I know that this wasn't actually posted on the date it says, but I'd rather have the date it should've been posted in the future than the date it actually was posted. Over the weekend we took a trip down to Jerusalem and went to the nature parks nearby. On thursday afternoon my friend Erik and I went down to חוף הכרמל (khof ha'carmel--Shore of the carmel) and checked out the outlet hiking store there in hopes of buying things that might be good for next weekend's ים לים (yam le yam--sea to sea) hiking trip. After a very difficult time finding our way out of the parking lot there, we went to the nearby bus stop to go to Jerusalem for the evening.

After getting to Jerusalem, we walked from the bus stop towards רחוב בן יודה (Rechov Ben Yehuda-Ben Yehuda street), the main tourist drag in Jerusalem. Erik and I went and checked into our favorite hostel in Jerusalem, where we've already spent several nights--the petra hostel--this time staying in the dormitories. If you didn't know, there's no sound like p in arabic, something we've discussed in arabic class--and the petra hostel is owned by arabic speakers. In the lobby, there was a card announcing the "Betra Taxi Service" and when I pointed it out to Erik and laughed. The following dialogue began between the receptionist and erik without the receptionist even looking up-
"We don't have b in arabic."
"You mean you don't have p?
"Yes, we don't have b"

Erik and I decided we wanted to go out to a bar and wandered around. We didn't want to go to Ben Yehuda street because it's loud and full of american tourists. We wandered, seeing more and less sketchy bars off Ben Yehuda until we got to one called Zuni's. Erik and I wandered in and went up the stairs to the actual restaurant where we realized that this was way more classy than we'd realized. We got seated at a lovely table for two, and realized that we'd accidentally walked ourselves into a man date. We ordered some drinks, the best of which being the kiwi frozen margarita. Erik was reading the menu and saw the lamb meatballs with beets in pomegranate sauce, and immediately decided he had to eat them however we weren't eating that night.

Anyway, the next day we met up with the other three members of our group in the main bus stop in Jerusalem--Joanna, Daniella, and Jessa. We got on the bus to מיצוקה דראגות (Mitsoke dragoat), and after about an hour ride, got there. Mitsoke dragoat is the site of these amazing mud pits right on the shore of the dead sea where the little bit of fresh water that flows into the dead sea enters. We swam and played around there for several hours and even met several people from the walk about love--a hike of the entire Israel trail, the trail that goes the full length of Israel, from north to south. All huge hippies from all over the world--it was really fun to talk to them.

Then we went and checked into the בית ספר סדה (beit sefer sadeh-the field school) nearby after a short bus ride. We chilled out in the afternoon, taking the showers we desperately needed after spending so long playing in sulfur-filled mud pits. Erik, Daniella and I just sat around and chatted until dinner while Jessa and Joanna napped. Very quickly dozens of orthodox families showed up while we were waiting for the dinner in the field school's dining room. We went in at 6:30 and were the only ones in there---then somebody from the kitchen came out telling us that we should come back at 8:30, the huge group of orthodox families was 120 people, they didn't want anyone from outside the group to eat with them and they didn't have any room for the 5 of us, plus the one other guy that was trying to eat. He was a canadian who moved to Israel about 25 years ago, lives in one of the settlements near Jerusalem, writes for business magazines, and has a lot of conspiracy theories. He argued and eventually changed things so we could eat right then--delicious and huge.

Jessa had heard of some hot springs nearby from Gal, our guide here in Haifa, and we decided to try go check them out after dinner, but they were about 6 kilometres (2 miles) away and we didn't want to walk. Luckily, we met a guy who is from the states traveling around Israel for 2 weeks--aaron--and he had a car. We all piled into his car and drove just down the road to where the hot springs were where we got out to see a sign saying "Danger, Sinkholes, Do Not Enter." We didn't go that way. Instead we walked down the path towards what we thought were the hot springs---eventually we got to a big ravine we couldn't really cross so we called gal--I talked to him--
"Hi gal, it's alex, we're trying to find those hot springs, but we can't really."
"Oh shit...oh f***, you're where!?!?!"
--Directions on how to get to hot springs---
"But you need to know, there are these things---holes, they just open up in a second"
"Sinkholes gal?"
"Yes, so, like put someone ahead and hold onto them very tightly"

We decided just to go back down the path, go get גלידה (glida-ice cream), and go to bed. In the morning we got up and although we said we'd go for a hard hike, none of us were feeling like it so we had a nice relaxing morning. We checked out, went and sat on the really nice swingset that was there facing the mountain, went down to the nearby gas station/restaurant to supplement the food we'd brought for lunch, and then went for a short hike in אין גדי (ein gedi-a very famous nature preserve with a beautiful waterfall) where we walked and skipped rocks and got annoyed at the thousands of children there.

Then it was time to return to Jerusalem, tried to catch a bus, but waited at the stop for over an hour, and when it didn't come, flagged down a sheirut to take us there. The driver quickly flipped down a little screen and started playing a DVD with the most bizarre russian music videos that have ever existed. We returned to Jerusalem, fulfilled Erik's need to try the lamb meatballs, which were amazing, and went back to petra hostel for bed. The next day we took a quick walk to the temple mount and walked around al-ahksa--the dome of the rock, and returned to Haifa---a great weekend.

Me sitting right in front of our hostel in a really cool tree that worked perfectly as a chair.



Us on the swingset at the Field School. From left to right in the front, Jessa, Me, Daniella, Joanna, and behind us is Erik.Us in front of the dead sea.
The view right over the wall behind us.

Me in front of the dome of the rock.

Since the last time I wrote we've had a super eventful weekend and a not so eventful one, so I guess I'll write about both. Last weekend we took a group trip to Eilat. Eilat is the southernmost city in Israel, nestled between the red sea and the mountains there. Down on the shore there's all kinds of hotels and touristy stuff----which is actually very nice and rather expensive, but going up towards the mountains is the residential section of the city--populated by the employees of the hotels--mostly very poor.

We left at 3 am to arrive in Eilat at about 9 am. We got dropped off about 20 miles from Eilat and wound our way through the mountains towards the city. The first day we hiked a five miles doing a lot of rock scrambling---it was a lot of fun and not too hard as we took (in my opinion) breaks too frequently. Then we had a great night in the desert where we ate a delicious dinner because we had a bus deliver our food, a giant tank of water, and several port-a-potties. Definitely a method of camping I could get used to---we had kababs, grilled chicken wings, fresh made french fries, israeli salad, humus and pita, and soup. Not sure I'll ever want to just carry food on my back ever again.

The next day we hiked another 10 miles and got bussed the rest of the way into Eilat to a really nice hostel. Then we decided to go and eat at the underwater restaurant across the street from our hotel. Although this was an exciting prospect and seeing the fishes swimming outside as we sat down was thrilling, the listed prices and fact that they didn't actually have any of the food on their menu quickly killed our enthusiasm. We then decided to walk down the boardwalk to find somewhere else and ended up at an amazing restaurant---authentically Israeli. My friend morgan wants to be mentioned. He says hey. He wasn't actually in Eilat, but he's sitting here now. Anyway, when you order they put 14 different kinds of סלט (salat--a general term referring to everything from the israeli cucumber and tomato salad to olives to baba ganoush) on the table. My favorite was an awesome eggplant thing in a tomato base. We also ordered many skewers of different kinds of meat---truly phenomenal--and they just keep giving you more and more salat and pita to chow on.

Even though we'd had high hopes for a night out in eilat our lack of sleep suddenly hit after dinner. Obviously we didn't sleep much on the bus and the night before we'd had guard duty--my shift was until midnight and we were up by 6:30 to start hiking--so not so much sleep and the day out in the desert was very draining. By 10 we were in bed--I got a great night of sleep. The next morning we took a nice little hike up to the top of a mountain near Eilat where you can see 4 countries--Israel, Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. Eilat sits on the Red Sea and is the 3rd largest port in Israel after, in order, Ashdod and Haifa (yeah haifa!). In particular Eilat is on the Gulf of Akaba (you know, one of the pointy bits at the tip of the red sea)---Akaba being the mirror image of Eilat on the Jordanian side of the border---Israel extends down the shore a ways, after which point Egypt takes over, and across the gulf is Jordan with Saudi Arabia down a bit on that side, and from the apex of this hike, you can see them all.

After coming down from the hike we went to go see about getting into the underwater coral reef observatory, but it was expensive, and so we just took a walk down the beach and ate lunch at a very nice little vegetarian place on the beach---I definitely want to go back to Eilat and do some of the more touristy things---snorkeling, swimming, jetskiing, etc, but I think I have to prepare myself to spend some serious money before I do. We then took the drive back to Haifa---it was really nice to arrive here, it's funny how much coming back into the city feels like coming home already.

The rest of the week was rather uneventful as was this weekend---yesterday we took the hour-or-so long walk into חורב (horev) and then walked back up before having a really nice Shabbat potluck at my friend Dori's, and today we went to go see my friend Chantal in her crew regatta. We've had a couple of quiet nights in a row, I think everyone is doing some much needed recharging.

The pillars of Amram---a really cool geological formation whose origins aren't really understood. They're named after the father of moses--don't quite remember why---but they're really cool!

The view up into the mountains from our campsite at night---that's the moon peeking over the mountains there.



Chantal and I at the highest point of our hike. Those mountains way in the background are in Jordan--right behind chantal's head is akaba, and Eilat is hidden on the other side of those mountains on the right side of the
Along the route there was a little rock wall that scaled straight up instead of going around---here are the five of us that made it up the wall. If you're looking at the awesome hat on my head and loving it, it's from Gal, the person immediately to my left, our guide. As soon as we got off the bus he shoved it on my head, I immediately fell in love and didn't take it off. Even so, the first day it kept falling off, so the second day I rigged up a highly effective chin strap out of dental floss.

From left to right, my friends Erik, Sarah, Dori, and Eitan at our amazing dinner--those are our salats scattered across the table---the meat hasn't even come yet.

Last week was rather uneventful, but had a great weekend, and let's not forget purim! Here goes the story. On wednesday we had a great time having a bonfire just off campus in the national park (which surprisingly is legal here), we sat around for several hours singing songs and eating גריני חמנייה (garinay chemniah--sunflower seeds, an extremely popular snack food here). On thursday we walked into hebrew class to find a new teacher! A great surprise considering our last one was not so good and the new one is phenomenal!

That evening we went to a concert in Jerusaelm by הפרויקט של עידן רייכל (The Idan Raichel Project). It was a great concert! Idan Raichel is an Israeli with awesome huge dreads, who has musicians from all over the world---people from ethiopia, yemen, uraguay, israel and other countries. They play music in hebrew, arabic, spanish, and amharic. Here everyone knows them, think like Bruce Springsteen in the states. The two women in the band---one from I'm not sure where, but she speaks spanish, and the ethiopian woman happen to be stunningly beautiful--actually he's not a bad looking guy either. I'm not sure how to further describe their music, but I highly recommend them---here's a link to some promos on their site--http://www.idanraichelproject.com/en

After the concert most people stayed in Jerusalem for a night or two. My friend Sarah and I were going to try to couch surf there, but our potential place to stay ended up falling through. Also, the main reason we were going to stay was to go see אל-אקסה (al-aqksa--the dome of the rock), but we found out that it's closed to non-muslims on fridays, so we decided just to come back the same evening. Instead on friday we went and took a hike in a park in נשר (nesher--a nearby neighborhood where my friend Omri lives with his aunt) and visited the hanging bridges there, going right over a beautiful little ravine. Then we went walking down into the ravine where we found a huge cave! Unluckily for us we had no flashlights, so we couldn't explore, so we vowed to come back on sunday. Afterwards we went down to the mall in לב המפץ (heart of the bay) and went and had a delicious dinner at a place called Black n' Burger--a great burger joint where I got a lamb burger, which was phenomenal. Afterwards we went to go see השומרים (the watchmen)--which was sooo great! Just like the graphic novel.

On saturday we went to the beach, had a very relaxing day. Then we returned to campus and realized that we had no food for dinner, and furthermore we were planning on grilling the next day before visiting our cave. We went down to the supermarket, which was lovely and bought amazing sandwich ingredients. Then my friend Omri and I ate sandwiches that were each an entire half of a loaf of bread, but not before we put on the most epic song ever---The Blood of Chu Chulain from Boondock Saints to cue our appetites---not that we needed it at that point. Then we watched When Harry Met Sally--always an excellent experience.

Sunday was great too! After waiting for 2 hours for the bus to come and it not coming we eventually took a taxi back to nesher with a little grill to make food. The night before we had bought 4 pounds of chicken wings and after eating delicious egg salad sandwiches (made with leftovers from the night before) grilled and ate for almost 3 hours in the park. Then we went and explored our cave---it was really really cool! A legit cave, and the wasp nest in the entrance gave it an edge of danger.

Class on monday was uneventful but monday evening was purim! Purim is probably the most joyful of Jewish holidays. Here's the basic story---King Ahashveros replaces his wife with a new (jewish) woman named Ester--the winner of the most beautiful woman in the kingdom competition. Ahashveros doesn't know she's jewish, which will be important later. When Ester's cousin Mordechai refuses to bow down to a government minister--Haman, he decides that all the Jews should die. After being terrified, Ester decides tell the king that she's jewish and that the Jews shouldn't die--Ahashveros agrees and haman is shamed. Like most Jewish holidays we celebrate the fact that we didn't die by eating and drinking. More interestingly, there's absolutely 0 historical evidence to support the story--I figure enough people did try to kill us throughout history that fudging the details in this case isn't too too important.

Here in Israel, purim is kinda like a cross between haloween and mardi gras in the states. People dress up in crazy costumes and drink intense amounts of alcoholic beverages---unlike in the states where people either dress up as something for halloween or not at all--many people just wear random weird things--it's a lot of fun! We went down to Tel Aviv for the evening--we had a odyssey trying to get there--I went straight from volunteering down to the bus station where I waited for 2 hours for the 10 other people I was going with to show up. Then we missed the last train and had to jump through all kinds of hoops to get the money back and eventually took a שירות (sheirut- group taxi) down to tel aviv--about a 40 minute drive. When we finally got to tel aviv it was insane, literally thousands of people in weird costumes clogging the streets so much that you couldn't walk--giant sets of speakers and bands all over the place. Our sheirut driver had to drop us off several blocks away from the main party cause the streets were so full.

After staying on the streets for hours we wandered down to the beach for sunrise. Since we didn't have a place to stay for the night we wandered back to the train station and took the train back to Haifa---arriving back at the University at 8:30 in the morning. After sleeping for just a few hours I got back up to go out to a street festival in מרכז הכרמל (Meerkaz ha'carmel--carmel center), where we went to a really cute little cafe for lunch, and then wandered through the little local park, ending up at the Haifa zoo! We wandered in the zoo for about 2 hours where there were peacocks running free, a tiger that was frighteningly close, and a really cute back of monkeys. A marvelous purim to be sure.

Today after class I went on an adventure with my friend Raya---we went to מושבה גרמנית (moshave germanit--the german colony), a little street here started by the christian german immigrants in the 1800s--it's right next to the baha'i gardens, which go all the way up the mountain. We wandered around the cute street and stopped in a cafe where we had delicious fruit juice (I had mango) and hummus and pita. The most exciting part, however, was the fact that Raya and I spoke almost exclusively in hebrew (and had legitimate conversations) for the entire four hour adventure. It felt great to realize that I could say real things in hebrew, even if it was awkward and slow. Here are some pictures!

My friend Omri, who returned to the states yesterday :(, and I chowing down on our amazing sandwiches.

Omri, Sarah and me in our cave!


The streets of Tel Aviv on Purim---note how they are PACKED. Usually those streets are for cars.


The shore of tel aviv at 4:30 am on purim.

A view across the bay at some pretty building---don't know what it is---sorry.

This weekend has been pretty low key----weather was terrible both yesterday and the day before. On friday we apparently broke the record this winter for amount of rain in a single day. There was also hail for much of the day. Luckily for us, we had other plans. We got up at 8 am to begin watching all extended edition Lord of the Rings movies. It was an epic and long day, and after we finally finished watching at 9:30 pm (including an hour break for me to cook dinner for everyone), we went to a local pub to drink a beer to the destruction of the one ring.

Yesterday was similarly uneventful---in the evening we went to a local bar/concert venue and saw a beatles cover band. They were really great, but every time they started talking between songs and it was in hebrew, I was a little surprised. On the other hand, it was super fun and it was great to rock out to the beatles.