Such a great start to my vacation- I got up at 3:30 am and found out my 5:45 am flight this morning from Eau Claire to Chicago was cancelled 😫 \240so I got to wake my dad up nice and early to help me find another way to get to Chicago to make our international flight this evening. We called United and the call dropped 🤦🏻‍♀️ We ended up finding a flight from MSP to Chicago (the wrong airport, but still the right city) that works. I’ll get to Israel eventually!

Finally on the plane on the way to Chicago! It’s kind of weird to go west to go (south)east, but we do what we have to. At least it’s still a short flight!

My mom picked me up from the airport! ❤️ it took an hour to get from Midway to their hotel. We dropped off their truck and took a shuttle to the airport where we found Ethan!

The British Airway plane is HUGE! It’s 2 stories- 479 passengers, 21 flight attendants. It’s pretty fancy, even not in first class! They’re playing classical music, and we have a little welcome kit with a blanket, pillow, and more.

Yummy dinner on the plane! Vegetarian pasta, salad, bread, and a peach bread dessert thing. Finished with a nice cup of tea!

The flight to London wasn’t terrible, but it was hard to get comfy enough to sleep. Our plane was only 5 minutes late getting in, so we got in at 7, made it to the next terminal at 7:30… and couldn’t get on our 8:00 connecting flight to Israel.

Well, we got onto a later flight to Tel Aviv, so we’re hanging around in the London Heathrow airport until 3:00. Yummy lunch at Wondertree in the terminal!

We’ve spent quite a few hours in the airport. We are pretty sure we finally found our bags, they should make it onto our flight. We are booked and checked in and god willing, we should make it to Israel tonight! There are some orthodox and conservative Jewish men who formed a minyan for afternoon prayers.

Our El Al flight finally took off… an hour late. But the nice plane kind of makes up for it. We (parents and I) are in a bulkhead row, plenty of foot room (but little storage space). Poor Ethan is back by himself, but he was asleep during or right after takeoff.

Finally landed in Israel at 10:50 pm local time. I slept about an hour on the plane (I finally fell asleep during my movie). Johnny (Yonaton) from Smile, a company that works with the tour company, met us at the gate and walked us through customs and immigration and passport control and everything. We saw (what he claims to be) the World’s Largest Mezuzah.

We managed to sleep for about 7-8 hours, much needed. I didn’t even mind the tiny twin bed once I got comfy!

We met some of the crew (Meryl, the Klein’s, and Carol and Jerry) for breakfast, along with our parents eventually. The breakfast buffet was INSANE! So much amazing food. Way better than complimentary breakfasts in the US!

We met the group at noon in the lobby, and loaded the bus. There’s 17 of us from Adat, and 7 more from another family that is scattered around the northeast US (NY, NJ, etc).

*location- hotel Dan Panorama, bus to Mahane Yehuda market for lunch and shopping

We went to Machaneh Yehudah, a market in Jerusalem (the old city). It had lots of food and produce, restaurants, and some other shops. We weren’t really hungry yet, so we got some food for later. We also got some fresh produce to snack on. It was crowded and warm, but most of it was under cover.

We drove past the old city of Jerusalem, and saw all the ancient gates and the huge walls. We went to the city of David, believed to be the site of his ancient palace. We got to walk through some of the archeological excavation areas and see parts of what is assumed to be the original palace. Then we went down tons of steps to the Siloam pools and walked through Hezekiah’s water tunnels.

The tunnels were dug when the city was under siege. They originally had to go outside the fortified city to get their water, which gave the city a huge weakness. So they dug a huge water tunnel under the entire city, excavating about 1,700 feet of tunnels by hand in a few months! They had two teams excavating from one end towards each other in the middle. About 2/3 of the way through, we saw a plaque that marked where the 2 teams met.

Dinner was AMAZING. So. Much. Food! We took the bus a few blocks away to J’oy for dinner. They started us with tons of appetizers, breads, dips, veggies- the food just kept coming! Then huge plates of dinner and some little desserts. Everything was served family style.

Israel day 2

We started bright and early (unfortunately), with hotel breakfast and on the bus by 8:30. We drove just a few minutes away from the hotel to a beautiful spot that overlooks the valley between the mountains. You can see most of the Old City from there. Yael, our tour guide, gave us lots of history of the city and explained what we saw.

After the tour, we got back to the hotel around 3. We got to relax a little bit. Many people napped, but I couldn’t because my room mate isn’t conducive to napping 😬

We all got cleaned up and ready for Shabbat. Some of us went to a beautiful service led by Valerie, then we all met up for dinner. Once again, it was SO much food.

Then off to bed to get ready for tomorrow!

We had the option to sleep in today, but of course I woke up at 6 am. My legs are sore, so I’m planning to spend the day around the hotel. I met some people for breakfast including my parents, and then they went on the optional walking tour of the Christian quarter and the Arab shuk.

It was interesting to see Israel in Shabbat mode. One of the elevators is on automatic, so people who observe Shabbat more strictly don’t have to use the buttons. There was a man in a suit and tallit carrying a Torah in the lobby, waiting for the Shabbat elevator. Definitely something you only see on Shabbat in Israel!

Once the morning tour group got back, we gathered for lunch as everyone straggled in. Lunch was buffet style at the hotel, and it was delicious, as usual. The “kids” sat together- Adam and Liz, Arielle and Maya, and Ethan and I.

After lunch, we (Maya, Arielle, Ethan, and me) decided to go hang out at the pool. It felt so good! We even found a pool jet to massage our sore calves.

We had a beautiful havdalah service at 8:00 the hotel, and the Adat Chaverim adults, Alex, and I took taxis about a mile down the street to Ben Yehuda street for dinner and shopping.

Well, this was an eventful morning…

Ethan tested positive for Covid this morning. He hasn’t been feeling great, and he was exposed by Joe on Monday. I tested negative, for now.

Ethan will be staying at the Dan Panorama for the next at least 5 days, until he feels better or tests negative.

The bus left without us while we sorted things out and tested me (I’m negative so far!). They went to the Kinesset, Israel’s parliament building. Not too sad about missing that.

We caught up with the group by taking a taxi and meeting them at Yad Vashem. We missed the first few minutes of the tour, so we didn’t get to hear about the building (the architecture is very cool and very intentional), and we missed the first few minutes of info, but the rest of the tour was really good. Yad Vashem is an incredible museum- one could easily spend a few days there looking at all the info and taking it all in.

Today we got to do one of my absolute favorite things on this trip so far- participate in an archeological dig! It was SO COOL, and I think I have the archeology bug now.

We visited the Sidonian caves in Beit Guvrin-Maresha National Park. They have discovered 170 ish of these “cave systems”. These are basically the basements of the people who lived here 2,000 years ago!

After the archeological dig, we rode back to the hotel. We got to the hotel around 7, rushed to check in and change into bathing suits, and ran down to the Dead Sea. We got there right about sunset, 7:45

It was so weird, but so cool! (Actually, it was very warm- like a hot bath or a mild hot tub.) The shore is sand, but closer to the water, it was covered in salt. Some of it was smooth, but so much of it was little balls of salt! It looked like large hail stones. They weren’t terribly comfortable to walk on, I’m glad we had water shoes (even if the salt chunks made their way into our shoes).

We all quickly showered off all the salt, and gathered for dinner. Yet another incredible buffet. Gorgeous, delicious food! We were all tired after a long day (very emotionally draining between Covid issues and Yad Vashem, and then lots of fun activity in the afternoon), so we all went to bed!

Masada national park

15 people from our group were brave enough to climb up Masada- I wasn’t one of them. I took the cable car up to the top, and then cheered on the walkers as they made it to the top!

Camel riding

We got to Kfar Hanokdim, and got a quick intro. It was so weird to see camels hanging out in the parking lot!

We got to dress in Bedouin tunics for a more authentic feel (or to protect from camel spit?)

10 people from our group got to ride camels up the hill to lunch.

We ate lunch in a Bedouin “tent” with “Abraham”, it was cute.

(Adam and Arielle were “idols”, as Abraham told us the story of working in his father’s idol shop)

The food was great, even if I discovered I’m a little too old to be sitting on the floor to eat!

I got to be in the second group of camel riders. My dad and I shared a camel. Her name meant “crazy one”! She was pretty stubborn and didn’t want to stand up at one point. It was a little scary when the camel stood up, because they stand up front end first, then the back end. But no one fell off!

We had an incredible view as we walked along the edge of a cliff overlooking the valley below.

The camel behind us (Arielle and Maya’s) really liked my butt and tried to munch on my shirt. Maybe I spilled some food!

Camelfie!

It was hot and sweaty and I think we all smelled a little like camel, but it was such a fun experience. And I can check camel riding off my bucket list!

After a long 2 hour bus ride, we finally made it to the hotel. A lot of us rested, but not a lot were able to sleep. The hotel is cute, but we had to go to the end of one building to get to the elevator to go to the other end. Kind of annoying but we got there in the end.

We all showered so we didn’t smell like camel anymore, and some of us met for dinner.

Maya, Carol, and Jerry all tested positive tonight… we’re dropping like flies 😞

We had a little bar mitzvah party for Henry tonight, one of the non-Adat people. He just turned 13 and had his bar mitzvah, so we had a little celebration. I had some Bamba and Bissli- I need to get some more to take home!

The Wi-Fi here sucks. It’s hard to stay connected to the internet, but I was able to video chat with Tom for a little bit tonight. I miss him!

We woke up early to get our laundry down by 8, and they said their machine is broken 🤦🏻‍♀️ so we’ll try to do laundry tomorrow.

Gary tested positive this morning (grandpa in one of the extra families)- we’re dropping like flies. Most of us are wearing masks indoors and on the bus now.

We had breakfast at the hotel, and hit the road a little after 9:15, heading to Tsfat.

We started our tour of Tsfat with David Freidman’s art studio. He is an artist that Gila knows, and since the shops wouldn’t be open yet, she arranged for us to have a tour of his studio and hear him talk about his art.

His art is beautiful, and has a lot of meaning behind it. He explained Kabbalah (the Jewish belief of mysticism and that everything is connected), and how it ties into his art. It was really interesting! People got to buy some art, coloring books, magnets, etc.

We even picked out a piece of art to donate to the new temple building from the families of the first Adat Chaverim Israel trip. Our names will be on a plaque. Daddy got a video of David Freidman explaining the meaning behind that painting, and he’ll transcribe that and it will hang next to the painting.

Lunch! Arielle and I wanted something different, so we had lunch with Gila and Yael. I ordered stir fry. Arielle was very happy to find gluten free pasta!

We stopped at a SuperPharm on the way to the rafting place, so people could buy tests and meds and things. Arielle and I got some tea and honey for Maya, and I got a bag of Bissli. Yum!

We went white water rafting! Sort of. The problems started when we were given the wrong kind of paddles (double sided kayak paddles instead of rafting paddles) and they told us we only needed 2 paddles per boat- it would have been easier at some points to have more!

We started with 6 of us in a raft (my parents, Arielle and I, Meryl, and Debbie) but we had too many adults in the boat and kept bottoming out. Arielle and I bailed and got in a raft with Gila, our guide, and a guy from Authentic Israel that was with us for the day. He had rafting experience and really knew what he was doing- we stayed in last place to make sure no one got lost or left behind.

It was so cool and beautiful on the river, with lots of vegetation (that we got very up close and personal with as we bounced around!)

It was a good thing we bailed from our original raft when we did- apparently at one point, my dad fell into the water!

It was a fun activity overall. It was a really cool way to see Israel from a different perspective (and a great way to keep cool!)

Tag: Decks restaurant

We all (sort of) dried off, and drove to the coast of the Sea of Galilee in Tiberias for a sunset cruise.

It was so nice on the water- it wasn’t very windy at all, so the water was very smooth. It was nice and cool, too! Yael played some great music, both Israeli and American, and we all got up and danced. It was lots of fun!

We got to see the sun set over the city.

When we arrived back at the dock, we took a short walk to a gorgeous restaurant called Decks. It was literally on a giant dock over the water. The food was amazing! Very impressive, as most of our meals have been.

Hamoudi sat with us and we got to talk with him for a bit.

Arielle bunked with me last night, since I have an extra bed for now. We had a quick breakfast and hit the road at 8 to head to the Golan Heights for a Jeep tour!

The jeep tour was pretty fun. They had a bunch of older Land Rovers and jeeps.

We drove around near the Israel-Syria border (not actually a border, more of a cease-fire area. There is a UN peacekeeping buffer zone between the borders.

We stopped at a former Syrian army headquarters building. It’s an old abandoned building- after the war, the border changed and it is now in Israeli territory.

It was covered in cool graffiti. We climbed to the top for some amazing views and a talk by one of the drivers about the conflict between Israel and Syria. He told us he was going to give us the “60-second version”… it ended up being nearly an hour 🙃

When we exited the building, they had delicious fresh watermelon waiting for us. We piled back in the Jeeps, and made our way back.

During the drive, we passed SO many orchards where they grow fruits and vegetables- everything from olives to kiwis to 150+ varieties of apples!

Once we got back, we walked over to the Mount Bental nature reserve for another view of the Golan Heights area.

There were some funky sculptures on the hill on the way up! Most were made from old trash and weapons and things.

We stopped in the coffee shop for snacks and drinks (and a yummy Magnum chocolate ice cream bar!), and Gila told us some more about the politics and history as we stood at a lookout point.

We walked the rest of the way up the hill to see an old IDF bunker from after the war of independence as a defense point for future attacks.

Group photo

We drove down the mountain to Ein Knia to have lunch with Nabeel, a Druze native. He cooked us an amazing lunch (I was a little bus sick from the windy roads, so I didn’t eat much). We sat in the social hall room and listened to him tell us about the Druze religion. It was very interesting!

We went back to the hotel to change, and drove to Rosh Pinna for a free evening for dinner (about 20 minutes away).

My parents and I joined Meryl and Janet for a delicious dinner at Joya, a cute Italian restaurant. (We had a hard time finding a place that had English menus and music that wasn’t deafening, so we just settled for a quieter place and google translate for the menus!)

This was some of the best pizza and pasta I’ve ever had. We split one bowl of pasta and one pizza between the 3 of us, and it was absolutely fantastic. You could tell that everything was very fresh.

Tag: Baha’i world center

We got to sleep in today (so of course I woke up at 6). We had breakfast and packed up, and will leave at 10. This was a nice enough hotel, but we’ve been here 3 nights, it will be good to move on. (And find better Wi-Fi!)

We drove through Haifa, one of the biggest port cities in Israel. We got to see the Mediterranean Sea!

Lunch at Tishbi winery. Bread and salad for starters, and then pizza and pasta for main course. The mushroom ravioli was amazing 🤤

After lunch at the winery, we drove to Caesarea National Park.

Caesarea was yet another one of King Herrod’s palace complexes. He really liked to show off his wealth!

The complex included an amphitheater, Byzantine ruins, a bath house, and more.

There were some remains of statues that were used to make sacrifices to (or as parts of sacrifices and prayers)

-foot statue

The whole place had incredible views of the Mediterranean Sea, but it was so unbearably hot that we didn’t stay out there long.

-Group photo and family photo

On the way out, we stopped quickly at a beach to see part of the remains of King Herrod’s aqueducts. We got some great photos and a view of the water.

We checked in to Herrod’s hotel in Tel Aviv tonight, and got cleaned up for dinner.

We (me, parents, and Meryl) walked to Goocha for dinner to meet a cousin named Inbal. She’s so nice- she’s 45, so she’s between me and my parents, but she’s technically my mom’s generation. Her grandfather was my mom’s grandmother’s brother. Dinner was yummy!

Tel Aviv is a cool beach city. Everyone here looks young and hip (and very fit!). The street we walked down had a walking path in the middle of the street, complete with trees and coffee shops and tables, as well as green areas and sand areas for playing sports or hanging out.

Hotel breakfast

Bus to Jaffa

Kibbutz- machon ayalon?

Secret ammunition factory from the (Israeli war of independence?)

Back to the Jaffa markets for lunch and shopping. Had some tabbouleh that wasn’t good and also had cilantro (gross)

Did a little shopping, got a few little things. Went through the markets on the way out. 1.5 mile walk back, was miserably hot.

Services in the sunset, dinner and dessert, \240reflecting, bed

Caves

Acco tunnels

Templars

Said goodbye to everyone, drove to Jerusalem. Met Ethan, daddy lost his backpack

First station for dinner and a little shopping

Breakfast at hotel

Israel Museum in Jerusalem

First station for dinner with cousin Lena