A taste of abroad..

I spent my junior year studying abroad in Israel, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Below are a few of the literally hundreds of photos from my incredible year. I hope that these can give you a little taste of what being abroad was like - please feel free to comment or email me with any questions!


Dome of the Rock!

Meeting Prime Minister Olmert (I swear, that's me right in front of him!). I actually worked directly with the Prime Minister's brother, Yossi Olmert, last summer as a Media Fellow at The Israel Project (a fellowship that I found out about through a connection at Tufts!).











Nov. 4, 2006: Memorial on the 11th anniversary
of Yitzhak Rabin's assassination. The big sign in the front reads "11 years since the murder".















Snow...in Jerusalem....this happens only every 4 or so years, so it was pretty amazing to be there for it! Of course, the next day we were at the beach in Tel Aviv and it was 70 and sunny.















Cheering on the Israeli national team at the Israel-England World Cup qualifier game.



View of downtown Jerusalem from Hebrew University at Mt. Scopus.















Yom HaZikaron (Memorial Day) at the Kotel (Western Wall)

Immediately after Memorial Day, Israel transitions from memorializing to celebrating on Yom HaAtzmaut (Independence Day). A few weeks later, Jerusalem celebrates Yom Yerushalayim (Jerusalem Day). In a region that is scarred by decades of conflict, I think that these national days play a huge role in helping people comprehend and deal.


One of my seminars took a trip along Israel's borders with Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. This is the Israeli-Syrian border and that compound is the UN Peacekeeping force.

Speaking of borders, a few friends and I decided to head on over to Jordan for a long weekend in December. This is the Arava border crossing, which is down by Eilat (Israel) and Aqaba (Jordan)

We traveled further north in Jordan to Petra -- here we are in front of the monastery, one of the many incredible ruins left over from the time of the Nabataeans (over 2000 years ago!).

A Jordanian sunset.

Of course we rented some camels for part of our trip.

Lastly, this was the view from my bedroom window, overlooking the Old City (the gold dome is the Dome of the Rock)... it was pretty incredible. I lived in student apartments right down the road from campus. While my apartment-mates were all Americans and Canadians, most of the students in the complex were Israeli and I'm still very good friends with many of them!

Again, please feel free to comment or email me (amy.spitalnick@tufts.edu) with any questions or comments!