David In Israel . דוד בישראל . داوود في اسرائيل 

I've been back from Romania for about a week now, and I have to say I had an absolutely spectacular time.  I have always felt connected to Romania because of the heritage I have there, and now I feel like I have life-long friends there as well.  
You can see the video we made of Mount Postavarul, where we stayed - near Dracula's castle.  That was breathtaking.  After that I continued on to Cluj-Napoca where I met with my friend Delia.  She and her boyfriend treated me to dinner at a great place on a swan lake!  It was awesome.  Then I headed down to Timisoara where I met the son (Nitza) of the family I stayed with last year when I was in Romania.  He showed me around and introduced me to several friends.  We all stayed up until 4 in the morning laughing, (which was a trend that continued the rest of the time I was in Romania).  The next day Nitza and I boarded the train to Arad, where we met up with my friend Cornelia, and then we headed to the small village of Pancota where I stayed for another 4 or 5 days.  Mrs. Ionita is a cheese-maker and they have about 18 cows.  I didn't get to milk the cows because that is done electronically, but I did get to help sell the milk!  While there, we played games, cooked, hiked, went fishing, played pingpong and soccer (and both Nitza and I got goals)! I also went with them to a wedding in the middle of a thunder and lightning storm!  It was an amazing time... I can't say I slept enough because we stayed up so late every night laughing and telling stories, but it was definitely worth it.  I'll be back there soon, I just know it!

I'll upload more pics later... but this is a video I made about where I'm staying right now in Transylvania while I'm on a 10 day vacation between semesters!  What a blast! (by the way - all of the high quality pics are mine, so the place really is  that awesome)!

My friend Joyce and I (who I went to Bethlehem with at Christmas) were invited by our friend Saed to come visit him in Ramallah.  Ramallah is a place that most tourists don't enter because it is in the West Bank and the best way to get there is on the Palestinian buses... so most people avoid them.  I won't say I wasn't at all nervous, but I was glad I had the chance to do it, and also glad I knew someone there. 
We visited the street market where we saw Stars & Bucks Coffee, We saw a Labour day parade, we ate Falafel with Hummus and Fuoll. Then we visited Arafat's tomb, saw Saed's bank and his old school.  We also visited his family for dinner, and we saw the new house they are building.  After that we went to the city and saw a modern dance performance, ate a palestinan desert and saw a wood-worker making keychains as well as a group of students from a peace-oriented NGO rap and break dance... It was a great day!

I had the pleasure of traveling around Egypt and Israel with my brother Jonathan this month.  He came for his spring break, and we had an absolutely blast exploring most of Israel, along with parts of Egypt!  Check out these Photo Videos:

Egypt:

Northern Israel (Haifa, Carmel Mountains, Druze and Zikron Yaakov):

Tiberias and Nazareth Village:

Pesach = Passover:

Masada & the Dead Sea:

Ashdod, Tel Aviv Port, Shabbat with Nola, Qeasarea, Rosh haNikra (border with Lebanon) and family in the North:

Jerusalem:

Well, not this year, I guess.  I just recently applied to be a summer intern for STA Travel.  My job would have been to Photograph, Video & Blog about my experiences traveling for them during the summer.  I wasn't selected, but it was still fun... I had to make a video for the application process... enjoy - here it is!
I still like what I said in the video, so if you know someone who could use the information... forward it to them.

I found a bus ticket to London from Cardiff and had a nice evening there before leaving for Israel in the morning.  It wasn't the most fun I've ever had in London, but it is always nice to go back. Perhaps I can take a holiday there sometime in the near future.  Jolly Good!

There is no hiding that I sort of have a thing for my name.  I love it... I follow it.  So - when I found out that I was going to be in UK on Saint Davids Day - and when I found out that Saint David just happened to be the patron saint of Wales - with an name like David Welch (Welsh!?!) I couldn't stay away.  I made my way from Ireland to Manchester and after a nice night there, I headed for Cardiff.  Wales was a VERY patriotic place.  Everywhere I looked, I could see daffodils (the national flower), and the flag of Saint David - a yellow cross with a black background - was everywhere.  Streets, Buildings & Basically everything else revolved around Saint David... OH YEAH!

Many of you remember how excited I was when I found the amazing price on my tickets by flying through Ireland... well, I've more than made up for it the price difference now after having spent 3 days there... IRELAND IS EXPENSIVE... In hebrew - the word for expensive and the word for priceless are the same... YAQAR... Well, it was both.  I had a great time.  I rented an Avis rental car and in 3 days, I put 1300 kilometers on it.  I basically drove around all of the south of Ireland.  I LOVED IT!!! WOW!!! It is such a magical place.  The first night I ran out of fuel and all the gas stations close until 7 in them morning... I had to sleep in my car at one of the gas stations... a memory maker... Then I continued on to Mizen Head - the southern-most point in Ireland.  This area is closed until March/April, but I snuck in...  After that I headed up to the world-famous cliffs of Maher, and watched the sun go down over the cliffs. YAQAR - in the non-monetary sense of the word.