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Itinerary written by Marty Friedlander, Iris Kaidar and Jason Abram

For a more personal account of the trip, read my Photo Journal

• Arrival at Ben Gurion International Airport
• Drive to the Negev Desert near Kibbutz Sde Boker
• Shehechianu in the Desert overlooking the Zin Wilderness
• Visited Ben Gurion and his wife's graves
• Lunch out in the desert
• Desert vehicles (we got off and saw some hyena tracks, had a few minutes of nomadic solitude)
• Drive to Arad
• Check-in at Inbar Hotel for R & R
• Dinner & bonfire (plus drum-a-thon) at the Roded Bedouin Village

• Snack
• Hike up Massada for Sunrise over the mountains of Jordan and the Dead Sea
• (we went up the Roman siege ramp and down the Snake Path)
• Breakfast at Ein Gedi youth hostel
• Short hike in the Judean Desert up to the Ein Gedi waterfall
• Rest and relaxation (incl. mud) at the Ein Gedi Dead Sea Spa
• Lunch at the spa cafeteria
• Drive to Eilat
• Dinner (some of us met for drinks at the Three Monkeys Pub)
• Overnight: Eilat Youth Hostel

• Mifgash Encounter Day
• Ice Breakers at Timna Park
• Hike with our new Israeli friends to Solomon's Pillars
• Lunch Boat Cruise
• Mifgash Summary
• Eido hosts comedy night on the long bus drive North
• Dinner
• Overnight: Eden Inn Hotel, Zichron Yaakov

• Breakfast
• Run into the Kinneret Marathon, turn the bus around
• Visit to Mount Bental lookout into Syria and learn about the Yom Kippur War
• Merom Golan: Kibbutz Seminar on Living along the Confrontation Line/A Comparative Look at the Pioneering Spirit with kibbutz members Dror and Edo
• Pizza lunch on the bus
• Mike the cussing kibbutznik at Misgav Am alongside the Lebanese border
• Rest and Relax at the Hammat Gadar Roman Hot springs
• Dinner
• Overnight: Kibbutz Guest House, Sha'ar Hagolan

• Drive to Jerusalem (without a single pit-stop!)
• Expo Fair at the Jerusalem Convention Center (#1)
• Meet Marty's family at the Haas Promenade (#2)
• Overview of Jerusalem
• Lunch (Subway sandwiches)
• Check-in at the Mount Zion Hotel (#3)
• Walk from hotel up to Mt. Zion, through Zion Gate and the Jewish Quarter to the Southern Wall excavations.
• Kabbalat Shabbat on the steps of the Southern Wall in the Old City with Mel Reisfeild
• (we also got a pep talk from Charles Bronfman, Knesset Member Naomi "they could start shooting at us any minute!" Blumenthal, and the cantorial singers of Hebrew Union College, who God saw fit to pull the speaker plug on)
• Western Wall/Kotel (#4)
• Festive Shabbat Dinner
• Evening program in a very hot room at the hotel

• Breakfast
• Synagogue visit by four hardy souls to Beit Simcha (AKA "The Jerusalem House of Love and Prayer")
• Walking tour of Old City, including Baruch Mizrachi's little house, the Cardo (Byzantine highway), Nachmanides and Hurva synagogues (we sat on the roof)
• Lunch in the Old City
• Walked on the roof of the market, exited through Jaffa Gate (marked on the map by the enclosed "i")
• Marty's "Jerusalem Characters" Play at Montefiore's Windmill (right photo, #5) and other historical sites
• Havdallah followed by Dinner
• Birthright Gala Event at JCC with Tararam (drummers), Bat Sheva (dancers), Shlomo Gronich, the Shva choir and Ehud Barak's speech (all rudely interrupted by the French Birthright group)
• Disco Dance Party

• Breakfast
• Yad Vashem, including visit to the Children's Memorial (#6)
• Lunch at Kennedy memorial, where we divided into smaller groups and reviewed our trip
• Meet the President of the State Of Israel, hobnobbed with the rich and famous (#7)
• Ido unseated by President Moshe Katzav during photo session
• Free Time and Dinner on Emek Refaim Street (#8)
• (Jason sneaks off to take beautiful night-time photo of YMCA, #9)
• Hands-On Evening Archaeological Dig and cave crawl at Beit Guvrin, snacks afterward

• Breakfast
• Peace Process Seminar with Neil Lazarus, held in a bomb shelter at the Rabin Youth Hostel (#10)
• Visited the Knesset (stood by the Menora, #11)
• Met with Jon Medved to discuss Zionism and High Tech at Malha Park
• Lunch at the Chen Hotel
• Har Herzl: Israel's National Military Cemetery (visit to Herzl and Rabin's graves, hear about Marty's cousin Yohanan)
• Back to the Chen Hotel for panel discussion on peace process with Rami Nasrallah, Ed Retting and Yisrael Harel
• Departure for Tel Aviv, check-in and dinner at the Basel Hotel
• Free Time (some pub-hopping on Allenby Street)

• Breakfast
• Visit to Rabin Square, where the assassination took place
• Diaspora Museum at Tel Aviv University
• Lunch and free time at the Azrieli mall
• Independence Hall, where Israel was founded on May 14, 1948
• Festive Banquet Dinner in Tel Aviv (at Maganda restaurant)
• Fascinating discovery of self-cleaning toilet seats - now a must-see site on every Birthright tour!
• Overnight: Flight to Canada via New York

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