Eggplant Farm and EtroGat

Today I woke up at 6:30 and we took the bus south to Moshav Shekef. There we tended to the eggplants. What we did was cut the leaves of the plants. Leaves take a lot of nutrients so when the leaves are cut the eggplant grows a lot faster. It was a pretty good experience but after an hour of leaf pulling I was done. After the volunteering in the morning I took a nap because I was still jet lagged and woke up early. After the needed nap, Zach and I went to the Etrog man and drank EtroGat, a mixture of etrog, grapefruit and gat. **Supposedly Gat or khat is illegal in the United States and the Somali pirates use it to get energized.** I need to do more research on this. After drinking a liter of the drink we walked to the old city. We went into a cool jewelry store which sells remnants of the second temple. After wandering the old city I got my first shawarma pita and it was really good. The etrogat drink made me tired again so I took another nap. When I woke up there was a geopolitical talk which was hosted by the program. It was interesting but I did not learn that much. Finally Zach and I went to Gan Sacher, the park in Jerusalem and went on a run and did push up and pull ups. It was good to get the first work out of the trip done even though I am still not full energy. **It does not feel like the adventure has officially started yet since I am on this volunteering program.** I have to be a certain places at certain times which takes away some of the freedom. I will be patient because it is almost done and they are paying for my flight basically. The volunteering feels like busy work but whatever. Once Monday comes and i will have to fill my own days doing things I want I think I will feel more invigorated. Tomorrow we wake up again at 6:30 am to volunteer at another agricultural site.