We began our day by meeting up at the Amal School to work on our project. As of now, at 11:10 a.m., the logo for our app, GoGet, has been completed. Matan Yariv, our app developer, is currently working on the app.

To help you understand, our app’s goal is to allow someone to either receive or give help. By giving help, one can get “boost points.” These points can then be used to “buy” help for oneself when they need it.

So far, our app works! We were able to create an account and post a request for help. Matan is adding the final touches.

We are also working on the presentations for our app which we will present tomorrow.

Ten minutes ago, at 11:10, we participated in a bomb drill. This drill is not only school-wide. It is done in the entire country of Israel!

When the alarm rang, we all hid in a room. It rang for about two minutes. During those two minutes, Mrs. Ilana, the principal of the school, explained that when the alarm rings, everyone in Israel gets inside the nearest shelter. Cars stop, too. Everyone that is in a car has to get out of the car and, if possible, hide underneath it.

This experience was definitely interesting. It taught us how other countries handle certain threats and precarious situations.

After working on our projects some more, we ran a presentation test. There’s still some work to be done for tomorrow.

We are now heading to Tel Aviv, which is about an hour away from the Amal School. Tel Aviv is often called the New York City of Israel, so we’re very excited to be going there.

When we made it to Tel Aviv, we headed to the Escape Room building.

When we got there, we were put into a room designed to be a Russian KGB intelligence/archive room. Though not real, but only an exercise, we were told to imagine that the room had been hidden in Israel for many years and had recently been found. We were told as part of this exercise to pretend that, in this KGB intelligence station, a bomb had been set to detonate. Our goal was to pretend we were students doing research but at the same time uncover the secrets hidden within the KGB intelligence complex and, of course, to find a way to disarm the bomb!

The room was equipped with a personal actor. The actor for my group was a woman. When we went into the room, she spoke at first in Russian. She questioned at first if we were police (which we were, according to the story), but we told her that we weren’t.  At first she didn’t believe us, but eventually she gave in and let us in to do our research. She was an amazing actor. She really made us feel that she was working for Vladimir Putin!

Each clue that we found led to another, and we made it from room to room. Eventually, we uncovered the bomb and, cutting it close, we managed to disarm it. When we got out of the room, we were applauded by the staff. All in all it was a very memorable experience.

After visiting the Tel Aviv escape room, we went to the Tel Aviv marketplace in which there were about a hundred small kiosks with many different things to buy. There were candy kiosks, fruit kiosks, food kiosks, and souvenir kiosks. I found, along the way, several kiosks with many of the same souvenirs from Jerusalem. I was very happy because I had missed out on the shopping at Jerusalem.

After about an hour of shopping, we got on a bus and went to the Tel Aviv seaport. We made it just in time to see part of the sunset. It was absolutely gorgeous. The sky was purple and it produced a very nice effect on the pictures we took. After looking out at the sea for a good 10 minutes, we decided that it was time to eat something. We stopped by at one of the local restaurants on the boardwalk. The restaurant served Italian food. Many of us had delicious pasta dishes.

After eating, we found our way to our bus driver and began our hour-long journey back home. It was time again to rest up for the next day.

All in all, Tel Aviv was a thriller. It is very high tech city. The architecture of the buildings is unusual and it makes the cityscape look very appealing.

Tomorrow, we will present our project to several guests at the Amal School. We can’t wait.

Goodnight.