Eizenstat Israel Travel Grantee Blog

Haley Director, Part 2

August 9th, 2018

This trip has gone by so fast! I can’t believe that I’m flying back to America in a few hours. The second half of the trip was even better than the first half! I experienced a lot of new things and had a lot of interesting experiences while I was here that I will never forget. In my lab, we got the results of my experiment. The first time we ran the gel, the results were compromised due to the use of chloroform as a solvent for the beta carotene. Luckily, my grad student Ronit found a way to solubilize the beta carotene without using chloroform, and we redid the experiment the next week with the correctly solubilized beta carotene. We found out that beta carotene does not affect Complex 3 of the mitochondria like astaxanthin does, and we set up another experiment (to be continued after I leave) that tests the effect on respiration of C. elegans by measuring its lifespan. The last week I was here, I extracted more mitochondria to replenish the stock that was used during the experimentation. I absolutely loved my internship and wouldn’t trade it for the world!

Everyone who worked in my lab during my internship.

Outside of the internship, I did a lot of fun things in the last two and a half weeks. The third week of the trip, the Birthright trip from Brandeis was here and a lot of my friends were on it. They had a night out in Jerusalem, and I visited one of my best friends in Mahane Yehuda, Jerusalem’s largest outdoor shuk. We were able to catch up and talk about what we had been doing so far this summer, and it was great to see her after so long. Another one of my friends extended his trip after Birthright to stay for another Onward Israel program, so we have been hanging out and exploring the city a lot!

Me and my friends celebrating Shabbat at the Western Wall.

One of the highlights of the trip for me was going to the Dead Sea. The fourth Friday of the trip, my camp friends and I took a bus from Jerusalem’s central bus station to the Dead Sea, and we went to a beach/resort that had a pool and areas for us to relax outside of just the typical things you do at the Dead Sea. We got there at 9:30am, and the first thing we did was go down to the Dead Sea and float and cover ourselves with mud. It was nice and relaxing, but all of the cuts and hangnails that I had stung when they hit the water. After we were done in the Dead Sea, we headed up to the resort area and spent the rest of the day by the pool. The pool had parts in the sun and the shade, and we alternated between those spots when we were swimming. We also spent a lot of time in the sun, and I got a really nice tan! We took a taxi back to Jerusalem at 3:30 and spent the rest of the day relaxing in our apartments. That day was so much fun, and I’m so glad I could go!

Me floating in the Dead Sea during one of my free weekends.

This internship was an amazing experience, and I’m so lucky that I was able to experience Israel as an adult. I’m so excited to share these experiences with my campers and friends when I get back to America. Thanks for keeping up with my Israel trip! Signing off 🙂

Entry Filed under: 2017 Grantees