Israeli Environment and My first Hostel

So its been a while since my last post and a lot has happened.  We have gone on two educations days since my last post and plenty of other adventures as well.
Our second education day was about Israel and the environment.  Our first stop of the day was to an agriculture college in Rehovote.  Unfortunately I struggled to stay awake seeing as it was 8 in the morning and I felt like i was back in a college lecture.   I did come away with the knowledge that Israel is on the forefront of GMO (genetically modified organisms).  It was funny to me because I had heard such bad things about GMO's in my classes at UConn but the people at the university seemed to believe that it would be the future and the only way to sustain some of the plant life that we rely on.  I also thought it was interesting the way the Israeli agriculture deals with pest.  They refrain from using chemical products and try to use natural ways the deal, like using good bugs to eat the bad bugs that destroy the plants.  I had taken some places that touched on some of these ideas at UConn so it was weird to be sitting in a college like classroom in Israel hearing other solutions to a global problem.
We were all super excited about our next stop of the day. We had been told to bring our licenses so that we could test drive cars. Normally that wouldn't be so exciting but we were getting to the close to the 2 month mark with out driving a car!!! So these weren't any ordinary cars we got to test drive they were electric cars.  There is a company called Better Places that has formulated a plan to make electric cars a real and affordable option for drivers in Israel.  The cars are going to be released in 2011 and there is a plan for the whole country of where they are going to put charging stations and stations to get the battery changed when the driver goes on a long trip.  We watched a movie that Better Places had put together explaining their plans.  In my mind it seemed a little unrealistic.  But then I thought it over and because Israel is such a small country it might have a chance at really working.  The cars that we got to drive looked exactly like a normal car, the only difference was that when you accelerated the car didn't make any noise!! I have to say the driving was a little anti-climactic since we only got to drive for about two minutes.  I hope that their plan is successful because it would be great if the idea could be brought to the United states.

We were told to get off the bus for lunch and all of us were a little skeptical seeing as we had just arrived at a dump.  As it turns out we did each at a little cafe at the dump.  An educational center had been built to inform students and groups like our about this particular area.  It is starting to become clearer that Israel is at the forefront of many different forefronts.  At this dump site they are working on different recycling strategies.  And to be fair it isn't actually a dump site any more the garbage is jut brought there before it is brought to its final resting place in a land fill.  This site used to be where all the garbage from the Tel Aviv area was brought but a huge garbage mountain had formed and was causing many problems so they covered the garbage with dirt and grass and made a real mountain out of it.  In true Israeli fashion this mountain and the surrounding land is going to be turned into a central park. The land is in a very valuable area and many people wanted to build homes there but the government decided that it will become a big park that will have shopping, restaurants and a man made lake.   We ended our day doing an activity with our madrichim about the desire to build a high speed train from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and the impact that it would have on the environment.
It was a long education day and all I wanted to do when I got home was to take a shower so that I no longer smelled like garbage.
That weekend Whitney and I had planned on going to Tel Aviv for Thursday night.  Our plans to stay at our friends house fell through.  It ended up working well that two other girls from our program wanted to join our excursion so we decided to get a room in a hostel.  We decided to get the room at 1:15 pm on Thursday when we were planning on going to Tel Aviv a few hours later.  Not to suprising that most of the hostels were booked. But we found a room.  This was my first real hostel experience and the place was not that nice.  Whitney told me that she had stayed in worse places which made me feel a little bit better, but it was an interesting place to stay that's for sure!