Tanks on Tanks on Tanks

So again, I find myself having to write my blog the next morning but this time it was because we got home fairly late last night, and waking up before 6am is starting to catch up with me. Yesterday was a very full day.

We set off for the track again in the morning, and today a lot of the guys (and girls) were doing workouts. I am still keeping it a little low key, so no workout for me, but I did go for a psuedo long run (60 minutes) out in the park. It feels like besides the lack of sleep, I am acclimating fairly well. The cool thing about going an hour was that I ran far enough to reach the coast. I only ran along the sea for a few minutes before turning around but it was still a really cool change of pace.

When we got back to the hotel we had our team picture...this was way, way, WAY more of a process than it needed to be. We are talking about almost an hour to get all of these pictures done. First they took individual shots of all of us, then they took a team shot with the guys and girls separate then together, then with the juniors. It seemed to go on forever. It was cool putting the uniform on for the first time though, so there was a silver lining.

As far as touring went, I would say it was a little more of a low key day, which was good because we all seemed very tired. There were some long drives between the stops which served as a perfect setting for nap time.

Our first stop was a military base which also serves as a museum and memorial for the armored car division of the IDF. We watched a video with really funny/awkward voice overs and then hung out on some Tanks. Apparently this particular base has some history, as it was one of the last Arab Military bases (given to them by the Brits) to be taken over by the Israelis.

From here we headed out to what seemed like the middle of nowhere to explore some caves. This is also the place where you can go on an archiological dig, but since it was Shabbat, that part of the experience was not available to us. We did however get to check out 3 pretty cool caves. The first was a big cave that we walked into and was previously used (1500+ years ago) to mine stone for home building. Then we really went spellunking, exploring a cave with a series of small passageways. Apparently these were basements of homes that were eventually connected. It was pretty funny watching the throwers try to get through some of these holes, but they all made it! Finally we saw a very ornate reconstructed tomb that dates back to ancient Greeks.

We were quite dirty from the caves, but we went straight to Kfar Maccabiah for a team USA BBQ. They tried to make it as American as possible for us, with burgers and hotdogs (but no buns) they even had a small fireworks display as well. Oh and I almost forgot that they had a band called "The Wild West" which claimed to play the country hits, because nothing is more American than a little Dolly Parton on electric Violin.

The word of the day today is something we all should have learned before coming on the trip - bathroom. A couple days ago at the beach a few of the sprinters went into a hotel looking for the bathroom and not knowing how to say it in Hebrew they defaulted to saying Bano. This clearly got no response from the Israelis, so our tour guide made sure we knew how to say it properly - Shayrootim.

Today we are off to Jerusalem to see some of the more recognizable sites, but more on that tonight/tomorrow.