Thursday, February 21, 2013

Tel Aviv!!!

After an incredible 2 weeks in J’town, we have now moved to Tel Aviv! For the next month we will be at Wingate (Israel’s premier sports institution), volunteering at Spivak (sports institute for the disabled) and having a great time!



On Sunday morning, the last member of our team arrived – Zoe Diamond!!! Everyone was incredibly excited for Zoe to finally arrive and we promptly went to Wingate for our first session. We had a morning of Orienteering, which will be quite useful as we will have to find our own way around for the next month while living independently… 





After Wingate, we bussed back to Tel Aviv to settle into our accommodation for the month, Beit Leni. There are only 3 words to describe it – Location, Location, Location! It is smack bang in the middle of Tel Aviv, a one minute walk to Dizengoff Mall, a few minutes to Shuk HaCarmel, and with great walks and shops in abundance J. Our first priority was buying food and each room sat down and worked out their menu for the month before going to the supermarket to buy it all. Then came the cooking…







On Monday we began a three day seminar, focusing on leadership through martial arts. We learned a lot about karate and did some practical exercises outside, which everyone really enjoyed. After lunch, we had our introduction to Spivak, an amazing place where people from all walks of life with a range of disabilities come to learn and play sport as part of their rehabilitation or just because they want to continue playing. After getting a tour of the facilities, we were told to each find a wheelchair and had a scratch match of wheelchair basketball! While really fun, all our arms and shoulders were exhausted by the end…






On Thursday, having finished the leadership seminar, we had a full morning of aerobics and dance. While enormously fun, we all felt quite tired all over our bodies as we stretched muscles we didn’t know existed… Afterwards, we still had some energy left to play some tennis and soccer in the Wingate facilities. 








To end off the week, we all headed down to the Tel Aviv Port for one of the activities celebrating National Chocolate Week! There was a 3 day festival and the range of chocolate was mouth-watering J. A few of us bought a slice of chocolate pizza, we all agreed it was delicious! 



On Friday, everyone went their way for our first free Shabbat, a chance to rest and recuperate before another huge week on MSLP! 









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