Livin’ the Dream

The Holy Land – Or to quote Steve “Everyone expects me to speak Hebrew!”

Israel has been great entirely thanks to the incredible hospitality of Shelli – my good friend from college! With out her I question if our stay in Israel would have been possible.  Thanks Shelli!

So let me start at the beginning. The flight – so we arrive for our red eye flight from Bangkok to Tel Aviv super excited to be going to Israel for the first time. We’ll it turns out NO ONE goes as a tourist from Bangkok to Israel and the El Al special security forces made sure we were fully aware of this fact, we were questioned about every detail of our trip plans. Thankfully I had just got off the phone with Shelli and could actually answer their questions. Let me just say that the guards were not happy about letting a German born in Pakistan onto their flight. Fortunately, the guard recognized Steve’s last name because there is apparently a famous Feinberg scientist in Israel and told us about where to go to find out info on Steve’s famous ancestor.  We managed to make it past security and to our flight but Steve had left his pocket knife in his bag which was promptly confiscated. Great. After chatting with Shelli about the flight we are now fairly sure that they sat a special security guard next to us just to make sure we weren’t planning to hijack the plane. I imagine as both Steve and I took sleeping pills he was quite bored. Anyway this was our first introduction into the high security prevalent everywhere in Israel.

Tel Aviv and Jaffa – Jaffa was beautiful but after a red eye flight and the terror of driving in Israel we really just spent a lovely afternoon reading in a park over looking the Mediterranean until we could finally meet up with Shelli once she got off work. I suppose it was a bit of a cop out but we really enjoyed ourselves.

Haifa – Ok so the part Shelli neglected to tell us is that she lives in an apartment at the Le Meridian Hotel directly on the beach. Oh yeah baby! Needless to say we didn’t leave the apartment except to stroll along the promenade and go grocery shopping until Shelli literally kicked us out of the apartment to go to Jerusalem. I think if she hadn’t been so adamant we may have spent the whole week at the beach.  

Jerusalem – the Holy City. Holy Crap it is impossible to navigate by car. We somehow made it to our hostel after the trip that should have taken 2 hrs took 6hrs. Right. We were so sick of driving that we ended up paying for a tour the next day which was great. We saw all the major sites – well the Jewish and Christian ones and were impressed by the charm of the old city. I think our favorite place was the room of the last supper one of the few places that there is historical evidence that it is what it claimed it was. It was amazing even after the Muslims tried to make it a mosque and the Jews the tomb of David. I guess the sanctity of some places can’t be corrupted; this was not the case for the other holy sites in Jerusalem. Just read Hermann Melville’s account of the Holy Sepulcher and you’ll know what we mean.

Masada – That night we drove to Masada and it was an incredible relief after all the city life to drive through the desolate desert. What struck us the most were the tent villages of the Bedouins and seeing the hills of Jordan reflected in the Dead Sea. We stayed at the youth hostel at the foot of Masada which I highly recommend to anyone visiting Israel and took the gondola to the top of the mountain the first thing in the morning. Masada was remarkable and there are simply no words to describe the place.  Just go! Though I have to say while the history is interesting we tried not to get wrapped up in it but instead to absorb the beauty of the place.  

Dead Sea – Hooray Steve could finally float. Check out the picture of Steve finally floating for the first time. We camped out at a spa resort En Gadi for half a day and couldn’t have been happier about it. Covered in mud and floating around is not a bad way to spend a day.  

Haifa – After the Dead Sea we drove all the way back to Haifa. The next day Friday morning we went to the traditional fruit market in Hadar – the cellar suk and purchased more fruit and veggies than we could carry. Then Shelli made us a fantastic Chabot dinner and Steve and Shelli even tried to teach me part of the blessing. We had a blast. The next day we went to En Hod, a beautiful mountain artists village Quesaryia incredible roman ruins from the time of the second temple, also a great dive site though we didn’t hop in ourselves; and some sort of yuppie but fun shopping street on Mount Carmel.  We also took a trip to the Druis village which was really like the bazaar scene in Aladdin “It will not break, it will not break, It broke”. Good times.

 

 

Akko- Our last day in Israel we visited the old city in Akko. Once a fortress for the crusaders it is now a bustling city that some how retained it’s ancient and Arabic feel. The still have the beautiful Arabian horses to pull wares around the ancient streets. It was really quite remarkable, but then again I love horses.

Sorry this entry is so factual but we are running out of time before our flight. Besides we need to keep some stories to talk about when we get back.