Last week the Real Life Israel program hosted a politics seminar to introduce us to the political system of Israel. Our trip began at the Foreign Ministry to learn about Israel’s new marketing campaign aimed at educating foreigners about the brighter side of Israel—art, culture and technology.

Afterwards, we visited the Supreme Court and the Knesset (Israel’s congress). I should comment that we weren’t allowed to bring cameras to most of the week’s events, hence few pictures. The architecture of the Supreme Court was beautiful and we met a bunch of interesting people while touring the Knesset.

We traveled to Mt. Herzl cemetery for the Yitzhak Rabin Memorial Service. Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Peres spoke during the ceremony.

On Friday, I joined my co-workers from PresenTense at the Conference on the Future of the Jewish People. Prime Minister Netanyahu was a guest speaker at this event also. I sat four rows behind him and Natan Sharansky, the chairman of the executive of the Jewish Agency for Israel. The conference was at the newly remodeled Israel Museum and following the conference was a VIP dinner and private tour of the museum.

Now that the holidays are officially over, our weekly schedules have become more routine. Our Ulpan (Hebrew lessons) are only twice per week and, from now until the end of our program, Thursdays are allotted for tiyulim (pronounced tee-yool-eem, Hebrew for trips/hikes). Last Thursday we trekked the Jerusalem Hills and made our way to the Israeli Defense Force’s Tank Museum.

Our group was unprepared for the Jerusalem Hills. We were told the tiyul would consist of a light walk, which turned out to be 3 hours of hiking. However, the scenery was great and Winter is quickly approaching resulting in cooler weather.

The IDF Tank Museum hosts a cache of artillery dating back to the foundation of Israel. The museum is staffed by members of the IDF tank division. We saw the outdated American model tanks (still being used by US forces in Iraq/Afghanistan) and the more current (but still outdated) Mark 4 Israeli tank that featured an auto-loading cannon, heat sensors to pinpoint the location of enemy rockets and air conditioning. The little kid in me really enjoyed it.

The hike ended at the IDF