A Day in Israel

One of the best, but also the most challenging aspect of this Dialogue program was that no day was ever the same as the previous one. We had an itinerary, but each day it was updated and altered. We never knew if the plan for the day would stay as written, or if it would be completed different—and that was all part of the excitement. While each day was a new adventure and something to be eager about, in some ways not having a regular schedule can be a bit stressful and overwhelming. Pretty much the only thing we were ever sure of was that Saturday would be one hundred percent free—and that left us unsure of when we would be able to get our homework done, or when we would be eating, showering, meeting friends or getting some much needed alone time during the week.
Because no day was ever the same as the previous one, it would be difficult to give a rundown of a typical weekday—that being said, I will try and sum up a general day. Normally, the day began with breakfast in the hostel, usually between 7 and 9 am. Then, we would be joined with one of our wonderful tour guides and we would typically board a coach bus to travel to our first destination of the day. On any given day we could have between 2 and 5 stops to visit—depending on how far away the destinations were and how involved the meetings would be. On some occasions, we would actually spend the day at the hostel, where we would be visited by multiple different guest speakers. Typically, each guest would speak for an hour, including a question and answer session. Sometimes we would have one guest, other times we had three guests in a row.
On days when we had classes, we wouldn’t do any touring. A typical class day involves a free morning, with about four hours of classes beginning at around noon. Following classes would be an ample break for dinner, after which we would normally reconvene for a mandatory movie related to our academic studies. Earlier this week actually, we got to watch our movie in the home of one of my classmates who lives in Tel Aviv, very close to our hostel! His family cooked my whole Dialogue group a delicious meal, too. It’s surprises like these that make a Dialogue like this so special.