Israel is geographically advantageous for traveling. It is conveniently squished in the middle of Europe, Africa and Asia. MSIH students take advantage of this on every holiday (there are a lot of Jewish holidays). Many have taken the bus to Jordan to see the wonders of Petra and Wadi Rum (highly recommended). Some have managed to cross the border to Sinai and Egypt, though that was before the brouhaha. Many take cheap flights out of Ben Gurion Airport to Europe (EasyJet and Pegasus are quite cheap).
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| Get that disk! |
This past weekend I had the unique opportunity to go to Amsterdam to play in one of Europe’s largest Ultimate Frisbee tournament, Windmill Windup. One of my friends aptly called it the “Burning Man of all Tournaments.” There were three divisions: open (men’s), women’s, and mixed. I played with Team Israel (yes, a Korean represented Israel in a tournament in Holland). Israel entered as a mixed team and faired pretty well for having practiced together as a team only two times. We won 6 out of 8 games and placed 9th out of 26 mixed teams. Not bad. The weather wasn’t ideal as it was rainy and windy for part of the weekend. But the competition was still fierce and the games were super fun to play and watch.
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| Team Israel at Windmill Windup |
Not only did the tournament have fun, competitive games but also evening activities, good food, music, and parties. They had a live jazz band play in the morning for breakfast. Acrobatic yoga instructor taught yoga for those who wanted a little extra umph to start their day. There were also live bands in the evenings and DJs spinning music all night. Stomp the balloon (tie a balloon to your leg and try to stomp everyone else’s balloons, last man standing wins), mingle mingle (google it), ultimate beer race, and more. To top it off, they had the Euro Cup games screening every night. It was exhaustingly awesome experience.
Tournament aside, Amsterdam is a pretty cool city. I had a day and a half to be a tourist before the tournament so I walked around the city with my teammates. Holland happened to be playing and it was very orange. It was super fun atmosphere to be surrounded by such excitement. The next day, I also managed to take a glimpse of the van Gogh museum, which was extraordinary. I wish I had had more time to explore the city.
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| Amsterdam |
Amsterdam was awesome and it was just the umph I needed to finish this year off strong. One more week to go! Then, some more traveling! -blogger of the month Tim Lee