my parents came to visit me!

there was a long weekend a while ago, and my parents came to visit me in israel! it was so nice to see them and show them what things are like here. the first night was the white coat ceremony for the first year students at my school, followed by one of two gourmet meals of the year provided by the school, and then skits/movies compliments of each of the classes. my parents got to meet most of my classmates which was great! we then went up to jerusalem and saw such sights as the western wall, church of the holy sepulchre, etc., and they even got to experience having rocks thrown at our car late one night as we were lost in the narrow streets of east jerusalem! the next day we went to bethlehem and they got to see the occupation wall and such. after hanging out on the beach in tel aviv for awhile, we headed to the north where we stayed in haifa and went to the historical city of akko, the sea of galilee, and nazareth. considering that i didn't have to pay for fuel, we even made a foray to the illegal israeli settlement of ariel deep in the west bank - on the way out my parents got to experience their first stringent "security check" compliments of the israeli army. on the way back to beer sheva my dad and i convinced my mom to go swimming in the dead sea, which she ended up really enjoying, and then they got to come to the bible study i go to here in beer sheva. it was nice that they got to see what israel is like, and just to spend some quality time with them. thanks for coming dad and mom!