Nothing

Today I did nothing. That was intentional. I took Ken to work, then came home and hung out till it was time to pick him up from work. I rested, journaled, and did a little cleaning... but mostly I did nothing :-)

Rain, Lightning, Thunder

Weatherwise, the last two weeks have been completely different than anything we have experienced here. Prior to our home leave I wore tank tops/shorts everyday. The first night we arrived back in Israel there was a big rain storm... but all was clear by morning. Throughout the two weeks it rained off and on, mostly at night. There was some spectacular lightning and thunder along with it too. For the most part the weather didn't affect our tour of Israel, the cooler temperatures actually made the sites easier to visit. However, I am so disappointed that the rain ruined my Tuesday. I had a great finale planned for my parents taking them to the Tel Aviv Safari/Zoo. It was still pretty rainy by the time we arrived and while they offered a slight discount they did warn us that all the animals were doing their best to hide from the rain and that should be factored into our decision on whether we went in or not. Bummer. I tried to negotiate a free entrance but that didn't pan out, so we turned around and continued with our day. Today I woke up with beautiful blue skies, hasn't rained at all. If only I could have traded today's weather for yesterday's.

Ein Gedi, Masada, Dead Sea

3-D video and Hezekiah's Tunnel

Finished Touring Israel

Sunday we decided to head back out to the Sea of Galilee to see a few places that were closed when we were there last week. It was raining most of the drive there, but were able to see the Jordan River, Capernaum and St.Peter's church in between showers. Back in town we took a trip to the grocery store which was fascinating for Mom and Dad. Dad and Ken spent most of the time next door in the “home store” finding all sorts of cool plugs and tools that they use here in Israel.

Monday we took another trip to Jerusalem. There is so much to see there. We left our house by 5:30am to participate in the tour that took you under the temple mount through the tunnels. It was fascinating!!! They had a great model showing what the temple area (Mt. Moriah) used to look like before all the buildings were constructed and shared some great history about the walls. After this tour we went through the Dung Gate and out to the City of David which also had a tour that was just starting so we quickly joined up with them. They showed us a short 3-D video and then we walked around the ruins of David's palace. We finished this tour with a walk through a pitch black cave, maybe a mile long which King David's men dug when they overtook the Jebusites living in the city. Later King Hezekiah expanded the tunnel to create a water source inside the city. Some people brought flashlights and Mom had her camera flash to light the way. The water in this tunnel went up past my knees in some places! It was a very cool tour.

Yesterday we had planned to go to the Tel Aviv Safari/Zoo. Ken and I had such a great time there earlier this summer. Unfortunately it looked like Portland weather here in Israel. It rained almost all day. By the time we got to the Safari/Zoo they told us all the animals are inside hiding from the rain and it probably wouldn't be worth it and that the park closed in 2 hours. It was disappointing that we didn't end up going. We drove to Jaffa where the prophet Jonah fled to Tarsish instead of going to Ninevah before heading to the airport. I dropped my parents off at the airport and then headed back home. It's so sad to see them go :-( We've had a fun/busy week.

Almost finished touring Israel

We have been going nonstop. My parents are telling me we need to slow down. There is just so much to see! We went to Jerusalem on Thursday after dropping Ken off at work. We made pretty good time and found a good parking spot. Dad was my navigator. Although this was my 4th visit, it's always helpful to have someone looking for the street signs which are not always visible. On our way to the old city we walked through an outdoor mall. Dad noticed some construction going on and became very curious. We spent the next 30 minutes looking at wiring (most of you know my Dad is an Electrician). He was fascinated. Right then I had to readjust my agenda for the day and let Mom and Dad see what they wanted to see.... even if it wasn't the typical tourist spots.

We entered the old city through the Jaffa Gate and walked through the Armenian Quarter which seems to be the quickest and least populated way to the Western Wall that I have found. At the wall there was quite a bit of commotion. I didn't realize that Thursday were also "Bar mitzvah" days. There were thousands of people there all singing, clapping, dancing around their sons as they carried the Torah. It's really quite a sight. We didn't get anywhere near the wall, I thought maybe we would come back later in the afternoon but we didn't make it. I'm sure we will see it on Monday when we go back.

We left through the Dung Gate and walked up to the top of Mt. Olives. We stopped at the Tomb of the Virgin Mary at the base of the hill. The Garden of Gethsemane had just closed for a 2 hour period so we went further up the hill to Sanctuary of Dominus Flevit. This place had also just closed but the guard felt compassion on us and told us we could take 2 minutes. He then proceeded to give us a 15 minute guided tour of this church which commemorates where Jesus wept for the city of Jerusalem. Further up the hill we came to the stunning view of the old city and all of the tombs on the hillside. Mom took lots of pictures. There was a camel there too waiting to give rides around the parking lot. The owner said he charged 20 shekels so Dad tried his hand at bartering down to 15 shekels. After a little bit of haggling he seemed to agree to Dad's discounted price. So Mom got on the camel and rode around the parking lot and we took a few pictures of course. When the ride was over, the owner said it would be another 15 shekels to let Mom off the camel. So Dad called his bluff and said okay...leave her on there! It was really funny. Don't worry we got Mom back safe and sound.

We headed down the hill and started thinking a ride would really be helpful. A taxi came by and Dad flagged them down. The man said it would cost 20 shekels for a ride to the bottom of the hill. I thought 20 shekels! Walking down hill is the easy part! So I said no thanks and kept walking. Dad kept talking to him though and somehow got us a FREE ride down the hill and up to the Lion's Gate of the old city (it wasn't quite a mile). At the end of the ride Dad did try and pay him something, but he wouldn't take any money. I was surprised. From the Lion's Gate we walked the Via Dolorosa. Mom thought it was hard to find the "stations" but I've walked it enough and seen other people at each station to find them. Half way through we took a side tour down one of the main streets which leads to our favorite shwarma stand. On the way, Dad found some interesting candy shops and mom found a few souvenirs. Mom got lots of pictures of the market streets. The shwarma was good. I put too many onions on it for Dad, but he ate a few bites that we deemed "safe".

Further into the Muslim Quarter we exited the old city through the Damascus gate and went to the Garden Tomb just outside the city wall. This is my favorite tourist spot. After enjoying this quiet, peaceful place, we headed back into the old city and back tracked to finish the tour of the Via Dolorosa which ends at the church of the Holy Sepulcher. Walking back through the streets we came to another construction site and tried to find someone who could answer Dad's questions. He's having a lot of fun looking at how they do wiring here. After that we were pretty much done with Jerusalem and headed back to the car. Driving home took over 3 hours. Uggh! We made it just in time to join our friends for dinner. We had a great time visiting and slept hard that night. It was a long day. Friday we decided to take it easy. Other than a few errands we just stayed around the house.

Today we went North to Akko. Ken and I had visited Akko the very first weekend we moved here. There had been some riots there over the holidays so we decided to wait a few days before we visited. It seemed pretty empty today. We enjoyed a really cool museum and a walk through the market out to the port wall. We went to the place we had lunch at back in June and ordered 2 Kebab with 8 different types of side salads (this time it came without the bugs in the salad :-). Both Mom and Dad seemed to like it pretty well. After walking on the port sea wall for a bit we concluded our tour and headed to Haifa for a little get together with friends. Fun and easy day.

Still Touring Israel

My parents have been here for a week now. We have not only seen but driven through most of the country. On Saturday we visited the Northeastern corner of the country (the Golan Heights). We drove to Banyas Spring and then on to Nimrod's Fortress at the base of Mt. Hermon. It was quite interesting seeing the landscape change. The Golan is beautiful. We drove South down the Syrian border and then back home. On our way home we were stopped by a heard of sheep walking through the street. Interesting. It was a long day.

Sunday we decided to do something light and went to Caesarea. Due to the holidays there was much more activity here than in my past visits. Mom and Dad had a wonderful time talking to the lady in the dreydel shop about Israeli culture (I could hardly pull them away! The poor lady was not able to help her other paying customers.) She was very nice and had a lot of interesting things to share. We went out to see the "ruins" and noticed the Hippodrome was filled with people. They had some horses that were racing around the oval as they enacted Roman life years ago in this port city. After the races they had other horses that jumped over an obstacle course they set up. It was pretty entertaining. We moved from there to the amphitheater just in time to join another group there. They said someone was coming to speak to them so we stuck around. While they were waiting and passing the time someone suggested they sing a song...so I told them it was Mom's birthday (and it will be soon...). So the group of 100+ people had mom stand in the stadium and sang to her. She loved it :-) It was actually fun to be with the group. They had been touring for about a week and shared some of their experiences. I guess it was the conclusion of their tour before heading back to Europe and the person who came to talk to them was their tour guide (not about anything specific to the Caesarean Amphitheater... oh well). We really enjoyed joining the group for a short time. On our way out, we bought some fresh squeezed pomegranate juice. YUM! At $5 a cup we decided to share, but man oh man was it yummy!

Tonight we just returned to day from a 48 hour trip through the Dead Sea region, down to the southernmost tip of the country (Eilat), and diagonally Northward to the Gaza border and then home again. Lots of driving!!!!

Dead Sea Region: First stop was Qumran where the Dead Sea scrolls were found. My parents kept commenting on how hot it was...we were thinking how much it's cooled off since we were there in June! Second stop was Ein Gedi Nature Reserve for a hike to David's waterfall. Sara and I did this a month ago and it was her favorite spot so I wanted to make sure Mom and Dad got the chance to enjoy it also. The hike is really only 20 minutes up to the top, but there are a couple of small pools to stop along the way. MOM ACTUALLY GOT IN THE WATER!!!! She really doesn't like water, but it was once in a lifetime opportunity... plus we told her we would take a picture! She was brave enough to go right under the waterfall. We used her camera for the pictures so if I can grab it before they go I'll post it :-) We had a great time there. We left there around 2pm and headed to Masada. I had thought they were open until 5pm, but we found out that due to the holiday early closure, we could just barely make it by taking the last tram to the top. The returning final tram would be in 1 hour. It would have been nice to have at least another half hour up there, but we did get to see the majority of it. Our final stop in the Dead Sea Region was floating in the Dead Sea. I told Mom the water was really warm, even warmer than bath water. Well apparently at 5pm, things have cooled off a bit or maybe it was due to the weather change. She did get in the water though and totally enjoyed the experience. Dad's like a fish so he had no problems at all. He kept trying to push his legs down and thought it was weird that they kept floating towards the surface. It's really a crazy experience.

Eilat: Seemed like a perfect warm summer evening here. I called around looking for a hotel that morning and couldn't find anything available (I forgot about the holiday) so I resorted to the place Sara and I stayed a month ago. After getting situated in the "dorm room" at the Eilat Guest House we set out to find something to eat. There was an open market (which reminded me of a carnival atmosphere) where we found something suitable. Dad thought he ordered a chicken patty but ended up with some sort of cornmeal with chunks of corn in it. I was surprised when he said he liked it. Mom thought she ordered fish and got the chicken patty. I ordered chicken on a skewer and got what I expected. Ken had a burger, which was not as good as he had hoped. Nonetheless, we hadn't really eaten anything all day (other than the snacks we packed) so we were all happy to have something to eat. Afterwards we sat on the beach and enjoyed the moonlight over the Red Sea. This morning we woke up and went West a bit, almost to the Egyptian border and went snorkeling. We thought we could rent snorkel gear on the beach but couldn't find anything. I asked someone where they rented theirs and they said, why don't you borrow ours for a little bit. So we quickly went out and Dad got to snorkel for the first time ever. Sounds like he enjoyed it. I actually had Mom wade in and use the mask too. There weren't as many fish that close to shore, but I'm so proud of her for putting her face in the water! She saw a few fish and then we returned the mask. As I came out of the water someone was trying to take our beach chairs so I immediately said.... "lo, lo, lo, ani, ani, ani!" and they went away. See I've learned the important phrases. "No, no, no, mine, mine, mine!"

Driving Home: We drove through the Negev... basically straight across the country through the desolate desert. I'm glad we did it, but not sure I would choose to do it again. We kept wondering what would happen if the car broke down in the middle of nowhere... We finished our trek across the country and thought it might be interesting to see the Gaza border ("the wall"). So we drove South just a bit and sure enough there was a 20 foot wall with lots of security fences/wire all around. It seemed pretty quiet there maybe due to the holiday? We decided not to stay too long. Interesting to find out in the news tonight that Gaza sent a missile out today from the strip into Jerusalem. I’m glad I didn’t know that when we were there. We finished the day with our favorite Burger place on the way home. Now we need a day just to relax.

Touring Israel

We've had a few days to get acquainted with Israel again. We spent one day out in Galilee. I felt like I was a poor tour guide but they were thrilled with the sites they did see. We drove through an Arab town (which was fascinating to them) and then up to Elijah's monastery. Unfortunately it had just closed for the afternoon and would re-open in a couple hours. So we didn't get to see the amazing view from the top of the monastery but we did get a couple of nice view points to the North. From there we drove to Nazareth. By the time we got there we decided we should really spend the time we had in Galilee so we just drove through the city... also interesting to see. My parents commented on the Arabic and Hebrew signs everywhere and felt like foreigners. In Galilee we walked through the market (which I haven't done yet) and Dad actually tried Shwarma and Falafel. We split a Shwarma (turkey) baguette which had hummus, salad and meat. It wasn't near as good as what we've had in Haifa but we were hungry. The lady also gave us a falafel ball which we all took a small bite of. It wasn't the best either... so we will have to give Dad another chance. He saw some french fries which looked good to him, so we got those too as a side dish. They were cold though and we were a bit reluctant to eat them all. Chalk it up as an experience :-) We walked through the food market and tried something that looked like a grapefruit but was green instead. Interesting.

We drove North towards some of the tourist spots, but got sidetracked by a sign outside a museum that said "2,000 year old boat". So far I haven't stopped by to see it, so we thought we would take a look. 20 years ago a few brothers were out walking near the shore and uncovered some nails which led to closer inspection and found a fishing boat. It was actually pretty interesting. By now it was about 4pm so we hurried to make it to the Mt of Beatitudes and then on to Capernaum. We missed visiting Capernaum by 5 minutes, they were only letting people out. Bummer. On to the Church of St. Peter which was also closed. Here's where I was starting to feel like a failure... but my parents were thrilled with just the site of the sea and glad we were able to be there. We made it back home just in time to pick up Ken from work.

Yesterday was pretty low key. We visited Haifa and went to the market. I showed them the Grand Canyon mall which feels very similar to a US mall minus the Hebrew writing everywhere. Dad sat in the front seat with the map and helped me navigate to the market (why is it always a challenge finding it?). It rained on us just a little bit and then warmed up again. In the evening we heard there was a festival so we set out to find it. Traffic was terrible, but we did end up finding a parking spot. There is a beautiful look out over the city which we enjoyed for a long time. One of the parks had a movie playing so we stopped and watched for 30 minutes until it ended. It seemed like an old movie... mom and dad recognized all the songs from the 60's. We finished the night by finding a little sweet shop and got a chocolate crepe to share. It's fun to watch them make them right in front of you and make sure they squirt lots of chocolate inside... mmmmmmmmm. I think we will be back in the next week or so.

Today we drove to the Northern border of Israel and visited Rosh Hanikra. Mom and Dad got the best seat in the gondola as it dropped straight down the cliff to the grotto. Glad they aren't afraid of heights or get motion sick ;-) The sea caves were fun to walk through and Mom got a lot of great pictures. We stopped at the beach on the way back to dip our toes in the Mediterranean. It was another relaxing day. Shabbat Shalom.

Back at our home away from home

We've arrived safe and sound with no issues to report along the way. My mom and dad did really well on the flight. They slept for most of the 12 hour flight from Atlanta to Tel Aviv. Every time I went to check on them they were sleeping. They had the seat in between them free so they were able to stretch out a bit. Ken and I had exit rows with tons of leg room so it worked out well for us. They served pizza on the flight which dad didn't care for. Oh is he in for a big surprise in Israel :-) Actually I already have some ideas of things we can eat that he will enjoy. He says he is okay with going on a diet for the next few weeks.

It was quite muggy when we arrived. Getting the little rental car was fairly painless. I can't believe we fit 6 bags + 4 carry-ons in there with us. We thought we might have Ken and Dad take the train but it wasn't running yet due to the holiday and we would have had to wait for 2 hours. So I sat scrunched in the front seat with a couple pieces at my feet and I couldn't see my parents at all behind the luggage next to them.

We went to bed around 9pm here and were wide awake at 2:30. I asked my parents if they wanted to go for a walk and they said no so Ken and I just ate a few snacks and then went back to sleep. It thundered and poured rain all night but there is blue sky now and temps seem to be in the high 70s. Now its about time to take Ken to work.

Headed back to Israel

Well this week went by way too quickly :-( It was great to see you guys in the Portland area, although we feel like we missed quite a few of you. Sorry. The week has been absolutely packed and we will now have a chance to rest on that 5 hour and then 12 hour flight back to TLV. We expect to be greeted by the sunshine and warm 80 degree temps there, we've had enough rain for a few weeks.

My parents are joining us on our trip back to Israel. We are looking forward to showing them the country and all of the places that have become familiar to us over the last few months. They will be with us for 2 weeks so we won't have to sprint like I did when Sara came to visit in September.

Mid December will be here before we know it. See you then.

I love HOME!

I have really enjoyed being at home in Portland. We have been able to sleep in our own bed and get really hot water for our showers :-) I have been running around like crazy trying to see friends and family while Ken is busy working. Not to worry, he will get a few days off too. It's amazing how wide the streets are here, and everyone stays in their own lane while driving. I went to Winco the other day and my grocery cart went straight forward (not at an angle like they do at SuperSal) and everyone was parked between the lines in thier own parking spot. My mom made a huge pot roast dinner for us on Sunday. It made me think this is the closest I'll get to Thanksgiving dinner this year. It was terrific. Everything is so familiar here... I'm thinking I will just stay here while Ken finishes out his assignment. Actually I can't do that for two reasons. One my neighbors specifically told Ken if I didn't come back with him they would come get me and secondly, my parents are going to travel back with us on Monday! We will be able to show them all of our favorite places and allow them to experience the culture too.