Return to Haifa Haifa

On my last day of break I had the chance to head back up to Haifa. I love that city. Yes you need a car to get around, which is a little bit annoying, but the city is just beautiful. The weather was a little humid when I got off the bus, but really not that bad, and it was a nice change from Jerusalem's chilly air.

I tried to get ahold of my friend Ayelet, who was coming to pick me up at the bus station and surprise! I found my friend Zohar who was also meeting to hand out for the day. We talked for a little bit until we met Ayelet to go around the city.

We checked out the Behai Gardens, which are done with their renovations on their shrine, and it was really cool to see that again. We didn't take the entire tour, but hung out on the steps at the first level. After a short coffee break in the German Colony we went towards the Druze Village nearby for lunch.

I'm really starting to like this hummus with Ful, but I don't really know what ful is. It's a little spicy and look like beans. But I don't really know what they are aside from good!

We went to the Carmelite Monastery to look at the amazing view from this height. The pictures don't do it full justice, but I can't really describe the valleys, mountains and cities that we looked at. As it turns out, this monastery is the location where the Prophet Elijah battled against the Priests of Ba'al. More random history I didn't expect to find.





After the monastery we walked along the beach. The boardwalk was very cool to walk up and down. None of us were prepared to go in the water so we just hung out for a while talking on the edge of the water. It was a great way to end break. I had a lot of fun seeing friends from camp and seeing other parts of the country I hadn't been to in a while.

Since I've already had a few days back to school and we have lectures again tomorrow, I should probably get to a little homework and reading for classes. Finals are on the way soon, so perhaps I should get a little ahead of the game this time.

Shabbat Shalom,

Kiryat Shmoneh, Day 2

Not only did I get to sleep in incredibly late, 10AM, but once I work up Ariel made an awesome breakfast. As soon as breakfast was finished we needed to start thinking about lunch. We made a salad and some hotdogs to bring with us. We tried to find these hot springs, but after an hour or so of searching, we gave up and headed into the Banyas.

As a school, we had the option to go there while we were in the north. I had gone with the group up the mountains to see the Syrian border from a mountain lookout. Being back in the north I wanted to see the Banyas Park. It was a beautiful forested area and a nice river flowing through it. Not one of the little trickles one usually sees, but a river with a quick enough flow it feels like it could sweep you off your feet.

It was pretty amazing. We spent a very long time just hanging out in a nice area next to the river, lunch was great.



We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening just hanging out at their apartment, playing games on the Wii, talking, and working on Labaneh (a cheese made from yogurt, stirred and left to sit and drain until it becomes a cheese).

The next morning the Labaneh was our breakfast with some olive oil, zatar and menta on Matzah. I got to hang around with them for a few more hours before I had to get on the bus back towards Jerusalem.

I learned my lesson about which bus to take. A little note to myself, make sure you don't take the one that stops at every single stop on the side of the road. It only took four and a half hours to get back to Jerusalem. Instead of taking a cab back from the bus station, I decided to walk since it was so nice.

It turns out that the walk is about 40 minutes, and if I didn't need to go to the station early in the morning I'd take the walk instead of dealing with a cab. I really had a good weekend in Kiryat Shmoneh and I'm glad that I was able to spend so much time with Michal and Ariel.

A Nice Break

It's been great having a lot of time off of school that last week. I really have a good chance to appreciate parts of Israel and even parts of Jerusalem when I don't have the weight of classwork in the back of my mind.

I hadn't seen any of my Israeli friends for a while, so for the weekend I went up north to Kiryat Shmoneh to hang out with Michal, one of the shlichim (Israelis that come to work at summer camps) that I became really good friends with. Even though I hopped off the bus in the rain, the backdrop of the city is beautiful!

You have the mountains in the background and if you look off into the distance you can even see Mount Chermon, the highest peak in Israel, if the sky is clear enough. The city itself is a sleepy little town in the periphery of Israel (this has been one of the themes of Israel Seminar this year) and there isn't an overwhelming number of things to do.

PERFECT!

We went for a drive on Friday afternoon to try to find something called Knafe. I will write about that at another time. On the way to Masadeh (a town up in the hills) we picked up some hitch hikers, and this is something completely normal. When you live out on the periphery, often times you have no way to get around when you don't have a car. The answer is to walk and hope a car passes that is willing to give you a ride somewhere. It was really interesting talking to these two guys who were out on the week of leave from the army to hike trails in the Golan.

After trying Knafe at a two different restaurants in the Druze Village we went for hike to see the ruins of a Syrian town, I don't remember the name of it, that appeared to be have been abandoned after the borders moved in 1967. Nature really conqures everything in the end. The houses that had been damaged, apparently due to fighting during the war, were filled in with grasses and the woods creeping back in to retake their land.

Standing inside one of these ruined houses we could see some stunning views of heights. It was absolutely breathtaking.

For dinner, Ariel, Michal's boyfriend, cooked an amazing vegetarian, Indonesian flavored, dish. It was a little like a stir-fried, Asian Chipotle. But instead of a burrito, it is wrapped in rice paper.
(For those of you wondering why I'm eating ride, it's passover. I do not exclude Kitniyot from my diet during the holiday)
I have to say that Ariel is an amazing cook, dinner and the trekking that day was amazing.

That was just day 1.

I'm writing this from the bus ride home (yea for having internet on the busses), so there will be another post later with more of my break and a few pictures as well.

Dahab, Southern Sinai

Under the Dahab Bridge

I needed a break from break. Yeah, I've had a week and half off but it didn't feel like a real break. The breaks around here have never really felt like real time off. So with Kaitin here we decided to get out of the country for a few days.

The drive down itself wasn't too bad. The bus #444 from Jerusalem to Eilat, a quick taxi ride to the Taba border crossing and finally a 1-hour 45-minute taxi ride to Dahab. Not too bad. The hard part was that we needed to watch the craziness of getting our passports stamped and taken care of. I'm sure when you send in your information back in the states, six or seven people see our information and it get's tossed around the office. I think there were six people that took our passports and wrote down information from them before we actually crossed into Egypt.

Then we got to our destination. It was incredible.

The Red Sea

For two-and-a-half days we did almost nothing. The breakfasts in the morning we took on the beach were complimentary with the exception of the turkish coffee, and we sat on the beach reading and watching the waves for a long time each day. It was really refreshing to sit with Kaitlin and just be on vacation. No cares, no worries and very little scheduled.

One of the few things that was actually arranged was taking a tour on a camel. She had her heart set on riding one since we were in the desert climbing Masada. So we arranged it and took a ride out to the Blue Lagoon to watch the sun set a little, but then our guide needed to make it back for prayers, so he brought us back before the sun went all the way down.

Kaitlin and Me Riding a Camel

We ate a bunch of meals in different restaurants, sitting on the floor or at tables. We sat in the open and in enclosed areas. We ate on the beach and in our hotel room. This vacation was exactly what I needed and what we needed to have together. It was incredible to have some time to just be with each other, watch movies, sit in the chill-out areas, watch sunsets and just really get a chance to relax.

Sunset

There isn't much more I can say. Dahab and Sinai is an incredible trip, if you have the chance to visit I would highly recommend it. If you need a place to stay, use the Dahab Plaza Hotel. Mr. Emad, the manager, is great. When we arrived, he gave us a tour of the strip along the beach and pointed out his two restaurants, Same Same But Different and Fresh Fish.

On the walk with Mr. Emad, we were left alone by most of the annoying salesmen. He explained that he tried to tell the salesmen that most "westerners" don't like the aggressiveness that they work with. Many of them ignored his advice, but the ones that did leave us mostly alone, these were the ones that we shopped at. We loved to pop into the restaurants that only asked us once or twice to check out their menus and ate there. We also made a point of buying from the shops that were laid back about us.

Some of the salesmen were very aggressive though. One of my favorite lines I heard was a guy that very slowly said, " God Bless America. Yo. Yo. Yo. Whas up?" I also really liked the guy that told me each time we passed, "Remember when you said yesterday that you said you would come back?" It was a lot of fun experiencing a new place in the world and I realized that I have now been on the African continent now.

One final word of advice. If you go to Sinai, do not, I repeat DO NOT take a cab from the guys just inside the border. You need to walk through the border and out of the building. From that point you need to walk beyond the first gate. There you will find a group of men with taxis. You will be able to get a better price than we were able to get. Be ready to haggle.