Andie and I have made it to Jerusalem and have settled into our hostel here, but I'll probably do a separate post about all of that later..many many posts considering how long we'll be here.
FIRST- the remainder of our stay with Pavel's parents in Kfar Malal!
On Saturday, they took us to Caesarea, where something-something-PontiusPilate-something-Jesus-Something happened.
But we got to see a really cool roman amphitheater and hippodrome
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| They hold concerts here now- hence the speakers and chairs. |
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| Hot, shirtless Israeli men setting up for the concert. Alhamdulillah! |
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| Hippodromes are for Horse races. unfortunately not for hippos. |
Traveling on weekends here is difficult, as the Jewish Shabbat means that transportation, restaurants, etc. are closed from sundown Friday (or more like 4pm) to sundown Saturday (8pm) so without a car you can find yourself stranded with no food pretty easily.
Sunday however, is the Israeli Monday, everybody goes back to work. So the trains were operating fine (ha..see the irony of this in a later paragraph) so Andie and I decided it was a great day for the beach.
And it was GLORIOUS.
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| Jealousy is both accepted and encouraged people. |
Clear blue skies, nice breeze..maybe in the high 70s, low 80s. The sand is this lovely beige/white color and it's so smooth there isn't a rock in sight. Water is the perfect temperature and you can wade out several meters and still be comfortable standing.
BEST.BEACH.EVER.
Andie and I actually fell asleep in our chairs for a good bit, so we got a tad burnt..well I got a tad burnt, Andie was less lucky...thank you lebanese heritage for protecting me from the super burn.
From there we met up with Taylor Mills, our grad school friend who's been in Israel since early May and will be here after we're gone (lucky). [Taylor doesn't get a picture because I forgot to take one. My bad Taylor] He's living in Tel Aviv, so we got to catch up and grab some falafel from a rather abrasive female waiter (they're all like that..not rude..just....not polite) and then began the comedy of errors..or..well... yeah let's just go with that.
[if you skipped down for that Irony I mentioned, look no further!]
Andie called Svetlana (Pavel's mom) to see what time she thought we should head back to Kfar Malal, she suggested 9...it was around 815, so we decided we should hurry back to the station since we were a ways away. The clock said the train to Kfar Malal would be coming at 9:08..it was 9, so we thought 'great, just in time'...only to walk down the stairs and see the train speeding out of the station- we'd missed it.
But no fear! The friendly digital board said another train would be coming at just 9:30, so we sat and waited..and waited..and waited a teeny bit more, before Andie went upstairs to discover that, SUPRISE, that was the last train back, and we were stranded.
A cab would have been obscene, so we thought..alright..what do we do? Calling Svetlana, she suggested another train route that would get us half way to them, so that they could then pick us up.. but the lovely station operators informed us that apparently at night, the trains don't stop at those little stations because THOSE PEOPLE SHOULD BE IN BED BY NOW, JESUS.
So the next option was the bus...which we were walking to before we discovered that it was going to be kind of sheisty, and Svetlana was worried we would get lost (me too) so we headed back to the station and bought tickets to Tel Aviv University, 2 stops up from where we were, where our lovely and kind hosts agreed to meet us to take us home.
Only...SUPRISE AGAIN! that train wouldn't be there for at least another 30 minutes, our hosts were already maybe 10 minutes away, and they would be waiting for us for 20 minutes.
Did i mention Svetlana works in Haifa, so she has to be up at 5am every morning to be ready and on the train in time? yeah...we're awesome.
So we went back up the stairs, passed the exacerbated, bemused and, lets be honest, highly amused operators who'd helped us, with our hands in the air like 'oh fuck it' and got a cab to the University, where we were picked up and taken back to Kfar Malal to completely pass out.
So our wonderful wonderful beach day was kind of skewed by all that mess..but now we know.. Just don't try the train thing after 830...just make a decision, stay where you are or go home early.
The next day (monday..or yesterday...whatever) we left our hosts and Kfar Malal for the biggest leg of our journey, our stay in Jerusalem where both of us will be doing research. But i'll post about that later.
Ma'a Salama!
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