Differences: Israel vs. New Mexico

Back home: I have my own room, a queen size bed to myself, and a bathroom to myself. I go to school hours a day and take 7 classes, 4 real classes with real topics, and 3 random fun classes (ceramics, and 2 psychology classes). I don’t really get homework, and when I do it can all be done in under 2 hours. I have free time with my friends to go around the city. I frequently go out to eat; favorite places = Garcia's, Yummy House, Great Fortune, Taco Bell, Dions, Blake's, McAllisters, CPK, and Subway. I go shopping and buy foods that I would never think of as American (but I guess they are) and that are no problem to cook at home (ex: Salt and Vinegar chips, Pasta, Potatoes, Chicken, and other junk). Eating a turkey and cheese isn’t a big deal. Weekends start Friday night and go till Sunday night. Weekends are generally completely free, for me to do what I want, usually stay in bed, sleeping and watching Netflix. I go out to do fun things often; bowling, mini golf, lazer tag, ice skating, shopping, movies, swing dancing, even going to the gym. My trips to hike and sight see are in New Mexico and basically its extent is the Manzano Mountains, the volcanos, and Santa Fe. 

Here: I share a two room hotel suit with 3 others girls. I sleep in a single bed. I share a bathroom with these 3 other girls, occasionally more people too, my room mates are popular people, many friends. I go to school for more than 10 hours a day and take 8 classes, all real classes with real academic topics. No fun classes. Even if I had any free time from classes and didn’t have piles of homework, I wouldn’t just be able to go hangout around the city. There is a lot of places in the country that we can’t go due to safety reasons (ex: West Bank, Gaza Strip). We barely ever eat out, and when we do its usually middle eastern food, not my favorite. It is also almost impossible to find a non-kosher restaurant, no turkey and cheese sandwiches, and in general food taste different (ex: McDonald’s here has some funky chicken nuggets). Here when you go shopping at the store you are not going to find any sort of American chips, the closest you will get are Cheetos and Doritos and they do not taste anything like the ones in America. Also I only have a mini fridge and a microwave, so cooking, like real cooking, isn’t a thing. I can’t make baked potatoes, pasta, mac n’ cheese, or meat. Oh and this country doesn’t have Raspberries or Salt and Vinegar chips! WTF!!! Its hard to make a turkey and cheese here... that is like one of the simplest meals. Weekends start Friday about lunchtime and go till Saturday night. The reason I say Friday about noon is the start of our weekend is as follows: Technically school Thursday gets out about 7:15 at night and then your weekend starts, but we have programs and then Friday morning we do community service so about lunchtime is the start of the weekend to me. Our weekends aren’t really weekends though. Friday nights we have services and Saturday morning we also have services. And we usually have other things planned. Very scheduled. No time to lay in bed and watch Netflix (if we even had Netflix, but this country doesn’t have Netflix yet). The only fun thing we ever really go out and do is shopping and it is for about an hour one night a week at most. Trips here are all over the country, we go to hike Masada and to historical sites that most people only read about.

Well I could go on and on about the differences but I would exhaust any readers.