Monday May 5 by Shayna

Today we woke up really early and headed to Mazkeret Batya, where Dafna's parents live to see a Yom Hazikaron ceremony. It was a really long and tiring drive. Before the ceremony we went to Dafna's parents house which is on Calgary street, where we ate snacks.  Calgary donated a lot of money to Mazkeret Batya which is why there is a street named Calgary. The ceremony was really interesting and it was very focused on the personal grieving of people rather then teaching people about it and sharing stories of fallen soldiers. The ceremony was completely in Hebrew and was very brief. It took place in a graveyard and it was a really simple ceremony but you could see it was very emotional to many people there. It was very different from the one we attended the previous night and I feel that the one at night impacted me a lot more, not only because I could understand all of it but because it talked about many people affected by wars and terrorists and not only soldiers. We also heard some stories about fallen soldiers and poems written by family members. After the ceremony in Mazkeret Batya we went to a school in the area and ate lunch which was of course schnitzel sandwiches but the school was perfect because it had air conditioning and it was a heat wave.  We then went to the tank museum at Latrun where we learned a lot about tanks in the IDF and then got to climb on them which was super fun. We left the museum after watching a very strange film and were on our way to Tel Aviv. When we arrived we got ready and left to go to the Yom Haatzmaut ceremony with the March of the Living kids. We got to see Mini Israel which was super cool and beautiful. The lines for food were insane and the line for Cotton candy was the longest line ever!  People were there for hours. After dancing it was time to go which was good because I was exhausted.
So far this trip has been really eye opening and meaningful. I am really sad to leave Israel's hot weather for Calgary but I hope to come back soon.

Today's pictures:  Mazkeret Batya, Dafna's parents house, Latrun