12/2 to 12/4 | A Weekend in Jerusalem and a Failed Trip to Tzfat (Again)

As I mentioned in my previous post, this was the first weekend in over a month that I have not travelled anywhere.  Following a string of trips to my chavruta's apartment for shabbat, to Arad for a shabbaton, to Ein Gedi and Eilat, and to Modi'in for shabbat, I decided to take it easy and stay in the Student Village this weekend.  This turned out to be a wise decision; not only did I have a restful shabbat (I went with Matt and Ariel to a dinner hosted by an organization called Mercaz Gesharim), but I got a lot of work done, too.  I have two major papers coming up--one on "Ethics in the Israeli Diamond Industry" and another on "Modern Diplomacy, Ancient Societies: Analyzing the Relationship between the People’s Republic of China and the State of Israel"--for which I wrote strong introductions.  In addition, I accomplished a lot of studying for my Archaeology of Jerusalem quiz on Tuesday.  I am now proficient on the subject of Jerusalem during the Second Temple period (516 BCE to 70 CE).  Ask me anything about mikve design, the layout of the Temple Mount, or column capitals (Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian) and I am bound to know it!  While it certainly was not my most interesting weekend in Israel, I definitely made it count by being productive.

My (messy) room where I spent a good portion of the weekend.

The Rothberg International School, where I spent the other portion of my weekend (mostly in the library).

As a reward for being so diligent on Friday and Saturday, I agreed to go with Alison to Tzfat on Sunday.  Determined not to repeat the same mistakes I made from the last time I tried to go to Tzfat, we set off this morning bright and early to catch a 9:18 bus.  Unfortunately, due to poor planning, a very slow bus driver, and terrible traffic, we pulled into the Central Bus Station at around 9:16.  This gave us two minutes to buy tickets and find the proper gate.  After going through security, it was already well past 9:18, so we begrudgingly admitted defeat and headed back home.  While this allowed me more time to study, it was quite a shame because this was almost definitely my last opportunity to head to Tzfat.  Maybe next time I'm in Israel!

Beautiful Tzfat during my Birthright trip in December of last year.