Laptop crash :-(

Uggh!!!! My cheap-o laptop has bitten the dust :-( I somehow acquired an "Antivirus software" which has taken down the computer. We've tried cleaning it off with limited success. I'm currently using Ken's laptop but he has a meeting in a minute, so there isn't much time to write. We did see some huge (I mean HUGE) jellyfish at the beach on Saturday. Ummmm I won't be swimming in the Mediterranean anytime soon. There were at least 15 washed up on shore and they were 2 feet wide. I am totally serious. There were gross! I guess a kid got stung and had 2nd degree burns. Yikes.

An Invitation!

Fridays and Saturdays are designated for traveling around the country and sightseeing. However, Ken had a very very long week at work and was on a teleconference until after 11pm so we decided to take today off. We did go for a walk down the hill and opted for the Bagel shop instead of the bakery. Hindsight this was a bad decision :-( We've been enjoying morning pasteries from the bakery for about 5 shekels. I thought we should try something new so we went inside the shop. The gal assembled two bagels with cream cheese for us and indicated it would be 18 shekels. A little higher than the bakery but we thought it would be a nice treat. We went to pay and she said are you eating here or take away. The place was totally empty so we thought sure we will eat here and asked to pay for the food. She said no, you can pay when your done. Well after about 15 minutes we finished our bagel and went to the counter to pay. She rang us up for 46 shekels!!!! Apparently it was 18 shekels per bagel and there was a phenomenal charge for sitting at that table!!!! You can imagine how happy we were. I said, you told us 18? She shrugged her shoulders and said yes I did, but then you sat down. Hmmmmm. I thought they would honor the original quote, but as we left the store I looked at the receipt Ken signed... it was for 46 shekels :-( Good thing we aren't spending any money on touristy things today. After our hike back up the hill we were totally sweaty from the humidity. Seems like it's going to be a hot day. We took showers and then took a nap. We had a rather relaxing day.

Around noon someone rang the doorbell. Who could that be? We thought about ignoring it, but curiosity got the best of me. John, the professor (from NY) that we met the other day was just walking away from our house. He wanted to know if we wanted to join them for dinner around 7pm! Their whole family gets together every Friday night (beginning of Shabbat) for dinner. One of his sons-in-law works at Intel. Sounds like fun so we accepted. We went for a short walk on the beach this afternoon and were home in time for dinner. What a wonderful time we had!!! 3 of thier 4 children live in Israel and they have 9 grandchildren (only 4 were present). They also invited a few other visitors. We had cheese and crackers and pistachios for appetizers. Then they pulled some steak off the grill for the main course. This was served with potatoes, squash, and salad. The dinner was so yummy. The best I've ate since I've been here (we need to find another invite :-). The conversation was also very entertaining. Ken and the son-in-law both work at Intel with a very distant connection to each other via the products they support, so they were able to have an easy conversation with each other. The daughter was very very kind and gave me her contact info for future coffee or cooking experience with her. Both of their sons were nice too (one was a lawyer the other a Mfg Engineer). One of their guests was actually another neighbor who was shipped out of Austria to England just before the War with her brother and sister (parents died in Auschwitz). She moved to Israel after the war. Another friend was visiting from Delaware and doing research at the University for the summer. John and Lori (our neighbors) are fabulous people (very opinionated towards each other in conversations)and wonderful hosts. The whole evening was very entertaining and it is now close to midnight so I should be going soon. Tomorrow we expect to have another relaxing day. We heard that our days at the beach are numbered as the jelly fish are coming and I don't really feel like being stung. They should be gone by mid August.

This week

Let's see... this week I spent one afternoon at the beach just listening to music on my MP3 player. It was a relaxing day. The beach only had 10 or so people on it so it was nice. Swim class has been going well- when I can get there (Hebrew lessons are keeping me from it :-(. I saw Abraham today at the pool. I met him last week and he can speak some English. He told me all about his family in NY. He said it was easy for him to remember my name. I had to agree. The instructor is keeping me in the deep end so I can get a good workout. Half the time I don't know what he is saying but when he yells louder and louder I think that means go faster or double time! We met some other neighbors yesterday. We were walking to the trash can and noticed there had been a car accident. One of the big trash dumpsters was over turned and the car that had been behind it was significantly damaged. This older gentleman came out to look at it and started talking to us in Hebrew. We shruged our shoulders and said "only English". Immediately he switched into perfect English with a NY accent. I shook his hand. Nice to meet you sir. I guess he has lived here for the last 50 years, but they visit NY every summer. They invited us to come see their house. WOW! They have a lovely yard with all sorts of fruit trees. Lemons, Oranges, Clemintines, Olives and a few other I don't remember. They also grow green grapes off their patio. I guess he is a professor at the University. They seemed like very nice people. We also met a few other expats here over phone and email. Unfortunately one gal has just left to the states on home leave. I'm looking forward to meeting her when they come back. I braved another trip to the market. I almost forgot what exit to get off at, but was relieved once we came out of the tunnel to see we were in the right spot. I thing if I go one more time I will solidfy where to get what from each vendor. And which ones speak English. Priya got something from a vendor and they said 15 shekels, but were holding up two fingers. It was a bit confusing. She gave them 20 and expected 5 shekels back, but they never came back. I tried to talk to the other guy on her behalf. He said it's OK and drew the number 20 on his hand. I'm not sure if they changed the price or if it was really 20 to begin with. I think I need to learn my Hebrew numbers. I've got 1-5 right now. I better get back to the neighbor kids so they can teach me. Ken has been working a lot. I guess that is why we are here so I'll have to be okay with it. I think it's time to start looking for a Mediterranean cruise.

Random Things

In Israel:
You have to pay extra close attention when driving. You might be driving down the road and the car in front of you will just stop and park his car. You'll have everybody honking at you if you didn't forsee this stop and give yourself room to merge before coming to a complete stop.

The horn is more considered more valuable than your brakes. People will honk at you even before the light turns green if you aren't rolling yet.

Most people drift from one lane to the other. Be careful for the buses. They don't have any respect for a little Dihatsu.

They say there are driving rules here, just not sure the Israelis like to follow them.

You have to pay 5 shekels to use the grocery cart at the supermarket. You can get your money back if you return the cart. Guess this was the only way to ensure that they will bring the shopping cart back.

The shopping cart wheels move freely in each direction (instead of just going straight ahead). Many people walk down the aisles with their carts sideways because its too hard to keep them going straight ahead.

Emergency vehicles (police, ambulance, fire) always have thier lights flashing when they are driving. They will turn the siren on if they want you to move out of the way.

Cable TV has no commercials. I guess it's illegal to advertise here when you are paying for TV.

Orange Juice

I found one thing here that I don't think I can live without.... Fresh Squeezed Orange Juice! It seems to be on almost every street corner similar to falafel stands. I tried one at the market today. The vendor cut the top and bottom off the orange, put it in a press, put my cup under the press, and squeezed four oranges into my cup. Oh man! The best thing you'll ever have!

My Garden

We decided to plant a garden on our patio. It's been growing like crazy!!! I should probably take a more recent photo. I can't wait for it to blossom. We have 4 tomato plants, lettuce and basil (those were the only things I had on hand in seed form before we left). Hopefully we will be having tomatoes coming out our ears in a month or so!

Learning Hebrew

Hmmm. To say the least my first lesson was overhelming and we were just trying to learn the alphabet! I think the thing I was most confused on is that at least a dozen of the letters look virtually the same (a backwards "r") with a longer or shorter tail in either direction. How do you tell them apart??? And apparently they don't use vowels so my name for instance is SRH (in the Hebrew characters of course). We spent an hour and half going over the characters and sounds they make. The instructor gave us homework due back on Wednesday! It almost looks like I'm in first grade if you look at the handouts I was given. They have really big letters, short words, and pictures next to them. The lessons are usually one on one, but Priya and I are taking them together. Hopefully that will make it a bit easier for us. We tried to form a basic sentence. "My parents live in the US" Abba Ima shalee bah it USA. I'm sure I'm missing something here, but that's what I remember.

I missed swimming class due to the timing of Hebrew lessons:-(. Somehow I need to see if I can move the lessons slightly later so I can continue with both.

In the evening Ken had some teleconferences so I went next door to the neighbors (lady who helped me at the grocery store), she was delighted to see me and welcomed me in. She asked how I was doing and what I had been doing. I said I had my first Hebrew lesson and for the next hour she walked through the whole alphabet with me again. Her son said.. "It's very similar to Greek". Hmmm I don't know that one either :-( After my tutorial we did talk about other things and she gave me a list of good restaurants in Haifa.

The weather is beautiful here! Nice to have sunshine every single day.

Dead Sea Pictures

The Dead Sea

Saturday we planned to go to the Dead Sea and surrounding sites. We found out that one of Ken's friends from work was in town this week on business and so we asked him if he wanted to join us. It took a while to find his hotel in TelAviv but we were glad to have his company. By 9am we were headed to Jerusalem. We stopped for gas and found out we are still having troubles with our VISA card :-( We gave them different card and they said, unless we had an Israeli credit card we could only get 1 liter of gas on a credit card ??? Wierd. Glad we had cash. It was interesting to watch the landscape change. Jerusalem looked beautiful (from the Highway). Lots of trees and greenery, past Jerusalem towards the dead sea is more what I expected Israel to look like when Ken first said we were moving here, very brown rocky hills almost looked like sand dunes. There were a few nomadic tents on the hills and some sheep/goats on the hillside. We even saw a camel on one of the highway exits (not sure where his owner was). We passed a couple of guard stations (we look like safe white Americans so they usually wave us through pretty quickly). First impression of the Dead Sea is it looks like its receeding. It's the lowest place on earth 412m below sea level.
We drove through to Qumeran (where the dead sea scrolls were discovered). The ruins of the city have been dated to 800 BC where the Essenes lived and copied the scriptures. Much of the Old Testament was found (including the whole book of Isaiah) since the discovery of the Clay Jars in a cave here in 1947.

From Qumeran we went South to Masada. Masada was built by Herod as a place to get away and rest. I guess this place became coveted by many since it was nearly impossible to attack. (I personally -in the 110 degree weather- kept asking myself why anyone would want to live here in the middle of nowhere on top of this big mountain!) After the fall of Jerusalem to the Romans, Jewish revolters moved to Masada for safety. Eventually the Romans came and surrounded the base of the mountain and began building a ramp up to the city. We were wondering why the Jews couldn't have thrown rocks at the builders since they had the upper hand (and there were a ton of rocks up there) but I guess the Romans used Jewish slaves to build the ramp so that the revolters up top would be less likely to attack their own people. On the night before the Romans reached the entrance the story is that the Jewish revolters (although they had food water and supplies to sustain themselves for years to come) determined it was better to commit suicide than to be slaves to the Romans. The next morning the Romans ascended to the city to find everybody dead except a few small children and women. What an amazing place to see and a beautiful view of the mountains and dead sea. It almost seemed like we were in Arizona with the red rock mountains all around. We would have loved to stay longer, but it was way way way to hot and we didn't bring any water with us. We were glad to purchase the cable car tickets for an easy ride there and back. Watching the hikers snake up the mountain was exhausting in itself. I actually thought we would hike, but after seeing the path... the cable car was unanimous.

En Gedi was our final destination. It was amazing to see this small oasis in the middle of the desert/rocky terrain. Here David fled from King Saul, and actually had the chance to kill Saul when he found him sleeping in a cave. We went straight for Ein Bokek the famous tourist spot for floating in the dead sea. It was soooo hot and it was quite a trek from the parking lot down to the water. There were probably 10 other people out there floating when we got there. I noticed there was a lifeguard/nurse station up on the hill. I'm not sure what there purpose was though, because #1 everyone is supposed to float (why do you need a lifeguard?) and #2 if something did go wrong it would have taken them at least 4 minutes to get to shore and jump in. Now that I think about it, I didn't check to see if they had guns and were really supposed to be eyeing the Jordanian Hills across the sea. Anyway... we walked into the water and once I got to my thighs I just bent my knees and I was floating. This was the wierdest, coolest experience and you really have to experience it to believe it. I've seen pictures of friends who have floated in the dead sea before, but its unreal. There must be a rather quick drop off because I put my legs straight down and couldn't stand on any rocks, but I was totally upright. As soon as I put my legs slightly in front of me they went straight to the surface. Amazing! Then I looked at the water. What is in here that is making us float? The water looked a little oily, it was not gross like car oil leaking into the river. When we came out it looked like maybe we put on some suntanning oil. But it didn't seem any more sticky then when we went swimming at the beach in Haifa. I was glad there were some showers nearby to wash off. Ohhh that felt good. The shower water was a little cooler (but not much) than the dead sea which felt like warm bath water. Every-once-in-a-while you would feel a cooler current but then it would go warm again after 10 seconds. They say nothing lives in the Dead Sea (only 11 types of bacteria- good thing there was a shower nearby). We were careful not to dunk our heads since the salt would just burn in our eyes and ears. Just from moving around in the water I got a little on my lips and it was soooo gross. It was a bitter salt taste. Worse than what you would expect salt x10 to taste like.
The drive home seemed really long but we made it. It was definately worth the trip.

Pictures of Monastery & Megiddo

Daliyat Al-Karmel and Megiddo

Friday we planned to go to the Carmel Forest. On Thursday afternoon I went to the entrance of the park to get a map so we could plan our day. While I was there I saw a huge vulture circling in the sky. It was cool! Unfortunately they only had a map in Hebrew. It looks like there are a lot of cool trails but without being able to read the signs we could probably get lost pretty easily and being lost in the HOT sun would not be fun. The park Ranger did circle a couple of spots on the map for reference points and showed me where Daliyat Al-Karmel was. This city is one of 14 Druze villages in Israel. The members of this community are an independent sect of Shiite Muslims. Jethro (Moses father-in-law) is there most revered prophet and they are forbidden to smoke, drink alcohol or eat pork. There are many places to shop along the main street but we decided not to stop to look. Just past Daliyat Al-Karmel is a small monastery that commemorates the site where Elijah defeated 450 prophets of Baal. There was a tour bus there and we tried to listen in to the monk until we realized he was speaking Italian. At the end he walked by and he said in English... did you understand what I said? I said no, but we followed them to the rooftop of the monastery to look at the view of the carmel forest and the surrounding plans. It was not a clear day so we were unable to see Mt Hermon :-( I was hoping to get an abbreviated version from the monk once we went back downstairs, but it looks like he was part of the Italian tour group and left on the bus with them. We walked around the small garden and took pictures of some of the statues and then left.

On to Megiddo. This excavation site has uncovered ruins dating from 7000 BC to 332 BC! Apparently (like most cities here) it was controlled (built/rebuilt) by many different people groups including the Canaanites, Egyptians, Assyrians, and Israelites. The ruins included a Cannanite Temple, chariot stables, a palace from Solomon's time, a grain silo, and a tunnel engineerd by King Ahab to allow acces to water if they were attacked. We were surprised at the number of archeologists on site digging while we were there. It seems like there were at least 5 groups of 10-15 people each (some spoke English, we didn't bother any of them though). It was amazing to see the ruins, but the tunnel was the coolest thing to see. There were some intersting veiw points of the Jezreel Valley below. And to think this is where the Battle of Armageddon referenced in Revelation takes place. What a site.

Another day

I went swimming again today. I was a little bit late because traffic was so bad :-( The instructor seemed okay with it. We did exercises with those floaty barbells. I looked over to the lady next to me and it looked like her ear was bleeding, then I looked closer... she must have just gotten her hair colored. It didn't seem to be making the pool red so I decided not to complain :-) Not that I would have had anybody to complain to. After the class I did a few laps again. I bumped into someone and said "Excuse me". They said "No problem". You speak English I said with delight. This old man then started telling me about everywhere he has been in the US. It was a nice little chat... maybe I'll see him next week. I say next week because tomorrow starts the weekend :-) Hooray! I meant to go to the market today to get some fresh fruits for the weekend. I'm a little nervous now that I didn't make it. I could go tomorrow, but I think it will be a zoo down there. Maybe Ken would like to go with me :-)

Swimming

Getting into the fitness center today was easier than I thought it would be. I was thankful to see the same lady that Marianna and I had talked to the other day. I gave her my paperwork and she gave me some kind of magnetic button that allowed me to go through the turnstyle. So I attended my first swim class today :-) It was a lot of fun. There were probably 15 other people in the pool with the instructor on the ledge showing us what to do. Lots of kicking and punching. I was totally exhausted. I asked the instructor just before he started if he knew English... he said not much, but gestured for me to join. Throughout the class he kept close tabs on me to make sure I was doing what I was supposed to. At one point he wanted us to tread water for 2 minutes and tread harder so that your whole head and stomach were above the water. Nobody could do it. After a while he stopped yelling at us and gave us a different exercise. Maybe if we were water polo students that would be a reasonable expectation, but I'm sure I was the youngest in the class and it was all I could do to get my shoulders out of the water! Maybe it will come in time, definitly not my first day. (not sure what everybody elses excuse was :-) Afterwards I did a few laps in the swim lane. All in all, it was fun and I hope to build swim class into my "routine". I was so hungry afterwards. Glad I had an apple with me.

Zikhron Ya'Akov

This morning I dropped Ken off at work and headed towards Binyamina. Rachel (who is out on maternity leave, and the reason Ken is here) invited me to come visit and take a side trip to Zikhron Ya'Akov. I found her place with no problems at all :-) We visited/waited till her baby was up from a nap and then we traveled to this cute little town. We walked up and down mainstreet and looked at the shops. Lots of ecclectic things to look at. There were also a lot of art galleries. Cute little place. It was nice to spend the morning with Rachel. She knows English very well. Her baby (Maya) slept most of the time... well until we started to eat lunch of course. The drive back was nice and I plan to relax inside this afternoon.

Strange Noises

I'm sitting here in the apartment and every once in a while I will hear a strange noise that makes me jump. Sometimes it's just the upstairs neighbors flushing their toilet, other times it's a bird calling out, and still other times I don't know what it is...

Anyway, This morning I met up with the wife of Ken's co-worker. They lived in the US for 3 years so she can speak English pretty well. She met me at the Athletic center and was able to translate for me on how much a membership cost and explain all the amenities. It isn't as nice at the Club at the mall, but I think this will work just fine. They have a swimming pool, cardio, free weights and a class room (for YOGA, etc). So now I have at least one thing to do everyday. But I miss my workout buddies from home :-( Marianni thought she might join too but she was going to have to think about it for a while. Anyway, after joining the fitness center, we went down to the beach to walk on the promenade. She likes to go there every morning for exercise. I was surprised at how many people were down there. Many people were hovered around chess boards enjoying a friendly game. After our walk I had some amazing fresh squeezed orange juice and we sat in the chairs in the sand and just talked. Fun morning. After lunch at home, I called Priya and we went to see the German Colony. I figured it might be interesting. Well let's just say we were happy when we found some icecream for 2 shekels. It was quite warm and we walked up and down the streets thinking we would be able to see inside some of the German houses. The only place open was a museum but it was closing in a half an hour so we kept walking. That's when we found the ice cream :-) It saved the day. On our way home I took a wrong turn. Surprise, Surprise. I turned around and headed back to the street we came from. As I was driving I saw one driver shaking his head at me, then another wagging his finger, then I thought something must be wrong here, I'm not on a one way am I? No signs were posted, but it did appear that I was the only one headed my direction and I was coming up on a corner. YIKES! Guess it was a one way street. It took a while to get turned around, but we made it home safe and sound :-) Priya might not want to go anywhere with me from now on :-(. I was surprised at how calm she was.

Saturday & Sunday

Did I tell you Saturday we did absolutely NOTHING. It was nice to just go the beach and read a book. I thought we should pace ourselves :-) Saturday evening we did find that someone has been using our credit card number and we had a difficult time calling the US credit card company to shut it down. Thankfully there weren't many charges and we are not liable for it. Bummer to be down a credit card though. Maybe we will go to just using Shekels.

Sunday Ken went to work. I tackled the grocery store again. This time with a little more success. I looked everywhere for Italian Salad dressing and finally ended up with at least something. It doesn't look Italian to me, but we can try it and see. I came home from the store and made potato salad. I've made it only once in the US, but it sounded good so we gave it a shot. Mmmmm. Ken gave me a call around 3 and I went down to pick him up from work. Then we went to the beach. We need to take advantage of this nice weather and the beach so close. Ken says we will really miss it when we get back to Portland. We came home and I called my parents (Father's Day). It was great to hear their voices. They were having everyone over for lunch for Spare Ribs. MMMMM. Wish I was home. That evening we took a walk and tried to capture the sunset with my new camera. I think we will need to keep trying. It was an okay picture but didn't really capture the beauty we saw.

Street Signs

Here is a street sign so you can feel our pain and understand why I am always lost. It's not that they don't have English on the street signs it's just hard to read it from any distance with two other languages on the same sign! In addition, half the streets don't appear to have any markings at all. The other strange thing is that Abba Khushi, Abba Khousy and Abba Hushi all appear to be the same street named after the city's first mayor.

Caesarea

After our flat tire excursion we did head off towards Caesarea. This ancient city named after Caesar Agustus by king Herod was an important sea port for the Romans and a significant Crusader Fortress. It was also intersting to think about the Apostle Paul being tried before Felix, Festus and Agrippa here before being sent on to Rome. We spent about 5 hours here marvelling at the ancient ruins. We walked up the steps of the Theatre (seating for 4,000) and looked at remnants of remaining headless statues. I guess they made the heads separate so that if a new king came to power they could just switch the heads. The ampitheatre was a hug U-shape entertainment structure with seating for 12,000 spectators to watch chariot races, etc. We walked through what is left of the Public bath house complex and past the storage rooms used for grains and such. It was also amazing to see Herod's palace with the different rooms and one area that might have been an indoor fishpond or swimming area. The mosiacs on the floors in each of the rooms was very details and intricate. We also visited the aqueducts which were most impressive. I'll try and attach some pictures here.

Flat Tire

On Thursday I mentioned to Ken the right front tire looked a little low. He looked at it and agreed, but it didn't look like it was an emergency so we continued with our plans. As we were driving home a motorycylists stopped by us at a light and started yelling something in Hebrew at us. (sidenote: These motorcyclists are like Kamikazee drivers! They weave in and out of traffic and at the lights they go all the way to the front of the line and then move into the middle of the intersection until the light turns Green). We rolled down the window and said English? He pointed to our tire and said something in Hebrew. Maybe our tire was more serious than we thought? We were two blocks from home, so when we parked we looked at the tire. It looked a bit lower than when we last looked at it and decided we should take it in to the car rental place to have it fixed. Friday I had planned for us to go to Caesarea but we thought at "quick" trip to fix the tire would be a priority. We actually found the car rental place fairly quickly, went inside and they said we should go to a tire shop and pay to have it fixed. They pointed us to a tire shop across the street and printed out some sort of document for us. We drove over to the tire shop and waited. It seemed like there were working on 3 different cars (each had their tires off). There were no numbers to take (like at the Post Office) so we stood around hoping to get someones attention. It was hard to determine who was working and who was just there with their car. I finally approached someone who looked like he worked there and he said no, I don't work here. Turns out there was one manager and one guy doing all the work and no one spoke any English. One car pulled in after us, got the workers attention, had his tires filled with air and then took off. We thought, hey! That's what we were here for! With no Hebrew to communicate, we just waited, and waited and waited. I was thinking when's the last time we had a flat tire in the US? Anyway, 20 minutes later the same guy who had his tires filled came back. He apparently spoke some English and was able to convince the worker to work on our tire before he worked on his again. He immediately took the tire off our car and took it into the shop. We were thinking we just needed air not a new tire. Turns out it was a good thing he checked the tire. We had run over a nail. After the tire was fixed we were back in business and on our way to Caesarea. That little excursion took almost the whole morning! What an adventure each day brings.

Going to the market

Thursday I dropped Ken off at work and headed up the hill to find Pria's house. I needed to ride the subway downtown and go to the phone company to get a CD for our computer. After quite a bit of circling the neighborhood I finally found house #65. We got in the car and headed off to the subway station. Actually I don't think you can really call it a subway. There are only 5 stops and it just goes up and down the mountain. Anyway, we were able to get our tickets and get through the gate with relative ease. We got off at the 4th stop and went to the "Besiq" store. Inside we had to take a number and wait for them to call it out(similar to the post office the other day. Did I tell you about the post office line? It was on our 4 hour tour of the city with the relo consultant. I had mentioned I had a couple of postcards to mail but needed international postage so we made a stop during our tour. The number they were serving was 48 and the number of our ticket was 159!!!! I thought we should just can it, but she insisted the line would go quickly. Well an hour and half later our number was finally called. At least it was airconditioned in there). We were pleased that this line at the phone company only took about 20 minutes. Mission accomplished. Then we were off to the market. I wanted to get a couple of things and it looked like Pria had a big shopping list. We walked through about 3 blocks of vendors. All selling basically the same thing (from fresh fish to laundry detergent) with a little bit of price variance. I went through and just looked at everything before I started buying. I got some juice, peanuts, carrots, apples, and dried apricots. I took my backpack with me so I put everything in there instead of having to carry it in the plastic sacks they provided. One vendor asked us if we were visiting and then showed us what counterfit money looks like and told us to be careful. While we were down there we bumped into the relo consultant who apparently was showing a Philipino lady the city who just moved here with her husbands company. I think the relo lady does the same walk every single day. Interesting job. After enjoying the market for a few hours we decided to head back home. But not before trying to find some falafel. I've heard lots about it, and haven't tried it yet. Oh WOW. It was quite tasty. I don't really know what it is, kind of looks like a small brown donut hole. I'm sure it was deep fried and thats why it tasted good. They put a few of those in the pita pocket, then veggies, then a few more on top. You can put sauces on it to, I wasn't that brave. It was a very tasty meal. We found the subway and headed back up the hill. Finding Pria's house was our next challenge (even though she was with me). I kept turning into these dead ends. Eventually we found it and I went inside just to chat for a bit. We had fun together. In the evening I went and picked Ken up from work and we went for a walk on the beach before coming home for dinner. Ken worked for most of the evening. I went to the neighbors to see if they could read the directions to me for the stain remover I bought. I couldnt tell if it was concentrate and needed to add water or not. The mom (who helped me at the meat counter on my first shopping experience) wasn't home from work yet. But the 3 children were very excited to practice their English and invited me in saying there mom would be home in just a couple minutes. They were a lively group and it was fun listening to them chatter. I think it was a good day.

LOST

Well today was officially my first day on my own. Ken was at work and I had the keys to the car. This would be my first driving experience. I never did do a trial run. I think I was rather successful with only one near accident and only 2 long honks. I did spend most of the day wandering from street to street trying to figure out how to get from one place to another. I was also able to realize I was headed the wrong way on a one way street before it was too late. I would say that I was successful :-)
I had a couple of action items to complete today while Ken was gone. One find the mall... you know I'm not a big shopper but I thought it would be a good opportunity to people watch. After a few wrong turns I did finally descend on the Grand Canyon (Canyone means mall in Hebrew). There was a security lane to go through before you enter the parking structure. I was a bit alarmed when the guard opened my back door. I have seen them open the trunk before, but apparently they can open the car doors too. Inside, there were plenty of stores, but everytime I went in them they started talking to me in Hebrew. So I ended up staying on the inside track and window shopping. I did see a bookstore and remembered the relo consultant saying something about this particular store had English books. So I went in and found a few travel books on Turkey and Italy. Hey, if we are all the way over here, we might as well consider a weekend trip right? I also found a fantastic work out club at the mall. We will see if it works in with our budget :-) Leaving the mall was almost as difficult as finding it. I ended up at the end of the parking structure with the car in front of me getting a car wash and another having it's tires changed? I tried to turn around but they said No, No. I rolled my window down and said Exit? They said something in Hebrew. I said I'm trying to leave. More Hebrew. Another guy came up and said where do you want to go? I said Exit again. Where? Hmmm. This guy wants me to be specific... where do I want to go next? Finally I just said the other side of the mountain. Then he started giving me detailed directions. See once you get these Israelis talking they are very helpful :-)

Touring the city

Yesterday was a fun day. We had our official tour of the city. The relocation consultant showed us all around town and took us to the market. It actually wasn't too crowded but I hear that it's crazy at 2pm on Fridays since all of the shops slash their prices on their fresh produce which will not be good after Shabbat. Think I should try and get in on those deals? Maybe we will just start off trying to get food and worry about getting deals later?

Pictures from Monday

Sorry I haven't figured out how to do captions yet. The first picture is a picture of a rock. Its supposedly the rock that Jesus used when he broke the bread and fish to fed the 5000. I assume that its so brown because people have been touching it over the centuries. Gross! We refrained from touching it. The other picture is of the Sea of Galilee and then the Jordan river.

Pictures

Day trip to the Sea of Galilee

Since today is a holiday we thought we would take an excursion through Nazareth and on to Galilee. It was about an hour and half drive and we got a head start trying to beat the heat of the day. We actually didn't stop in Nazareth we weren't sure if they would be friendly, so we headed on to Tiberias. The sea was very calm, and not very big. Mountains surrounded the sea. We went to 4 main tourist places. The first was the Mount of Beatitudes where Jesus delivered the Sermon on the mount. Beautiful view of the Sea with Tiberias in the background. Then we went to the Church of the bread and fish. This was a possible site for Jesus feeding the 5,000 with 5 loves of bread and 2 fish. There was a cool (literally) cave up on the hill so we took a 5 minute hike and sat inside for a while. Another amazing view of the sea and the city. The third stop was Church of St. Peter. This spot indicates the potential place that Jesus (after the resurrection) appeared to Peter. Peter had been fishing all night with no catch, until dawn when from the shore Jesus said cast your nets on the other side of the boat. So they did and their nets were full of fish.
Some people were waterskiing on the lake. Lots of people were swimming despite the swimming prohibited signs posted everywhere. It was so hot we were tempted to jump in ourselves. We were hungry though so we headed back to Tiberas. We hoped to catch a little Falafel stand. But I guess these guys are serious about holidays! Everything was buttoned up :-( We walked in the hot, hot sun until we finally found a McDs that was open. It wasn't my first choice but it was the only choice so we enjoyed a hamburger and pita wrap for $25! My last goal for the trip was to find the "free" swim area and hang out on the beach. We drove for quite a while before we bumped into another point of interest. The Jordan River. We stopped in and looked at the site where Jesus was possibly baptized by John the Baptist. There were lots of people there. Some getting baptized themselves by their pastor. After this stop we decided to head back towards home thinking we wouldn't find the free beach (everywhere else it was $20). On our way back to town we stopped to take a picture of some caves up in the rock and almost directly across was a beach. We stopped for a quick swim. It was pretty rocky and had a quick drop off. Not many people were swimming (and there were a lot there) so we were unsure how safe it was. The drive home seemed long, maybe because we were so tired. We stopped by a beach near our house. This beach had nice sand and a place to put our towels down in the shade so we stayed for quite a while and enjoyed swimming in the Mediterranean. Can't believe we are living here!

Morning Walk

This morning we took a walk down the hill and came to a bakery. It smelled so good we decided to go inside. They had all sorts of pastries and breads. We asked if they spoke English and they just laughed at us (in a nice way). We chose 3 pastries again not sure what the price was (I think we need to just get over how much things cost here). The triangle shaped one, looked like it had a light chocolate dusting on top. After biting into it and tasting something like Hummus I traded with Ken :-) The second one was small with powder sugar on it (lemon filling). It was quite messy to eat, but this was my favorite. The third was a big square shaped pastry with powder sugar. Again messy, but yummy.

If you were to ask me where I live I would say up the hill, just past the patch of trees. Ken doesn't think that is really descriptive, and maybe it isn't but I'm not sure what else to use as a landmark. It's not really a big patch of trees, but it's better than saying past the green trash dumpster :-)

Sightseeing

On Saturdays they supposedly have a "walking tour" in English throughout the city of Haifa. We thought it might help us get acclimated to the city so we showed up at what we thought was the correct spot. We were actually running late :-) but we did see a large group gathered not far from the starting spot so we joined them only to hear everything in Hebrew. Since we are not fluent yet we decided to alter our plans and head toward Akko which is one of the oldest cities in the world. It was amazing to see the strong walls of this Crusaders City. I guess Napoleon said if he had succeeded in his attack here, he would have conquered the whole world.

It was about lunch time and there was a little restaurant open so we walked in to see the menu. We were pleased to see English on the menu and decided to try a Kebab and a Greek Salad. The menu didn't have prices but we thought surely it cant be to expensive for one dish of each. After about 20 minutes the lady brought out our Greek salad which ended up being about 6 different dishes (red cabbage, tuna salad, Greek salad, eggplant & tomato salad, hummus, bread). Although we had just pointed to the English word in the menu we were now not sure what we really ordered. We started eating and much to Ken's surprise he found a beetle in his salad. I decided I wasn't quite as hungry and maybe I should inspect my food a little closer. 20 minutes later the lady brought out the Kebab. It was similar to 3 small hamburgers with French fries. It was quite tasty. Not really sure how much the meal was Ken and I decided it probably wasn’t more than 50 shekels. Okay maybe we were just hopeful it wasn't more than 50 shekels... We went up to the counter and the lady wrote on a piece of paper 70 and circled it. No itemized list of how much each cost. I wondered if we should have bargained with her. Or maybe asked how much the beetle cost. Quite an experience.

In the evening we went for a walk. It's interesting to me the expressions you see on the faces of those you pass. I always try to smile, but they often look like they are unhappy. Maybe they are concentrating? One gal we walked by said "Shabbat Shalom". I wasn't quite sure how to respond. So I just smiled and said Shalom. I think she was looking for a longer response.

We aren't in Kansas anymore

That's what Ken keeps telling me. We are reminded on an hourly basis that we are far far from home. We woke up at 5:30am this morning and went for a walk up the hill. It was a beautiful sunrise walk. Nice to not see so many cars on the street. After doing some things around the house we thought we would try to brave the grocery store again today with the hopes of getting enough to last us a few weeks. Since yesterday was quite an ordeal we thought we might try a different grocery store. Well we drove until we got lost, and then decided to go for a walk on the beach. The water was refreshing on our feet. The beach we went to was a bit dirty but as we walked we came to the swimming area which was much nicer. We got a little hungry so we tried a snack from the street vendor. I guess it was a pastry with cheese in it (and a pickle on the side). It was okay. I was hoping to try falafel instead. Maybe tomorrow.

Back to getting groceries, we ended up at the same store we went to yesterday. While we were successful in leaving the store with 10 plastic bags of groceries, I can't confirm we have enough to make any specific dish. Apparently today is shopping day for most Israelis as the stores all close at 3pm until 9pm tomorrow. We wandered the store for about 2 hours. I did brave the meat counter line (20 minutes waiting) with the goal of getting some hamburger and chicken. I had ticket number 406. I waited carefully when I saw they were currently working on 405... Then they changed to 406. I worked my way to the counter and tried to make eye contact with one of the 3 butchers with no luck (they were all helping other people). The next thing I knew they switched to helping 407! So I spoke up and started waving my ticket. One finally agreed to help me. I asked do you speak English? He said no and started to back away like he was going to help someone else. The lady next to me said I can help you I know a little English. So I told her I wanted 2 lbs of hamburger. The man said we don't have hamburger. I looked at the case and pointed. They looked at me like you want raw hamburger? And then wanted to know what I meant by 2 pounds. How many Kilos is that? Oh what a challenge. After aimlessly wandering the canned vegetable aisles, we finally decided we had enough fun and stood in line. The cashier said something to us in Hebrew which we took to mean her line was closed so we moved one line over. After standing there for 5 minutes, the cashier said something to us as well which again looked like that line was closed. We did succesfully checkout in the 3rd attempt but VISA has shut off our credit card since we are in amother country (even though we advised them of this fact!) All this to say I need to develop a better strategy for getting groceries. We made it back to our apartment and were unloading the groceries and I looked up to see the lady who helped me at the meat counter. I said Ken! This is the nice lady who helped me at the store. She was a bit shocked to see me but said "looks like we are neighbors, if you need anything let me know". Maybe I should go shopping with her next time? What an adventure!

Online

Hello from the office. It's 10pm. We took a nap around 5pm and are now wide awake. Getting on the right timezone may prove more challenging then I thought. We've mostly unpacked our suitcases. It looks like one of Ken's shoes is the only casualty of the TSA inspection. I'm not sure what they would do with one Nike shoe, but I suppose if that is the only thing missing we are doing okay. The apartment is spacious and has AC! It was 36c today. I'll have to look up the conversion from C to F again. Regardless, it was quite warm. We also took a trip to the grocery store. I was appalled to find out that I spent 126 shekels and all I got was some cereal, hummus, pita, spaghetti noodles & sauce, and toilet paper. It was about $40 US which is more than I've ever spent at one grocery store. (Yes, I'm the one who goes to each grocery store and spends $10 at each. Ken is always telling me I spend more in gas than if I just went to one store.) Looks like I will be changing my habits at least while we are in Israel. So far Ken has been braving the traffic here, since it's later in the day maybe I'll try and drive home.

We made it to Tel Aviv!

We thought we might not make it this morning at 10:30 but we've beat the odds :-) We got to the airport with more than two hours before our departure time. Probably a first for me... and now I see the value of having time on your hands. Upon check in the agent had some difficulties with our travel plans. She indicated Ken only had a 30 day VISA that expires in mid June. We said that's what the consulate provide and that the formal 7 month VISA would be processed once we reach Tel Aviv. Not satified with that answer the agent began calling the Consulate. She also wasn't happy about me having a ticket longer than the 90 day tourist window. So it looked like maybe they wouldn't let me on the flight at all. After an hour and half she decided we could check our bags. Next problem. One of our bags was a bit over the limit. Since all the other bags were under the limit she agreed to let us re-shuffle our stuff. How embarressing! We were happy when all our bags were through security. We said goodbye to my parents (and my Aunt) and were on our way. We had exit seats on the leg to Atlanta which gave us lots of leg room. Not that I need it :-) We were really disappointed however to see that our individual TV screens weren't working. It was a long flight. Not sure how we are going to make a 12 hour flight... We had a perfect amount of time to switch planes in Atlanta and boarded the next plane on schedule. We were happy to see that the TV screens worked on this flight. Or so we thought. I could play a video game but couldn't watch TV or movies. Oh well. We tried to sleep for 20 minutes here an there throughout the 12 hour flight. We arrived safely in Tel Aviv and on time. Everyone clapped when the plane landed (not because it was a bumpy fligh- it's just tradition). Getting through customs was a bit of a challenge but we met this nice couple there. While Ken and this other guy were working with the immigration guards I started talking to the other guys wife. Aparently they are from the Folsom, California site and will be living in the same city we will be. So she and I agreed to be friends. We are in a beautiful hotel tonight (24th floor!) right on the Mediterranean and are looking forward to a good nights rest.

And we're off....

Well a day like today who wouldn't want to leave Portland for a sunny 82 degrees. It will help me appreciate the hot weather when I think back to rainy gloomy Portland. I think we are ready. Bags are down by the front door, ready for our ride to the airport. Yesterday we were feverishly looking for my misplaced credit cards and shekels. I put them in a "safe" place. We are hoping today goes really smooth (literally in the air! Ken likes the turbulence, not me). We look forward to connecting with you once we arrive at our new home.