpose and connection and community. This is what America is lacking. Also you are able to immediately tell the quality of the food and produce is so much superior. This is due to how well Israel is with agriculture and how the majority of the soil in America is over stressed and lacking the proper nutrients. It's really sad. It was a great first day but I still need to get some sleep and get over jet lag. Tomorrow we wake up early to help rehabilitate a kibbutz near the Gaza border.