Ashdod

This weekend was pretty fun as I was able to catch up with a good friend of mine from back home in Mexico. She invited me to spend Shabbat with her and her family in Ashdod, a port city south of Tel Aviv. It is a large industrial city and the port receives about 60% of Israel's imports. Even so, it is also a very well planned city with beautiful beaches, a great port and a huge French community. I met my friend and together we took the train down to Ashdod. After we arrived we spent most of the day at the beach where I was finally able to relax after two busy weeks I have had.

That night, we were invited to Shabbat dinner at her family's home. The funny thing is that I had a Shabbat dinner with the exact same part of the family in the same place the first time I visited Israel almost 10 years ago! It is weird to think how quickly time has gone by, but how many things have changed during this period.  

It was nice to spend the weekend with people I have known for a while. I really enjoyed catching up with them and just disconnecting from what my life has been for the past months.

The next morning was amazing, my friend's cousins invited us to join them on their boat for lunch. We spent the morning sailing up the coast of Israel. Due to the season, the sea was filled with jellyfish. I have never seen anything like it. As we moved we could see a line a jellyfish swimming one after the other. They were all different sizes and colors. Here is a short video I took.

Once we were docked back at the port, we had a really nice lunch with the family on the boat. After a while we returned home to get our things ready to take the train back to Tel Aviv. This weekend was exactly what I needed. This past year abroad has been filled with many exciting and new experiences, but sometimes getting to reconnect to home is important and that is exactly how I felt. As I start the new week, I am ready to keep on meeting new people and experiencing new things.

Working at the ICT

After being here for a month, I feel like I have finally gotten the hang of things. Work at the International Institute for Counter Terrorism is really interesting and I am enjoying every day some much.
My work consists of a few things. First, I am working on my own research which focuses on public resilience in dealing with terrorism and fear. I am still at the early stages but I have already found some really interesting ideas to build upon. Secondly, we work on simulations that allow us to asses potential risks within certain systems. Finally, the third part of it is other projects. Among them I am helping organize the executive Program: a three week course with some of the top scholars in the field of counter terrorism that will be taking place in July.

A typical day in the office starts at 10:30 a.m. which is pretty nice compared to other places. The problem is that you really need to time the bus to the Interdisciplinary Center (the college where the ICT is based) correctly. If not, a 40 min journey can take up to double the time! In any case, at the office we mostly focus on our own research and projects but we have frequent meetings with researchers and among us to make sure we are on track and doing what we need to do. I have to say it is a privilege to be meeting and learning from so many amazing experts in their own fields within counter terrorism. Only in this month, I have already learned so much.

The interns usually grab lunch together at the school cafeteria at around 12:30 and then we go back to the office and keep on working until about 4:30 p.m. We also have certain lectures we can sit in which has been one of my favorite parts. At the end of the day I usually either hang around the IDC or Herzliya before going salsa dancing or I come back to Tel Aviv to do other things.

Although this experience is different to Rome, I am very happy and have been really really busy both within the ICT and in the afternoons. I have kept on going to salsa and now I have my friends there which I really enjoy. Moving forward I want to do some more traveling in the country, but I am also looking forward to continue building on the relationships I have begun to create here. I think meeting people from all over has been one of my favorite parts about being abroad and in different places. Although it will be difficult to say goodbye...again, the people I have met and continue to meet have made of these experiences unforgettable.

Tel Aviv, the Pride Parade and the worst tan of my life

This past week I finally moved to Tel Aviv and I spent my first weekend there. This was great as the Pride Parade took place on Friday.
I ended up going to the parade with a few friends I met during the tour of Jerusalem a couple of weeks ago. It was really hot and crowded but we had a really fun time. What I found really interesting about the whole day is how different Tel Aviv is to the rest of Israel and the Parade really showed that. Tel Aviv is the most secular part of Israel, and although this does not mean that the rest of the country is just full of religious people, it does present a big contrast to a more predominantly conservative society.

Unlike other parades this was a sort of walk. Instead of watching the parade go by, everybody was just walking alongside it. The parade ended on the beach where there was a huge party with vendors, food and people dancing. It was pretty fun and it was great getting to meet people from around the world who came to Tel Aviv especially  for the parade.

After such a crazy day, I spent Saturday on the beach. It was a beautiful day and it was nice to just relax by the sea. The problem was the sun was way too intense and between the parade the day before and the beach I am not only sunburnt but I have the most uneven tan I´ve ever gotten. So as I write this with a bright red back and aloe on it trying so sooth the burn, I just hope that I return to a normal color soon.

Here are some pictures from the parade.

Salsa, salsa and more salsa!

This week was really fun! I found out that there are free slasa lessons pretty much every night all around Israel and naturally I had to check them out. So last Sunday, I went to the Herzliya park to see what it was all about.
Although I have danced ballroom since I first arrived at Northeastern, I haven´t really danced a lot of Cuban salsa. Even so, it was fairly easy for me to pick up on it and soon I was dancing with a bunch of people.
I had a really nice time, and what is even better is that I made a bunch of friends there. This led me to go salsa dancing four nights last week! One of my favorite nights was at a place called Studio B. It is a dance studio, but at night it turns into some sort of dancing venue. In each classroom, an instructor teaches a different style like salsa, bachata, lambada and even Argentine tango and after the lesson they play music pertaining to that style. So for the rest of the night you can basically just go from room to room dancing different things.
Finally at one of the places, I ran into my old teacher from high school. It was really unexpected but I really enjoyed reconnecting with her an hopefully we´ll get the chance to catch up soon.

What I love about dance and in this case salsa is that it is pretty universal. You can go pretty much any place in the world and even though you might not be able to speak the same language you can connect with people and share something everybody likes doing together. It can often be intimidating especially when you get started, but if you go with it, you will slowly improve and build relationships with the people you meet.
In the coming weeks I am excited to continue salsa dancing although maybe not every night :P