Last Day In Israel: New Jerusalem and Old Jaffa

Today (Saturday) is our last day in Israel. Having already seen the old section of Jerusalem and the Dead Sea,  today we focussed our attention on the area known as 'new Jerusalem'. 

For the first part of the day we drove around the modern section of Jerusalem. We saw the parliament buildings, the modern Israeli museum as well as the judicial court building. Our tour guide showed us many different areas of what is considered 'new Jerusalem' and we saw, first hand, evidence of the current conflict that is going on between the Israelis' and the Palestinians. 

We were surprised to learn that Palestine essentially consists of pockets of Arab settlements scattered around Jerusalem and the surrounding areas. As a result, there isn't just one border between Israel and Palestine, but many. We went to an Israeli neighborhood and stood at the top of a hill looking into Palestine, less than a quarter of a mile away.  The proximity of this particular neighborhoods made them vulnerable to Palestinian attacks. In the past couple of years Palestinians had fired into Israeli houses just by standing on the hilltop in their territory and firing across. Consequently,  massive cement walls had been built by the Israelis and these surrounded all the houses and schools in the neighborhood. 

As we drive from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, it was easy to distinguish between what was Israel and what was Palestine because the Israeli settlements were all enclosed by these huge cement walls, whereas the Palestinian territories had no walls. Many of these walls are in the process of being built and the countryside is scattered with sections of wall that sort of undulates across the landscape. As a group, we couldn't get over the idea of a country walling themselves in. 

We were amazed by the fact that in both the Israeli and Palestinian societies' the Bedouin way of life is very prevalent. The Bedouin are essentially sheep herders. They live very simply in makeshift camps scattered around the hillsides and the desert just outside Jerusalem. On our way to Tel Aviv, we stopped at a little local restaurant that was run by Bedouins. The inside of the restaurant was decorated in Bedouin style and we ate whilst semi-reclined on the floor!

After lunch we continued towards Tel Aviv, and made one last stop at the old city of Jaffa. Jaffa was the ancient port city; the gateway to the ancient land of Israel. In modern times,  Tel Aviv has grown up around Jaffa and overshadowed it. Now it is a very artsy town and walking around the old, narrow streets, feels sort of like you are somewhere in Europe. 

After Jaffa we drove the rest of the way to Tel Aviv where we said goodbye to Rina, our guide. We relaxed for a couple of hours, the girls tried to go swimming in the Mediterranean and then went to this awesome restaurant that the DeStefano's had found - it was right on the beach and had an amazing view of the ocean and the waves rolling in. After dinner we got our stuff together and headed to the airport! 

At the end of our three days of touring we all agreed that we felt like we had seen an incredible amount of the country in a very short period of time. We all felt a little sad that our Israel adventure was over and that soon we would be leaving the sun and the warmth to head back to Montreal. It was an amazing trip and an unforgettable experience, all in all. We were so lucky to have Mr. and Mrs. De Stefano with us - they are great traveling companions and made the trip so much more fun!

Touring in Jerusalem and The Dead Sea

In the last couple of days since leaving the Weizmann Institute, we have managed to pack  a lot of things in!! We left Weizmann early Thursday morning (yesterday) and went straight to the Old City of Jerusalem, where we spent the entire day. 

Before yesterday, we had all been so focussed on  Weizmann and the tournament and Physics related things that it was strange all of a sudden shifting our focus to history and religion and trying to understand how this important ancient city fits into our modern world.

The Old City of Jerusalem is an incredible place. It is divided into four quadrants and each is completely different from all the others. We started by walking around the top of the wall that surrounds the city (the rampart). We walked around most of the Armenian quadrant and then descended into that part of the city to visit some beautiful old churches on Mount Zion. Amongst these, we saw the Church of Maria, which is where Mary died and is buried. We also saw the room where The Last Supper took place. 

After the Armenian quarter, we crossed into the Jewish quarter where we stopped for a huge Falafel-centric lunch. We walked over to the 'Wailing Wall' and were overwhelmed by both the sheer number of people as well as the intense security. Here we had to say good-bye, temporarily, to Mr. De Stefano who had to visit the wall on the 'men's side' while the rest of us stayed on the woman's side. There were a lot of people praying vehemently at the wall and some of us wrote wishes on little pieces of paper and stuck them in little crevices of the wall (amongst the hundreds of other similar notes). 

From the Jewish quarter, we walked through the mysterious looking streets of the Arab section. There were lots of little shops lining both sides of the narrow street which was covered from above in many sections (sort of like a tunnel).  We couldn't help but be sucked into a few t-shirt shops and we managed to find a cool shirt with Physics equations and Hebrew writing!

After the Arab quarter we went to the Christian section where we visited the church that has been built around the skull shaped rock on top of which Jesus was crucified. It was an incredible church and also included inside it, the cave from which Jesus resurrected. 

We finished our tour by taking a drive up to the top of Mount Scorpus where we could get an awesome view of the entire old city. 

Today (Friday) was an equally busy day. We left Jerusalem early and started to drive towards the Dead Sea. We were in the van for about five minutes when we found ourselves, completely surrounded by desert. Not long after that, we pulled off the road and everyone was taking turns riding this random camel that had been standing next to the highway (with her entrepreneurial little owner). After that interesting stop, we continued on to Massada which is this amazing ancient fortress that dates back to Herod's time. We took a cable car to the top and learned all about the four different civilizations that have occupied this amazing structure over the last 2500 years. 

After Massada we finally made it to the Dead Sea where we visited a spa. After a quick lunch, we put our bathing suits on, had a mud bath and then went 'swimming' in the Dead Sea. All in all, an incredible experience!!

Masada And The Dead Sea

This morning we drove up to Masada after having a decent breakfast. About one hour into the drive, Tiffany and I were awoken by the car's sudden stop. The next thing we knew as we looked outside the window really quite surprised us. My mother was riding a camel in the middle of the desert... Anyways, we were quite in shock but it got better when we had the opportunity to ride the camel as well. Then, we got back into the car and drove all the way up to Masada where we took a cable car to the top of the mountain. We had a very educational day as we learned all about the Romans who took over the castle that Harod built so ingeniously, such a long time ago. After thoroughly exploring the ruins and the view, we drove down to the Dead Sea where we ate lunch and swam.

I have to admit the Dead Sea was definitely the coolest thing I have seen all trip. First, we lathered ourselves with mud containing many different minerals. Then, we had to let it dry for 15 minutes before being able to wash it off under mineral water. Once washed, our skin became so soft! Then, we went to swim in the Dead Sea were we actually floated! Ms Miller even dunked her head under the water after being repeatedly told not to! Much to her surprise, her eyes burnt for about 20 minutes afterwards. Then, Tiffany scraped her knee on the hard salt at the bottom of the sea so that burnt her for quite a while as well. Today's experience was unforgettable and nothing like I had expected.    

Jerusalem: Part 2

After having toured through the Old City from 9am-6pm, Rina, our tour guide, brought us to one last amazing place: the top of Mt. Scorpus! Wow, what an amazing view! From the top, we were fortunate enough to get a clear view of the Old City and gain a different perspective of where we spent the entire day. The sun was close to setting, and the wind and cold air was moving in, which was a nice contrast to the blazing sun we had all day! After a few descriptions of the sites and multiple group photos, we climbed into the van and made our way to the hotel.

After a fairly good-sized nap (or a few chapters of a good book), we headed down to the main lobby to meet up with the De Stefano's and walked to a little restaurant two minutes from the hotel. We enjoyed a great italian meal along with great laughs and stories.

By 11pm, we are all settled in our rooms for the night, anxious for what tomorrow may bring!

Jerusalem

So today was a very sad day because we left the Weizmann institute as well as everyone we met there. We checked out and drove to Jerusalem, which took about 1 hour in some traffic. Once arrived, we visited the breathtaking old town. The view was absolutely beautiful. From the top of the exterior walls we could see ruins, cemeteries, the Dome of the Rock, and the Mount of Olives. After quite a bit of walking, we stopped for lunch and ate some falafels. Following lunch, we walked along Via Dolorosa, which is the path that Jesus walked on the way to his crucifixion.  Then, we visited where Jesus had his last supper and was crucified. We saw where both the Christian and Jewish believe his tomb is located. After this, we went to admire the Wailing Wall and even bought a few Hebrew T-shirts. All in all, we visited the four different quarters of Old Jerusalem: the Jewish Quarter, the Christian Quarter, the Muslim Quarter, and the Armenian Quarter, all different and equally special.    

How It Feels

So it's about 11:15 p.m. on the day we were announced the champions. Everyone is still in shock as not all the excitement has quite settled in yet. To summarize the tournament, I would have to say that it has been an amazing experience! I learnt so much and made so many cool friends. I was able to learn a few Hebrew words from my new Hebrew friends and I even improved my Italian! This was really a once in a lifetime opportunity and I have enjoyed every minute of it!  

Day 2 Tournament: Morning

We woke up pretty early this morning and thankfully the hot water was working so we actually had real showers.  Today was pretty much all exhibition so we weren't so stressed out.  We got a table outside of the exhibition hall, which was good because the weather today is great: it's hot, the sky is blue (pretty much everything Montreal is not right now).  We just had lunch so the exhibition is wrapping up.  Next: the award ceremonies.  

The Results Are In!

Wow, what a day!
After a long 2 1/2 hour session of standing in the same place showing off our safe and having to endure the clown music coming from the safe next to us, we were all relieved to be able to put our safes back in our room and walk down to the main auditorium with Lara's parents for our 2 hour lecture and awards ceremony. We were more then ecstatic to receive headphones and a radio with complete translations of the Hebrew Lecture. I would assume the only downside of this great idea was that when they announced The Study had won first place, we only found out 5 seconds after it was announced in Hebrew and all the clapping had begun! Yes, that's right, the only non-jewish girls team brought home the gold!

We're off for a quick swim and then going to Tel Aviv for supper. Later.

Safe-Cracking Techniques by Country

One of the things we've learnt over the couple of days is that, generally, different countries have different techniques at safe-cracking.  On our first day here, during a tour of the Weizmann Institute, the woman who was leading the tour talked a little about previous safe-cracking competitions that were held here.  She mentioned in particular the difference between the Israeli teams and the British team.  Apparently, the Israeli teams would try absolutely anything to try and crack a safe (including banging, prodding, and ripping violently) The British team, on the other hand, would be much more "gentle" and instead of using their hands, they would debate about what could possibly be the answer.  This team was very intelligent, but invariably, the safe would not end up being cracked.  The Israelis, though they might not necessarily understand all the physics behind the safe, blind trial and error sometimes yielded results.  The woman's lesson from this was to try everything, even if it may not make sense to you.  As it turns out, we witnessed many of the safe cracking techniques while we monitored our own safe and it pretty much went with the woman's description of the various teams.  One of the first questions of the Israeli teams that wanted to crack our safe was can we use the "plunger" to push the buzzer out? Or, "can we shake/pick up/move the safe?"  As for the British team, they would think for ten minutes and then act, as expected.  They were pretty brilliant though, I have to admit. I can't really evaluate our way of cracking safes...maybe because we were so close to the situation.  I'm sure though, that another country would be able to point out the "Canadian way" of cracking safes.

Day 2 Tournament: Morning and Recap of Day 1

We have all just got up and had breakfast on Day 2 of the competition. The girls are hating the breakfasts here which, admittedly are a little bit unusual (lots of uncooked onions and hummus). This morning, the cafeteria lady took pity on us and gave the girls some croissants free of charge! Score! 

The girls are now getting ready for the safe exhibition, which begins at 10 am. This will be followed by the award ceremony. Sadly, Julie's departure time is quickly approaching. Julie is flying back to Montreal around 1 am tomorrow morning (basically late tonight) in order to be back in time for the climate project presentation, which starts on Friday. This morning there is a public exhibition of all the safes and then this afternoon, the award ceremony takes place around 1:30 - 3:30 pm (6:30am-8:30am Montreal time). This ceremony will be broadcasted live via webcast (for anyone up early enough). The link for this broadcast is listed under our 'links' on the side of this blog. 

1 hour later

During the exhibition (which has now started), hundreds of people from all over Israel have come to try to crack the different safes, which are all out on display. The girls have just been interviewed by a local Israeli news channel and they are right now taking turns explaining to the local public, the Physics behind their safe (see pictures of both things on this page). 

Yesterday, all the judging and 'safe cracking' took place. The girls had to explain the Physics behind their safe during three separate judging sessions. The first judge was a graduate student from the Weizmann  Physics department, the second judge was a Physics teacher from the institute, and the third was a professor from a local Israeli university. All three judges were 'very satisfied' by the girls' explanations and ability to answer their questions. They all commented on the originally of the idea and the esthetics of the safe!

After the judging, was the cracking part of the competition. Other teams tried to crack The Study's safe and our team went off to crack other teams' safes. At the end of the day, the Study's safe proved uncrackable! As far as breaking into other teams' safes, the girls managed to break into two of the eight safes they attempted! All in all, a very successful day!

Day 1 Tournament: Afternoon and Evening

After the judging this morning, we took a well deserved break.  Honestly, the whole safe-cracking thing is pretty stressful.  Especially when you have a temperamental smoke detector with a mind of its own.  Sometimes it feels like going off, sometimes not so much.  We have been pretty good trouble shooters so far, however, and in the end it has always worked out (and will continue to do so...we hope).  You could really feel the energy and the tension today: teams were running back and forth between safe cracking and judging and there was a lot of conversation in languages we could not understand.  That's another interesting part of being in an international tournament.  At briefing this morning, we were told that there was something like 46 Israeli teams and 8 international teams from London, Minsk, LA, Rome, to name a few.  

After lunch, we had to split up and stayed with our safes while other people cracked them.  We were able to stay two at a time, though (it's always nice to have some company).  Another rule of this tournament, which is both good and nerve-wracking, is that if a team is unable to crack into the safe, the team who's safe it is must demonstrate "proper cracking procedure."  This means we have to hope that our smoke detector doesn't become stubborn and pray that the buzzer goes off.  

So after long hours of monitoring our safe, we had to start cracking the other ones.  We had eight, but we managed to only crack two (though we came close on the remaining six).  Meanwhile, our safe had not been broken into.  It really was a learning experience.  For example, we learnt that when a team says you can use everything...they mean you can use everything.  Also, the solution is most likely to be simpler than one might have imagined (much groaning and hitting heads with hands ensued after the solution was revealed).  

Tomorrow, is basically just the exhibition and then the awards ceremony.  We are really impressed with the quality and ingenuity of all the safes as well as the creativity of the people behind them.  So far, it's been really great.  

Tournament Day 1: Morning

So this morning the alarm rang for 7:30, waking us up quite tired. Tiffany and I decided we were going to shower. Let's just say we froze, having absolutely no hot water in our showers. Then we made our way to breakfast and prepared our safe in the room we were assigned. We will continue to share this room with the Toronto team all day, as that is where our safe is assigned. Around 9:00am we had a briefing where they explained to us the rules of the tournament. Then, from 10:00 to 12:00 we had 3 visits from different judges who asked us questions and inspected our safes. Thankfully, that went really well! Julie and Amanda are currently in the room with the safe, watching people come in and attempt to crack it. This is because all the teams are seperated into two and the first group gets to crack the safes from 12:00 to 2:00 and the second from 3:00 to 5:00, we were placed in the second time slot.

Today's weather update is looking good since it is quite hot and sunny during most parts of the day. The people here are great and thankfully almost everyone speaks English. We made friends from all around the world and it is quite the experience so far! Particularly, I met a girl from Rome whom I could practice my Italian with, so that's pretty cool.

Day 1: Getting to Israel and First Impressions

Well we all made it to Israel in one piece (the safe included).  I guess all those extra precautions we took while packing paid off.  We met the Toronto team at the El Al counter after an uneventful flight from Montreal.  I honestly think I was the only one flipping out about the safe (there were fragile stickers and "this way up" stickers covering the entire box).    

The flight to Israel was...long.  We all underwent somewhat of a culture shock.  The announcements on the plane were made in Hebrew, the entertainment was in Hebrew, the little plane snacks were in Hebrew.  It took a while to get used to not being able to understand anything, but once we got into The Weizmann Institute, everyone spoke English again.  

The Institute is absolutely enormous, like gigantic.  Before coming, I took a look at the map but I still didn't expect it to be so huge.  The weather is nice, compared to the snow we came from (the grass is green and there are flowers blooming all over the campus).  We took a tour of some of the more important buildings with some of the international students this morning.  There are kids from all over the world.  We met teams from London, Minsk, Rome, and a guy from Serbia today.  The Israeli teams don't arrive until tomorrow when the actual tournament begins.  

Hopefully by that time we will have gotten over our jet lag and have gotten a decent night's rest.  We're all so excited to be here, even though it hasn't quite set in yet.  

  

Montreal Regional Competition: Weizmann Science Physics Tournament

The competition in Montreal took place at St-George's on March 6th 2008.  The teams competing were St-George's, Herzliah, Hebrew Academy, Trafalgar, Bialik, and ourselves.  The cracking part of the competition came first.  The safes stayed in the respective team classrooms along with one member of the team, in case anything needed to be fixed and to reset the safe for the next team.  The rest of the team members rotated between safes along with an assigned timer and we were each given ten minutes to break into each safe.  We then filled in a sheet ranking every safe from one to five.  Following a short break, the official judging began.  Four judges tested our individual knowledge of the safe and the properties behind it.  We had to demonstrate how the safe worked and opened.  The final criteria for judging was the esthetics of the safe. Next we had dinner and then the public viewing began, after which the judges announced the winner: The Study!

Study Physics Team Travels to University of Vermont Physics Department

In order to get to where we are, the five of us have not only worked hard during and after school for the past 6 months, we were also fortunate enough to have been given the opportunity to travel to Vermont. We caught a bus down to the University of Vermont in the early morning, and spent the day under the wing of a couple of UVM teachers. We arrived in Vermont with nothing but an idea and a sketch, and after the first day, we returned to Montreal with the outer shell of our box created, our glass tube fitted and made, and some of the other components finished! Between our first and second visit to the UVM, we had our box more or less completed. Dave Hammond and Mike Hamblin, the two that helped us throughout our stay, offered us a chance to visit the University a second time, this time, rather then using all the amazing equipment and machines that we didn't have access to in Montreal, we benefited from this day by learning all about the physics concepts our safe didn't cover. We wanted to not only have an uncrackable safe, we also wanted to have a good shot at understanding other team's safes. Dave set up a whole bunch of interesting experiments and demonstrations and this gained us a better understanding of what might come up on the day of the competition.