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.