Israel, the First Days

Never fear, the twins are safe and have made it to Israel where we've begun to assimilate into the culture.

Passport in a tightly grasped hand, we meet at JFK 4 hours before our appointed flight and meet some of our 40 traveling buddies. An hour and a half delay due to a "malfunctioning light on the wing" (how comforting) and a 10 hour flight later, we had safely arrived in the Holy Land. Going on almost no sleep, we and the other 38 participants groggily began our grand adventure.

We headed first to the North of Israel, which became our home for the next four days. The first stop was to some place that no one can remember currently due to lack of sleep on that day. We ended up in Safed towards the end of the day though. Safed is one of the Holiest cities in Israel. Many famous writings and songs/prays and people originated or were created in this town. It was a cute little town at the top of a hill that afforded a fantastic view of a body of water. We went on a little tour with our guide Chem (pronounced Ha-em, with a hard "Ch" sound at that beginning that sounds like you're hacking up a fur ball), and then were free to wander around and explore.

By the time we got to Safed everyone had been up for about 36 hours and we were ready to go to the hotel and sleep so our explorations weren't that long. Our base of operations for this part of the trip was the Shalom Plaza Hotel, which is like a glorified hotel. We were three to a room which had one bed and one cot, the shower flooded every time anyone used it and the walls were paper thin, but compared to some places that I've been, it was pretty decent. The neat thing is that every meal is a buffet where there are about 15 different types of salads, 3-4 hot entrees, and watermelon for dessert. It's good, but I've realized that the staple of the diet here is bread and hummus or sharwma.

The second morning we woke up at 6:30am to begin on a full day of adventures. The first stop was to an un-activated military base (if need be, it can be activated within 7 minutes of the reserves getting there and parking)that acts as a lookout/tourist attraction currently. It is in Golan Heights which is an area of Israel that was won be the Israeli people in 1967 during the Six Day War. Golan Heights was actually won in 1 1/2 days and the other fours days we spent convincing the armies of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan, that they had been destroyed by the sneak attack from Israel (apparently this was the only war where Israel made a preemptive strike - which was due to the fact that they had no choice...either attack first or wait to be taken over). The war provided Israel with a large increase in land going from I believe 7,000 sq miles to 95,000 sq miles. With the acquisition of Golan Heights, they also acquired l large quantity of fertile farmland.

From Golan Heights we traveled to a some theater where we watched a documentary film on the Yom Kippur War that came about 6 years later and was in retaliation for the Six Day Way. All three armies that had been defeated by Israel 6 years previously attacked simultaneously on the Holiest Day of the Year for the Jewish people. 2/3s of the Army were home celebrating the holiday and the country was not prepared for the sudden onslaught of armies. Many people died. This war was short as well. I believed it only lasted about a week and Israel came out mostly victorious.

I think to lighten the mood after a heavy morning, the tour moved on to the Golan Heights winery for a tour and tasting in the afternoon. Golan Heights Winery in only in its teenage years, but has won many awards for it many different products. Because it's a Kosher company, all of the employees must be Jewish and if they are male, the must wear a Yomikah (not sure about the spelling there), which is the little cap that sits on the head. They also take ever seventh year off. It is called the Sabbatical year and they can make wine, but they aren't allowed to harvest. Seven is a sacred number in the Jewish culture. Sabbatical derives from Sabbath and its derivatives (don't remember what they are), which is the seventh day of the week (Saturday) and the day of rest and reflection.

After the winery we went on a nature walk through a National Park that boarders on the Lebanon/Israeli border. This park was amazing and I was disappointed that we only got to spend 45 minutes there.

Our last stop for the day was to the Noat factory. This is shoe factory where many of the participants got to purchase sandals (similar to Birkenstocks or Mephestos). I personally thought we could have skipped this stopped and stayed in the park longer.

Day three involved a water creek hike in the morning that was hilarious. We walked in a creek were we couldn't see the bottom and kept falling for about 3 hours. It was great. I was laughing so much cause I kept falling over and all the boys were complaining about shrinkage from the cold water.

The afternoon brought more water fun, with a Kayak ride down a branch of the Jordan river. I went with one of the people on my trip, Michael, who didn't have a clue what he was doing. He wanted to go faster than everyone else and didn't realize tell the end that he liked to just enjoy floating on the river. There was one point were he wanted to get in the river and float and I said go for it (partly cause it looked like fun and partly so that he'd get out and I could correctly pilot the kayak). He ended up falling in the water and then freaking out cause he thought the river was going to pull him toward some great rapid or something. This had me cracking up seeing as the biggest rapid on the course was about two rocks and 15 inches deep. He was more likely to hit shallow water than a waterfall. All in all, it was fun.

Friday night, began the Sabbath. A newly formed group called the Sabbath Experience, came and started a series of lectures. For Friday night and Saturday you had the option of going to a variety of talks on different subjects related to Judaism and Israel. I attended a Q and A session and got into a debate about perceived truth versus absolute truth and religion. It was fun. The Rabbi, Rabbi K, was a very charismatic person that had a lot of wisdom to impart, but I feel he skipped over the answers to many questions in order to belay a thought provoking story.

On Saturday I spent most of the day talking to the different Rabbis and learning the Hebrew alphabet (which I still don't know completely after 2 and a half hours). The nice thing to come out of this is that Rabbi K said that he can get me into a Hebrew programs for three weeks in Jerusalem in September.

Okay folks, I've run out of minutes at this internet cafe, so I need to sign off. Shalom for now.