Yom Hazikaron and Yom Ha'atzmaut

Yesterday was Yom Hazikaron, remberance day for fallen soldiers and people who died in terrorist attacks. It's a really huge day in Israel which everyone celebrates as most people have been affected by these thing in one way or another. Us people on Machon went to Har Herzl which is the military cemetary in Jerusalem, and it is also where all the great Israeli leaders are buried too. It's an amazing place, it's huge, it's a whole small mountain, and it's like a park, it's really beautiful. There must have been tens and tens of thousands of people there, visiting and graves and also there was a huge ceremony where the prime minister was talking. I kind of got a bit side tracked looking at the graves, and laying flowers which we'd been given at the door, and tried to get into the ceremony just after it had started. The security was so tight, at the the third stage, i saw some people from Machon and they said it wasn't worth going in as i wouldn't be able to see anything and i'd be in the standing area, so i went back to the main bit where everyone was standing still listening the ceremony which was being broadcasted around the whole place.

Then when we got back we watched this documentary film made by this woman whose son had died in the army, and she made the film to make sure that he lived on, and also to find out all the things about him which she didn't know whilst he was still alive, it was really interesting but so sad.

Yom Hazikaron leads straight into Yom Ha'atzmaut, which is Israel Independence Day. It's done like that for a reason, so that you see that good things follow bad and lots of other reasdons, and loads of us went last night to this concert called Rock Ha'atzmaut, just outside Tel Aviv, which was an all night concert, it started at about 11 and finished at 6 in the morning. There were loads of famous bands playing and it was amazing, there were so many people, although most of them seemed to be about 14 or 15, we felt a bit like grandpas, but we danced and moshed for most of it. And we only got back about an hour ago, but now after having eaten breakfast i feel a lot more awake. And later today we're going for a bbq in the park, which seems to be the done thing and then we're going to go walking round the centre of Jerusalem, because there should be loads of things happening