This is the longest I have gone since we've been in Israel without blogging and I've really missed it! I haven't been blogging because my sister, Karen, arrived last weekend, and we did a bunch of traveling this week. This entry is mostly going to be pictures of places we visited on Day #1 of our travels, with a bit of commentary, but I at least want to catch up a little bit.
Karen came last Saturday for her first visit to Israel, and I am excited she is here. I wanted to show Karen how we feel about Israel, why we think it's important to be here, and why we are on this 5-month adventure. Saturday night we went to the Emek for dinner, and we ended up at Pizza Italia (traditional Mediterranean food, I know!):
We followed Pizza Italia with "gleeda" (ice-cream) at Aldo, the boys' favorite gleeda place these days.
Sunday morning we woke up very early so that we could leave for Day 1 of traveling. Our tour guide, Cliff, met us at the dira around 6:30 am. We rented a car for our travels, and Pentheus drove that first day. Stop #1: Rest stop on the highway, so that we could do some camel riding. It's a tourist trap (40+ shekels or around $10 per person) but it was well worth it to see Karen and the WK's faces on top of the camels!
Our second stop was Masada, a fortress in the Judean Desert. Karen, Pentheus and the WK hiked 45-minutes up Masada via "the Snake Path" while Dad, the CK, and I took the cable car up to the top. It was at Masada, where in 73 C.E., near the end of the first Jewish-Roman War, over 950 Jewish rebels committed mass suicide rather than become slaves of the Romans. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masada) Almost all we know about Masada is from archaelogical findings and the testimonies of the couple of women and some children who fled before the mass suicide. (And, yes, the sky in the Snake Path/cable car picture really was *that* blue.)
We ate lunch at the bottom of Masada in the restaurant and were off to our next destination: Ein Gedi, an oasis and nature reserve in the desert with waterfalls, springs, and animals. The area is beautiful, and it's unbelievable to see this in the middle of the desert! The water was very cold, and only Pentheus and the boys went under the waterfall. We saw a bunch of animals, including goats, hyraxes, and a wildcat. A hyrax is a well-furred, rotund creature with a short tails. Although the hyrax looks like a rodent, it is actualy more closely related to the elephant! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyrax)
Our last stop of the day was at the Dead Sea, Earth's lowest elevation on land. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Sea) The Dead Sea is one of the saltiest bodies of water, 8.6 times saltier than the ocean. The minerals and salt in the Dead Sea are often used for cosmetics and skin products (think the kiosks of Dead Sea products at the Cambridgeside Gallery Mall). Many people (including Pentheus and the WK - see below) use mud from the Dead Sea to soften skin. Dad treated Karen and me to massages, and mine was awesome! Because of the density of the Dead Sea, you can basically float on top of the water!
We returned to Jerusalem before 7 pm that night. Rather than going back to the dira to take desperately needed showers, we went to Burgers Bar on the Emek to eat dinner. I think I've already mentioned how much my family loves Burgers Bar (Pentheus uses the distance between the closest Burgers Bar and him as a unit of measure). Well, Dad joined the Burgers Bar Fan Club because he loved his chicken sandwich.
Coming up next, Days 2-4 of our travels, plus pictures from my Dad and my tour of the Old City in Jerusalem from a couple of weeks ago. For now, though, it's after 1:30 am, and I am going to sleep. Karen and I are going to walk to Machaneh Yehudah tomorrow morning and then go to Tel Aviv for a day or two before she leaves.
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