My top 5 favorite things about studying in Israel this past fall

Our apologies for the hiatus from the blog for a bit! We were all spending our time buried in books and drinking lots of cappuccinos as we prepared for finals. Now that we are on semester break, look forward to some more regular posting.

Finishing the fall semester and thus passing the half-way point of my time in Israel for the program, I've been thinking back on all of the things I've done here since August (when not studying orgo, physics, chem, bio, calc and statistics). Some are quintessentially Israel and some are simply the types of things that I think we are more inclined to do when living in new places.

Expect another post in the coming months on my favorite foods and local spots in Tel Aviv to hang out, but here's a way-too-short list of some of my favorite activities from the past six months: 

5) Hiking in Golan Heights at the Yehudiya Reserve- Lower Zeitan Stream. This is a gorgeous area any time of year, but hiking here in August, you really appreciate the many natural pools you pass along the way. So refreshing to jump in a gorgeous pool after hours of hiking in the heat!









4) Attending the Olive Festival in the Galilee

Fall is the season for the olive harvest in Israel and there are many events happening around the Galilee and Golan Heights that center around olives. We went to a farm where you got to pick and brine your own olives--a first for me! Fresh olives don't taste so great, but once they hung out in their curing solution for a month, they were delicious.








3)  Celebrating the grape harvest

 This may not be an "Israel-thing" per se, but something I had never done anywhere else: I attended a party at a vineyard, to celebrate the beginning of the wine harvest season. A fun night of wine tasting and dancing in a beautiful vineyard belonging to the Golan Heights winery.













2) Beach time 

Living in Tel Aviv, just a ten minute walk from the beach has been amazing and the fact that it was comfortable to swim well through the Fall (even in October!) was a perk I did not take for granted. Studying at a beach cafe? Going for runs along the water? Yes, please!










1) Celebrating the High Holidays
It may sound cliche, but there is something about being in Israel for the high holidays that is unlike anywhere else. Traditional religious observance aside, it was really amazing to be in a place where chag sameach ("happy holiday") was the standard greeting, where major companies like Coca Cola ran ads with shana tova ("happy/good new year") as a major tagline and round challahs were being sold in every bakery. Yom Kippur was the most striking of the holidays, where not a single car can be seen driving on even the busiest highways and all of Tel Aivv is filled with kids riding bikes in the middle of the street.

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Lila Miller Toub is a member of our 2014-2015 Postbac Premed Class. Originally from Orlando, FL, Lila graduated in 2008 with a B.A. in Communications from Northwestern University and spent the past five years working in philanthropy before deciding to make the transition to medicine.