Three Day Tiyul. This is what Rav B. considers a break.

So, first semester is over. On Monday we all had to choose our classes for second semester. Most options were exactly the same, but they wanted us to re-register for everything. I just signed up for the same classes all over again. I might try out another Halachah class, just to see, but I'm pretty happy with mine, despite the fact that it's huge.
Now, Tuesday was our the first day of our between-semester break. Three days in Eilat. So Tuesday morning we had to be on a bus heading out of Yerushalyim by 4, so that we would make it to Eilat in time for our first hike. Have you ever had to wake up at 3:30 in the morning, knowing that for the next few hours you'd be cramped in an uncomfortable bus trying not to fall asleep on someone else's shoulder? Yeah. Plus, one of the buses got involved in an accident, so we were delayed a bit. Eventually we were on our way, and I spent the whole ride failing miserably to fall asleep. At least I'd got to bed early the night before. A lot of girls pulled all-nighters, and were painfully exhausted the whole day.
Anyway, we pull into a stop to eat breakfast and make lunch. Then we divided into two groups - The hard hike, and the medium hike. Easy hike was for Darkaynu (a program in our seminary for girls with mental issues) and only one of our girls was going on it, because she wasn't feeling so well. I was on the medium hike, which was a good thing.
The hike started with an uphill climb for some random peak. I can't remember the name of the hike, but we started at Givat Yocheved, and just went up. That part was not so fun, I was basically hauling myself up this ridiculous mountainside. We took a break at the top and chatted a bit with our tour guide. Apparently colleges in Israel were still on strike, so she was giving tours to kill time, and she'd already had experience from her Sheirut L'umi years. Then we started on the "down" part of the hike. I put that in quotes because the Israeli perception of down and my perception of down are very, very different. Sure, over the course of the next five hours or so, we were heading mostly down, there was still plenty of up to go with it. Lots of up. I spent a good bit of that hike (especially in the begining) slogging with our shomer (guard) named Ron, who had a handgun instead of a rifle, like most shomrim on hikes. He has to stay with the last person, or behind them, at all times. Mrs. Nomi B. (one of the teachers) or Debbie (a madricha) hung out with me a lot too.
I took a bunch of random pictures of the view, which is amazing. I walked with Shoshana L. and Shoshi and Debbie for a bit near the end. They were naming two random actors and trying to get them connected with the least degrees of separation. I'm terrible at these games, but it was near the end of the hike, we were walking on (mostly) flat ground, and the bus was just over the next ridge, so I hung around. Also, I got the Johnny Depp connected to Russel Crowe (Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean with Orlando Bloom who was in Lord of the Rings with Billy Boyd who was in Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World with Russel Crowe. Sorry about the blatant victory dancing on the Internet, but I don't memorize enough actors names to generally get any of these, and this is my personal diary, despite being available for your reading pleasure, whoever you are)
By the end of the hike, though, I was staggering a bit because I had pulled a muscle in my upper thigh joint and it was hurting. I used the elevator for the rest of the night, to dinner in the hotel (which was really good) and then to the Shiurim (I went to Rav Sh.'s. It ended early, which was nice.) and then I stretched before I fell asleep.
The next morning, it was KILLING me. I woke up early with the group (before sunrise again! Yay!) and headed out with them to eat breakfast and make lunch before I made an official decision about which hike I was doing. Shoshi L. came with us, as she was considering the medium hike. I staggered around for a bit (I'm exaggerating a little, but it did hurt to climb steps) and then decided to go on the Darkaynu hike with Shoshi L. and Michal (Shoshi was still feeling so-so. Michal just hates hiking). We took the bus back to the hotel with Rav Sh. who wasn't feeling up to the hard hike, despite the fact that it was killing him that he couldn't do it, and we jumped onto the Darkaynu bus while he went inside to rest.
Darkaynu was a lot of fun. We took a tour of a kibbutz that make Shoko (come to Israel and drink shoko. It's great) and we took lots of pictures of cows and fields. It's actually amazing what they've managed to accomplish in terms of agriculture considering that it's the middle of the desert. Then we went on a hike at Timna park. It used to be (was way back, many centuries ago...) a copper mine, mined by Egyptians quite far from home. There was an information movie, and then we went on a short hike. I could've done it in maybe 45 minutes if I dawdled and took pictures. I think it took us 2 hours. There was one part where you climbed through an old mining shaft. You could see the copper in the walls, easily. (Identifiable by it's signature green look, a la the Statue of Liberty. Oxidation and all that.) Then we made little bottle of sand with all natural colors. I might send it home with mom so I won't lose it.
That night there were more shiurim. (I went to Rav. Br.'s) and then there was an optional kumzitz. I went to my room to hang out instead. (Note: My room consisted of me, Daniela, Shoshi L. and Michal. It was great. Except that there were no towels. Not kidding. We get there the first night, and we all had towels for the beach, except Shoshi, so we called down the front desk. They said, "Towels don't come with the package" and hung up. We were stunned. It became a running joke, in fact. "Look, there's hooks for the towels! Look, there's a ring for a towel!" Hotel Adi, no towels for you!)
Shoshi and Michal went to the kumzitz, and Abby came to visit, so we tried to watch TV. Now, there was nothing good on. There were a few Arabic channels (Eilat is RIGHT NEXT TO the Jordanian border. Every time we did anything someone would point at the distant mountains and inform us that that was Jordan. On the kibbutz with Darkaynu we passed within 40 feet of the fence that marks the border. There's two flags waving over the gate. Israeli and Jordanian) and CNN international, and some random Israeli channels. We ended up watching The Shooter with Hebrew subtitles. I have no idea who wasted their time subtitling that thing, because the movie is terrible. We spend more time laughing at it then anything else. After that we all headed to bed.
There was an optional hike a 4 in the morning or so on Thursday. I woke up for it (Shoshi's alarm went off, she was going) but I couldn't even manage to open my eyes, never mind getting out of bed. I ended up getting later and packing before breakfast, which was very good. Then I made lunch and went back to my room, finished packing and headed down to the bus with Shoshi. We were heading for a private beach for our last day.
The beach was great. It was a little cold out (very windy) but the sun was bright. I applied sunscreen at least three times in our four-hour beach time. I was one of the few to go swimming, and once you got used to the water it was wonderful. It was a sandy beach and there was kayaking and banana boating (for the those of you who don't know, banana boats a big blow up banana-shaped things that get pulled along after a motorboat.) I went banana boating with Abby, Debbie, and Miriam and we asked him to go fast enough to tip us over, which he did. We all had to wear life jackets anyway, and we had a blast, even though we had the hardest time getting back on that thing for the ride back.
We all changed into normal clothing for our bus ride, so I stopped swimming about half an hour before we left so I'd be dry in time. I got the window seat for the ride back and ended up sleeping on and off. I had to wait a bit for dinner, because I was still fleishig, but I ate quickly,
took a shower and went straight to before 9. This is our "refreshing, relaxing" break between semesters, so we can feel all fresh and ready for classes on Sunday!
I'm staying in this shabbos, because I figured I'd be just too exhausted to deal with the whole shabbos deal, and I'm happy I did because I'm NOT in the mood to pack again. Next week is Shabbos Rammim, and then Mom and Zvi are coming, so I don't have to deal with shabbos for a while, which will be a nice change from my Tuesday afternoon panic sessions.