Off to Turkey

We found a good travel deal for this weekend and Ken has a short week so we are out of town for the weekend. See ya later :-)

Party in Galilee

Well it's late so this will be short. We just got home from the Intel quarterly event at the Sea of Galilee (in Israel they invite the family to these events!). It was at a waterpark on the East side of the Sea. It looked like a family friendly place with lots of water pools for little kids to play in. There were also 4 big kid slides which were a lot of fun. It was very warm so it was nice to be able to take a dip in the pool and enjoy the water. We were there maybe 10 minutes and I found the only other person I knew would be there (my ex-pat friend from Evan Yadhuda) we chatted for a bit and then Ken and I decided to walk through the whole park before we got settled in one spot. At the other end of the park I heard "sarah, sarah" I thought that can't possibly be for me... wait that's in English maybe it is for me. I turned around and it was a couple that we met at our neighbors (the NY who is a Professor at the university). She and her husband were so friendly that we spent the whole evening with them and before we knew it, it was 8:00pm! She is such a talker... it was a lot of fun. There was a huge spread of food and all the drinks and icecream we needed. The music was fun and we watched a little bit of the "kid entertainment" as we waited in line for massages. It was quite the event. We tried to find my friend from Evan Yahuda, but with 2 little kids they were probably already on their way home. Bummer! It's late and time to go to bed.

A safari in the city

Saturday we made a trip to Tel Aviv to visit the African Safari Park/Zoological Center. I had heard about this place and it sounded very interesting. You drive through the first part of the safari with wild animals roaming the fields around you, then enter the zoo where you park your car and walk around the exhibits and then get in your car and finish your trip through the park with animals all around you again. It was the most amazing zoo experience I have ever had. I was wondering if we would actually be able to see any cool animals on the driving part. We hadn't even gotten to the first corner and there was an ostrich coming up the the cars looking for food. The signs clearly say "Don't feed the animals" but apparently this is one of those "suggestive rules" the Israelis and tourists don't like to follow. About 50 meters away we saw some Rhinos laying in the shade next to antelope and zebras. We passed some hippos sleeping in the water... we almost thought they were rocks that the birds were standing on in the middle of the river but we waited long enough to see a couple come up for air. There were lots of interesting birds too- flamingos, pelicans, cranes, roosters. One of the Antelope came up to our car, again looking for food. Once we reached the zoo area we parked the car and went inside. Lots of people were renting golf carts but we chose to walk. Inside the zoo were the normal suspects: Monkeys, Bears, Tigers, Girafes, Elephants, Reptiles, Parrots, Penguins, and Turtles. We also saw Hyeenas, Camels, Lamas, Racoons, Aligators, Crocodiles, and Eagles. I was so excited about my new camera and zoom lens. I think we got some excellent shots! Although I only made it through the monkeys when I got a low battery signal :-( I thought no problem, I'll just use our second spare battery that I charged when we first got here. I changed out the battery and realized it had no juice :-( We aren't sure if it's a bad battery or if it didn't get charged all the way. So I went through over half the park without my camera... I was dying. I guess we will just have to come back. It was definitely worth the entrance fee and was the most interactive zoo I've ever been too. All of the animals were up and about (probably because everybody was feeding them). It was interesting that there weren't very many exhibits with glass windows or thick netting. A lot of the monkeys just had a moat between us and them. The zoo had a lot of animals... something like 15 elephants and 5 Giraffes. They had a petting zoo too, but we didn't go in. We were getting hungry so we sat down by the Turtle family to eat our PB&J sandwiches and chips. On the way out of the park we saw more cool animals roaming the land. There were many varieties of the deer family (Gazelle, Oryz, Impala, Waterbucks, Addax, Nayala and Oryx... I'm just writing these down from the brochure based on the pictures next to them). We also saw a Gnu, Ibex, and the grand finale were the lions who were actually separated from the rest of the animals for obvious reasons. Just before we got there I looked in the distance and saw the lions were wrestling. They only let a few cars in at a time through this area, so they had calmed down and were resting in the shade by the time we reached them. I noticed they had two gun towers in this area too, to ensure safety of the visitors (and lions). There was just a small electric fence between us and the lions and there was actually an opening where the lions could go around the fence if they wanted to. It was really really cool. In fact, we reached the exit and had a chance to swing through the loop again and we decided to drive the route again to see if we could see anything different. Outside of the safari/zoo was a big public park that we decided to walk through. There were lots of families having BBQs and playing games. It reminded me of blue lake park when I was little (this was a nicer, greener park though). I can hardly wait to go again...

We finished off the day with a nice burger at the "cowboy restaraunt". My neighbors had given me a few restaraunt choices and we had yet to try any of them. Since a McD's burger would have been at least 65 shekels we went for the sit down restaraunt option. It reminded me a little of Outback, we got to throw the peanut shells on the floor :-) Our meal was served with a starter salad- carrots, red peppers, and cabbage in a "pickling" sauce. I tried it, but it was way too salty. Ken made a decent dent in it while I ate the peanuts :-) We had to choose between 200g and 300g burger. Not exactly sure how big that would be so I stuck with the 200g thinking it was probably close to a 1/4 pounder. The burger was not bad... but Ken said mine are better. It was nice not to have to cook after such a long day.

Jellyfish

Here are a couple pictures of the jellyfish we saw today. Not as big as last week, but they were still pretty big.

Going to the Border

Today we took a trip to the Israel/Lebanon border. There we visited a small tourist spot called Rosh Hanikra where you can ride a gondola, marvel at the chalky white cliffs, see the tunnel the British created during WWII to complete the connection of the railway systems between Turkey and Egypt, and explore the sea caves carved by the crashing waves. It was a beautiful day (not a cloud in the sky) and a nice drive. It was fun to watch the waves coming into the caves and crashing on the rocks. We tried to take a few pictures but had some focus issues with the camera :-(

Eeeek!

I was in the bathroom yesterday and I caught something scampering across the laundry room out of the corner of my eye. I thought... maybe I'm just seeing things and walked over to move the towel.... nope I unfortunately didn't imagine anything :-( A cockroach went flying by in the other direction. Since Ken was home I asked him to get it. He tried for a bit but it was too fast. It wasn't until just before bed I heard he didn't get it... how am I supposed to sleep now? What if I have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night? I think I might get the neighbor boys over to find it, seems like 10-13 yr old boys would love the thought of catching a new pet.

Chocolate creations

What a fun afternoon. My new friends (our neighbors) the Bears, invited me over for the afternoon to make chocolates with them. The kids apparently took to chocolate making a few years ago during the war when they had to stay inside and close to a bomb shelter at all times. They had recently taken a class and bought the ingredients and now had the time to perfect this confectionary hobby. They had a few different molds and had already created the ganache filling by the time I came over. After eating lunch (lentil soup- yum, schnitzel- the best I've had in Israel! and potatoes sauteed in garlic) we started on filling the chocolate molds. I was there for over 4 hours! It was messy and a lot of fun. Unfortunately I'm not sure how much chocolate I ate. They kept saying try this filling and handed me a spoon and then there were the finished products that needed to be sampled for quality assurance. I'll try to post a picture when Ken's laptop becomes available.