RANAD Philipp-Muller family blog.
Summer 2009. Trip to Israel.

Israel entry 1:
Haifa and the Galilee

Our trip was scheduled to begin like any other. We had five tickets for Israel, scheduled to leave at 8:40 P.M. Our plane decided to leave two hours early, or more accurately put, Diane had the times mixed up, and realized that we had two hours less than we thought we had. This of course was no issue for the Philipp-Muller family who, as always, was completely ready far in advance, in fact, our bags were packed 8 days ahead of time. NOT.
Anyway.....we had a restful plane ride, relatively uneventful, and ate vegetarian meals along the way. Aaron, however, was still hungry after his vegetarian breakfast, so Diane scored him an extra one by hiding her platter beneath her tray table, and “innocently” accepted a regular meal when they came around a second time.
Upon our arrival, we got off the plane, got hit by a wall of Israeli heat, and collected our bags. You all know the song “United breaks guitars” (if not, check it out on u-tube), well here’s a new one for you: “Austrian Airlines breaks bag handles.” Diane’s bag handle was completely broken off, and she had to perform immediate surgery to salvage her bag.
We picked up our rental car, and all seemed to be going as planned. That is until Rob tried to put the car into gear. The car growled its disapproval. After a couple of laps around the airport, we finally figured out the problem with this crazy car - that we have nicknamed ‘the golf cart' as it continues to growl disapproval anytime we climb a hill.....not great if you’re touring Haifa and the north, where we were headed.
So we raced out of the airport at a fast clip, only to hit terrible traffic en route in Tel Aviv. A drive that should have taken an hour ended up taking three hours.
We arrived in Haifa, excited to get to our apartment, only to realize that we forgot to get the address, telephone number or any means of communication with the owner of the apartment building. We had a little adventure in “Burger Ranch” trying to access internet, because this is the only joint in Haifa, that our lame Canadian brains could find, that has free internet access whatsoever, no matter how crappy it is. After about an hour, we were finally able to open our email and we retrieved this elusive information.
We had dinner at a pizza place and headed off to bed from our tiring adventures.
The next morning we ate breakfast using the groceries we bought from a very Israeli location. Apparently the Hebrew word for drugstore is drugstore - although actually it was a convenience store; very confusing. We had a gorgeous two story apartment with magnificent windows overlooking the Haifa harbour, and the entire city and skyline of Haifa. In every Israeli home there is a metal room that exists in case of attack, the entire family should hide to be safe. This room happened to be Aviva’s room. So essentially she was sleeping in a bomb shelter.
The first day in Haifa we went to Dado beach, which is a beautiful beach on the Mediterranean, but not before we had to buy a GPS. With great difficulty, we finally reached the Grand Canyon Centre, the mall where we purchased our wonderful GPS. We realized that the reason no one could give us directions to the Grand Canyon centre was because we don’t know the proper Israeli pronunciation of the term. In Haifa, they call it “Grond Conyon Centerrr”. Our GPS has never failed us once. We named him Jeremy. Jeremy has told us to turn where there is no turn. Jeremy has sent us going around and around in circles, destined to never reach our destination. Jeremy has told us to turn straight into the Mediterranean. Jeremy has not failed us once, he’s failed us multiple, multiple times.
After purchasing our little friend, we spent the afternoon body surfing, swimming, and lying on the beach and resting. Sitting next to us were several characters. There was a man laying to our left that had a huge tattoo of Jesus on the cross covering his entire back. Rob thought “Wow, these Israelis are becoming so edgy that they tattoo crucifixes on their backs.” This was the moment that Rob remembered that there are, in fact, Arab Christian Israelis as well. Behind us, there was a group of kids smoking a very large bong, or hookah as the kids these days are calling it. Aviva explained the basic concept of a hookah to Rob and Diane who were nicely listening to their little lesson.
After the day was through, we went to an amazing beach-side restaurant called Ha Chavit, or Barrel, for supper. While at the restaurant, Aviva had a little adventure in the bathroom. She realized that she had literally locked herself in the washroom stall. This would have been an okay situation if this were a normal bathroom door that had a gap at the bottom, out of which she could crawl. In fact, in her jet lagged state, her Hebrew was so poor that she couldn’t even remember how to call for help. She wasn’t worried, however, because she knew that eventually her family would sense her absence and look for her. In the end, she figured out how to unlock the door, and she rejoined the rest of the Philipp-Mullers for a wonderful meal.
After dinner, we went for a nice walk on the boardwalk of Dado beach. We saw some Israeli guys playing an interesting combination of volleyball and hackie-sac. There were two guys on either side of a net, hitting the ball over without the use of hands. They used their heads, chests and legs to basically play volleyball. We then encountered a rooftop wedding ceremony, which we admired from afar. And here comes to an end the first day of our Israeli experience.
The next day, we went to Akko, and learned about the history, culture, and architecture of the ancient city. We learned about the significance this historical town has had through the past 4000 years. We learned about the various empires that have taken over this city, and we recognized the differences in architecture. We joked that Akko reminds us of Toronto, in that the various occupiers would just tear down old buildings to build new ones. Upon arriving in Akko, we wanted to go to the visitors centre to pick up headsets to tour the city. This is the day we came to the realization that Akko-ians are just not that great at giving directions. One man told us to go straight and then turn at the orange man. We wondered whether by “orange man”, he meant a man who was literally orange, was wearing an orange shirt, or was selling oranges. We decided he meant the latter. We finally found the visitors centre, after passing three orange men; making erroneous left turns at the first two.
We ate our bagged lunches in the shade in a beautiful garden in Akko. In the middle of our lunch, a little hassidic boy of 3 or 4, right next to us, pulled down his pants and took a whiz. Rob thought he looked like an unmanned hose, and told Noah to take cover, as he was in this boy’s potential line of fire. The boy was quite prolific as he sprayed just about everywhere. He then ran away from his sister, still naked from the waist down, as she chased him around the garden of the visitors centre. We had our second lunch of Shawarma, where the owner gave us complimentary slushies, and taught us how to say “thank you” in Arabic (shukran). There were a lot of “independent” cats in Akko.
That night, we went for Shabbat dinner at Diane’s father’s second cousin’s house. Amos, looked strikingly like Rudy, his cousin. Oddly enough, his wife Pninah, did not. Amos and Pninah were incredibly hospitable, knowledgeable, and kind. Amos has been a ship-man since birth. After the navy, he became a ship builder, and has always been interested in the sea. Pninah, who is almost 60, took up drumming five years ago, and now drums about two hours each day. The running joke throughout the evening was Amos trying to convince us all, especially Aaron and Noah, to drink more wine, and take up cigar smoking ....Well, we think he was joking.
The next day, Amos and Pninah took us out for the day, giving us a tour of the area, and the Golan Heights. The kids sat in their car, while Rob and Diane followed behind in the golf-cart car. Amos explained about different locations and landmarks that were involved in the six day war. We saw the Jordan river, the border between Syria and Israel, and plenty of abandoned Syrian tanks along the side of the road. We took a chairlift up Mount Hermon, the only ski mountain in Israel. We got to the top of the mountain, and could see Syria down below. Pninah was very proud that it was her first time ever on a chairlift. She told us that Amos is afraid of heights, but he hid it exquisitely. We had dinner at a restaurant called “Milkman and Witch Casserole” (it loses a bit of it’s catchiness in translation) The food was unbelievable. They had the best ostrich Rob and Diane have ever tasted. Amos and Pninah took us to see a lovely view of Haifa and the Bahai gardens, and then we said our goodbyes.
The next day we started out with a ride on the only subway in Israel. It is actually only 6 stops and goes up and down the mountain in Haifa. Even at rush hour there was hardly anyone on it. Kind of weird.
Next we headed off by car to the Galilee. We arrived at the Shavit Guest House on a Moshav in the Arbel. We ate a fantastic meal, made by the owners and explored the gorgeous, lush grounds of the guest house. There were trees of all sorts everywhere. We could pick our own fresh grapes and figs whenever we wanted. There was a beautiful pool, and clay tiled pathways. On our first day on the Moshav, we went for a short hike. Rob and Diane, the supposed parents, tried to get us all to sneak into the nearby national park, in a very adolescent way, but in the end we were caught, and payed the full price. Serves us right.
After our hike, we headed to Tsfat, where we met Susie, our niece/cousin. Tsfat is a Kabbalistic town, that has many artsy folk and had a Klesmer festival going on that week. Susie had quite the adventure on her way to Tsfat. She took the bus from Jerusalem to Tsfat, and it was incredibly crowded. Old people were shoving others with their canes, trying to find a spot on the bus. At some point, the driver turns to Susie, and asks her if she knows how to get to Tsfat. Apparently this was his first time driving there. Eventually, after much yelling and gossiping at and about the bus driver, a man from the back of the bus comes forth, and leads the bus to Tsfat. This is the most eventful bus drive we had ever heard of!
Susie showed us around Tsfat, showing us her favourite restaurants, art galleries, shops, and tourist sites. We saw a weaving shop, a candle store, and many art galleries and jewelry shops. Susie was amazing showing us around the bustling city; including a tour of an amazing synagogue. That night, the Klesmer music we heard was fantastic, but we were very tired, so we headed back to Arbel, until the next day.
The next morning we went on a much longer hike on the Arbel cliffs. The hike was a scramble on sheer cliff with hand and foot holds. It was like rock climbing but without the harnesses. Okay okay, the holds were permanently welded into the rock, and the majority of the hike was performed on all twos. But still, it was one of the most challenging hikes our family has been on, and included some moments of serious anxiety as Diane’s fear of heights reared it’s ugly head. Fortunately she had her handy pocket psychologist, Rob, to help her do some deep breathing exercises mid-cliff. Along the way, we saw many caves, that had clearly been used thousands of years ago as a dwelling place by centuries of humans. We saw an ancient castle that had been used by the crusaders. And when we got back from the hike, we went for a much appreciated swim in the glistening pool and had a blast.
That night, we went to Rob’s father’s cousin’s house for supper. Avi and Yonit were great hosts, and we enjoyed practicing our Hebrew with them. In fact, we had no choice but to speak in Hebrew, as Avi does not speak English. All five of us were surprised with the amount of Hebrew that flooded back, the moment we began using it in conversation. It helped that Yonit used to be a Hebrew as a second language teacher, and therefore used basic vocabulary, and spoke at a slower pace.
As we write this blog, we are driving through the West Bank, witnessing lots of dry desert, rocks, cliffs, rocks, abandoned formerly Israeli Kibutzim, rocks, palm trees, rocks, agriculture, rocks, settlements, and.... more rocks. We are currently sort of nervous about our location, but you couldn’t tell by our style of writing. If you’re reading this blog, we emerged okay.
RANAD Philipp-Muller