RANAD in Australia: Sydney and Melbourne

You know you’re in Australia when the homeless people are wearing UGGs.....

Australia is far. Very far. This is why we decided to send Rob on a reconnaissance mission two weeks ahead of us just to test the waters... and he threw in a few workshops along the way. On the day of his departure, there was an electrical fire at Pearson airport, and so Rob was re-routed to a different flight. In the mayhem of the electrical fire and airport staff being unclear on how to proceed, Rob was told to do one thing by the police, only to be told the exact opposite by airport security. After several back and forths between security and police, which included Rob asking the security guard if he was going to taser him, Rob was kicked out and told to return to the airline desk (as was everyone else). Ironically, while waiting to be re-routed back at the Delta desk, Rob and the others noticed a huge sign that read, “Pearson, voted Canada’s most improved airport!” Hmmm.....

Two weeks later, with Rob half a globe away, the rest of RANAD embarked on the journey to Oz. Due to an electrical fire in Detroit, the plane never arrived (okay, we don’t actually know about the electrical fire, but either way our plane was held up). So... the rest of us were also rerouted. Now, just to preface, every mildly annoying thing that can go wrong in air travel did go wrong. First the flight was delayed, then the flight was re-routed, then the re-routed flight was delayed, then one bag didn’t make it onto the rerouted flight, then we almost missed the connection in L.A., and finally, the rest of the bags were lost (clearly they just couldn’t keep up).

So our first day in Sydney we went shopping for underwear. Really really really expensive underwear. Why? Because the bags were still lost, and everything in Australia is a tad expensive....even the underwear. FYI, minimum wage is about $18/hour here, so they can afford $20 gotchies.

Fresh underwear in hand, we enjoyed strolling the city, watching some talented buskers (Everything After – if you wanna check them out on Youtube), and then headed out for a yummy dinner in Chinatown, where one of the most authentic places to eat is called, “Eating World,” basically a food court with absolutely no ambiance. One of the differences in this Chinatown compared to ours was the ubiquitous dessert cafés, serving Taiwanese and Hong Kong style desserts; stuff like mango on shaved ice with coconut milk, flavourless red beans on shaved ice with molasses jello, sesame pancakes, etc. The descriptions here say it all, some of it tasted good, some of it not so much.

On the following day we took a boat tour of the Sydney Harbour.

It was a great opportunity to get a feel for the greater Sydney area.
Our septuagenarian guide was a bit atypical for his age, continually checking his iphone whilst giving a tour of the harbour. Needless to say, it was not the most compelling tour, but it was somewhat informative (both about both Sydney, and the modern day grandpa).

Later that night, we went home and watched the Olympics. We couldn’t believe that all this time we’d never realized that the Australians are the true stars of the entire Olympic games- or at least that’s what the coverage here would lead you to believe. Really, it’s remarkable how little they cover of any country other than their own. In one rowing event they placed second, and the coverage cut away from the event before we could see who got the bronze. As for swimming, was Michael Phelps even in this Olympics?

On the topic of sports, anyone a Footie fan? The Aussies are obsessed with it here, packing stadiums with 70,000 fans at $18 a ticket: Australian rules football. It’s sort of a cross between soccer and rugby, though it would appear to not have any consistent rules whatsoever. We’ve decided that Footie is a game created by a bunch of 10 year old sore losers who couldn’t win a real match of rugby, so they just kept changing the rules as they went along: sometimes you have to throw the ball, sometimes you can’t throw the ball, sometimes you run with the ball, sometimes you dribble the ball, sometimes you kick the ball through your opponents post, sometimes you kick the ball through your own posts. Really. We can’t seem to make heads or tails of the game. But it does seem to be highly aerobic, apparently they run upwards of 20 km. a game.

The next day we went on a bike tour with Matt, an aspiring actor and sometimes tour guide.

Matt was long on entertainment, short on factual accuracy, claiming for example that the American Revolution occurred in 1786...hmm... We think we learned some interesting information about Sidney, although it’s hard to know for sure. Apparently the Matrix was filmed in Sidney...? Apparently Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise’s Sydney condo sold for 12 million...? What we do know for sure is that we biked across the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the view was spectacular. We tried lemon-lime bitters and some local beer. And we cycled to all the major sites of Sidney, including the Sydney Opera house. Apparently the architect, fired from the project for overspending, left the country, and never returned to see his project completed...?

The next day we took the ferry to Cockatoo Island, a now defunct shipyard. There was an exhibit of installation art all over the island from various artists. We found ourselves feeling a bit torn between wanting to be more open minded to this esoteric art, wishing we were more open minded, and finding ourselves not so open minded. Much of the art often appeared to be a conglomeration of seemingly random objects placed in a room attached to “deep” artist statements that were quite a stretch (“These two pieces of hanging cloth represent the divide between the East and West of this world,” and the like).

There were, however, a couple of really cool pieces, like a room filled with thousands of paper guns that opened up like a fan into colourful paper flowers. There was also an Uruguayan artist whose sketches, reminiscent of Dali, filled the walls of a room with distorted grotesque figures and political messages.

That night we saw the first night of Sydney's Improv festival at the New Theatre in Newtown. This very talented bunch came from all over the English speaking world, and we definitely had a lot of fun at this show. The next day we rented a car, and drove to the Blue Mountains outside of Sydney where we did a hike and saw some really massive trees. We discovered a new bird call: The Whistle and Bell. It's two birds that call to each other, and one sounds like a whistle, the other like a bell, although honestly, it sounded more like a whip to us. As we were losing daylight at the end of our hike, Aviva was straggling behind and to encourage her, Diane suggested she imagine she was late for an audition that was being held back at the car. It worked. We should add that this day trip involved Rob learning how to drive on the left side of the road (recall that we said we had rented a car). As if learning how to drive on the left side of the road wasn’t difficult enough, Rob had the additional challenge of dealing with the occasional terrified shrieks and gasps coming from Diane.

Let’s talk a bit about the weather in Australia. As we were preparing to leave Toronto, Diane kept reminding us that it was winter in Australia. But did we believe her? Not really. Even Diane didn’t fully believe her. Every day that we’ve been here, we’ve had to add a piece of clothing: hats, gloves, scarves, thermal undershirts, thermal underwear, and Aviva even bought a winter coat. There is this denial of winter that even the Australians seem to indulge in as well. There is totally inadequate heating in the hotels, so you’ve got to really go under the covers at nights. They seem to have these space heaters that they use in restaurants, which are something like huge toaster ovens, and appear to be fire hazards not unlike real toaster ovens.

Next we flew to Melbourne, a much less eventful flight than any of our journeys over here. The first night in Melbourne, we had a real Aussie barbecue with Rob’s new colleagues, Brendan and Di whose beef and lamb were raised on their own farm. Interestingly, in order to maintain their small herd, they periodically rent a male to get the job done from a business called “Rent-a-Bull.” Seriously. At Di and Brendan's the plan had been to put on our togs (bathing suits), and get in the spa (Jacuzzi) before dinner. Rob, Noah, and Aaron did so, but the gals? Well.... remember it is winter in Australia. After dinner, the kids jammed with Brendan and Di’s younger son, Rob, whose rendition of Santana’s “Black Magic Woman” was spot on.

Our hotel in Melbourne was right next to the Queen Victoria market, this fabulous foodie heaven. Each morning we went there to buy fresh baked goods, cheeses, Tazmanian salmon, home-made yogurt, you name it, for our breakfasts and lunches. YUM!!

On day two, while Diane did a workshop in Melbourne, Rob and the kids did a free hop-on hop-off bus tour of the city. Melbourne like Sydney is gorgeous in its own way. Sydney has the spectacular harbour, bridge, opera house and hills. Melbourne has the architecture, the arts, the fashion, and the river.

On our last day in Melbourne, we did another bike tour.

Our guide, Brian, a 62-year old graphic artist who lived here all his life, was very knowledgeable. In fact, he is 7th generation Australian. His great great great great grandparents were BOTH convicts brought to Australia on the first fleet. Because they were a couple, they were given some land to work along the Paramatta River and two labourers (also convicts). The story goes that they served goat at their wedding, and not unsurprisingly, shortly after the nuptials,one of the General's goats was found to be missing. The newlyweds were arrested for stealing the goat, but claimed that the goat was already dead when they "found" it, so they were subsequently let off. In addition to hearing about Brian's ancestors, along with seeing the sites and history of Melbourne, it was a bit of a foodie tour as well. We went to an fabulous Italian bakery where we had pastries and coffee, returning to the market for lunch: bourekas like we’ve never had before. But more about the amazing food and coffee here next time...

Next stop? The Great Ocean Road....

Talk to you soon.

Love,
RANAD!!

London and Edinburgh

Hey gang, so we finally accomplished a life long dream to swim across the English Channel, or at least to traverse it by train in one of humankind's greatest engineering feats: The Chunnel. And guess what? It was really anticlimactic. There you are, cruising across French farmland in a high speed train that suddenly goes into a pitch black tunnel for 20 minutes with nothing to see, and boom, you're in the UK, cruising across more farmland. Now if they suddenly screeched to a halt in the Chunnel, made sounds of water rushing in, shot bullet holes in the windows....now that would be interesting. I guess we're just that hard to please.

Anywhoo, we arrived in London and met up with Diane's mom, Eva, so we were once again 5 (remember, Aviva left us in Switzerland to join her band of traveling minstrels). We settled into our cozy little house and hit the town for the next coupla days, with our go-go-Granny. We boated on the Thames, bussed around London-town, went all over by tube, and saw many of the major sites. In Greenwich, we had lunch at an awesome market where you could get just about anything from anywhere in the world....and we did: Ethiopian Vegetarian, Mediterranean fusion, French crepes, sweets, sushi, blah blah blah. We then checked out Greenwich Meantime which was also kinda cool. In the evening we had our first (and for some of us last for this trip) taste of fish and chips. Yum (ish).

Perhaps the most challenging part of our time in London was spent trying to figure out their incoherent public transit fare system. We dare you to even try to figure it out:

The pay as you go Oyster card gets you 10% off the boats, but not if you already got on the boat; and if you have a flat rate travel card, you spend more than the Oyster card, but less than a point to point, but you get 33% off on the boats. And if you are a kid, which is 16 or less, then you pay less than a travel card, but more than an Oyster card, but you can't get the child ticket on the bus so then you have to pay the adult rate. And the boat requires a 5.50 supplement each time you get off, but you can ride the rest of the transit system all day long for one rate...unless it's peak time.

Get it? We certainly did NOT. So a couple of times the credit on our passes was depleted and so they no longer worked, and we were told we had to pay more. But we had this really innocent looking Grandmother with us, who would do her best rendition of bewildered righteous indignation, and we would all get waived on.

Next we all headed up to Edinburgh, Scotland, to meet up with Aviva. As you may know, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (the largest festival of its kind) was in full swing at the time of our arrival. The place was thick with crowds, and you can't walk two steps without running into a street performance, or people handing out flyers for their performances in theatres all across the city. Our first stop was The Dreamcatchers, the Earl Haig/Claude Watson performance that Aviva was in. It was really special to see the group perform; they were amazing (but hey, we're not biased). Over the days that we were there, we saw a few of the many buskers, who seemed to try to out-do each other when it came to dangerous juggling, i.e., juggling machetes, hatchets, and even chainsaws (yikes, that was scary!). These guys were world-class, and could entertain street crowds in the hundreds for 45 minutes at a time, often effectively dealing with drunken nasty hecklers.

On our second day in Edinburgh, Eva headed back to London, and we did a day-hike up Arthur's seat at the top of the Holyrood mountain, walked along the mountain's edge and came down at Holyrood palace, the Queen's residence when visiting Scotland; although she didn't wanna invite us in, so we just stood in front of the palace in the rain :( We also walked the Royal Mile (the distance between the castle and the palace), and did a free walking tour of Edinburgh, which was amazing (Sandeman tours) and we could actually understand the guide despite the outrageous, but charming accent.

So that's it for this summer. We're now somewhere between Greenland and Iceland, way way up high. See you all soon.

With love,

RANAD

Paris

This was probably our nicest visit to Paris ever, well...except for our departure, which was insane. More about that later. What made this visit better? Perhaps, that we were sleeping in actual beds this time (at an Ibis), and not on someone's floor; and that we had recommendations on where to eat really well from our friends James and Laurie who had previously lived in the 11th district.

Paris is an incredibly cyclable city, flat and lots of bike lanes that take you everywhere, although sometimes you have to share the lane with maniacal taxi drivers and not-so-maniacal bus drivers; still, it's a tad disconcerting to be riding along and notice that there's a huge bus just behind you trying to squeeze by. On the first day we took a fabulous bike tour (FatTireBikeTours.com). Our British guide, Alex, was funny, knowledgable about politics and history; he gave us gory details about the French Revolution, and the heads that were cut off in Harmony Square (Place de la Concorde). He also taught us tricks to get comfortable riding in Paris traffic, including "total lane domination" where all 20 of us took up an entire lane of traffic, to the honks and insults of the drivers behind us.

On the second day, we rented bikes on our own and made our way across town. The city has over 50,000 bikes that you can rent for 1.70 Euro a day, with automated pick-up and drop-off racks placed conveniently all over. It was lucky that at the very time we were picking up our bikes there was a bicycle maintenance guy right there who showed us how to return the bikes properly (sometimes they don't click in place so easily), to avoid being erroneously charged 150 Euro for failing to return a bike. Let's hope we got it right!

Across Paris, on different days, there are always open air markets that include fruit and vegetable stands, baked goods, and clothing. Outside our hotel, there was an open air market where we picked up lunch for the day, including a whole roasted chicken (which we ate with our fingers outside Notre Dame; very barbaric, but very yummy). On the way to Notre Dame, we got a bit disoriented, and at one point, asked a local where it was. He laughed, told us to look way up, and he pointed right at it, chuckling about "Americans" (it was a bit embarrassing). Later we ended up at the Musée D'Orsay, where we took an English tour of the impressionist painters et al. We could make fun of the guide here, a bit, but we won't.

Our departure from Paris: Seriously messed up! It started out well. We arrived at the train station an hour and a half before our scheduled departure, reserved tickets in hand. We ate lunch, talked, and waited for them to indicate the track number that our train was leaving from. We waited and waited. The departures board clearly stated that track numbers could be posted as late as 15 minutes before departure. And then...15 minutes before departure they announced overhead instead, that this was the final boarding call for our train. We raced around to find out that we had to check-in on the floor above - which was self-evident to everyone else but us. We were repeatedly told, "Vite, vite," by various agents who hustled us through French departures, UK customs and immigration, as well as security. We were scolded by everyone, but particularly by the UK customs and immigration officer who told us, "You're going to another country, you know!" (of note, we've never had to clear customs and immigration in any of the other EU countries we've travelled through). Rob just kept saying to the officers, "Yes Madame, you're right, we're so sorry..." Incredibly, we made it onto the train with about a minute to spare.

We are currently flying across the British country-side on a high speed train. We just emerged from the Chunnel. It took about 20 minutes at a couple hundred klicks an hour. Pretty impressive. Next stop: London.

With love,

RANAD

La Suisse!

Switzerland 2011

Switzerland: A nightmare for the lactose intolerant. The chocolate, the fondue, the croissants, the café au lait, the Gruyère.....delicious, but difficult to manage for those of us with sensitive stomachs. Truth is, we've eaten better here than in Italy, which we can't quite figure out. Ideas anybody?

So we took the train from Milano to Lausanne where we settled in at a hotel not far from the neighbourhood we lived in seven years ago. We spent the next day and a half wandering around all our old haunts and were all a bit over-whelmed at various points. We went to the kids' old schools, our old apartment, and even the candy store the kids used to stop at on the way home from school. We also picnicked at the lakeshore (Ouchy), where we had a better view of the French Alps and Evian than we've ever had. We went back to one of the kids' favourite restaurants, Chez Nif, which sadly is now a Starbucks, a crazy-expensive Starbucks, i.e., $10.00 for a latte!

We had forgotten just how beautiful Lausanne is, and also a number of things have changed - like they now have no smoking laws, which means that you can actually taste your food when you eat at cafés and restaurants. More things seem to be open on Sundays; they don't seem to be advertising Canadian horse meat in restaurants as much as they used to (seriously, we used to be amazed by all the "cheval canadien" that was sold here). And, the new ultra-right wing party here is in full gear advertising "Stopper L'immigration Massive" and What face do you want Switzerland to have? - depicting exclusively white European faces. Still, the city seems to actually be a bit more diverse than it was seven years ago.

We spent a lovely evening with Diane's colleague, Elisabeth, and her family at their house in the country, and then the next morning, we dropped off Aviva at the train station, as she was heading off to London, via Geneva airport, to join her troupe that is heading up to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival shortly. We'll be meeting up with her there later on.

We were all set to head up into the mountains for two days of hiking, when we noticed how red and swollen Noah's right eye had become. Coincidentally our hotel was a block and a half from the Opthamological Hospital so off went Noah and Rob to get his eye checked out. What would a RANAD vacation be without a trip to the hospital? Turns out it was an infected stye, and he was given a script and we were headed out of town by noon.

We drove up to the highest altitude village in all of Switzerland, Chandolin, and stayed at a lovely inn (Plampras - say that 10 times fast). From here we did two hikes, the second of which was toward Arpitettaz. So about that hike. It was recommended to us by Elisabeth's über buff daughter, Juliette, who told us it was going to be challenging, i.e. for healthy but inexperienced hikers. She also said that we were just doing the first day of a two day hike, the second day of which would require a guide. So when we saw the signs warning "expert climbers only," we figured that only applied to day two. Wrongo!! After about an hour of very steep climbing, we hit a section of sheer rock at a 60 degree angle that required you to clamber up, pulling yourself along using these chains that were fastened to the rock. After about three switch backs like this, with much drama and tears from Diane, we arrived at the next section, which was actually at about an 80 degree angle (we are not exaggerating). Aaron and Noah were raring to go, but at this point Rob pulled the plug and said we're all heading back down. We doubled back a short bit, but then Noah found a safer alternate route, which appears to have been a goat path, as we ran into their droppings all along the steep, but grassy incline. At the top we picnicked amidst gorgeous vistas of two different glaciers. We continued on along a ridge and ran into a heard of goats (well actually they were sheep). Broken telephone moment: Diane called ahead to Aaron, "Tell Noah to be careful around the goats, if you get too close they can kick and bite." Aaron said to Noah, "Careful around the goats, if you get too close they can pick a fight."

On the way back down we met up with another group of hikers, and realized we had been taking the wrong path all along! Still, the experience was great, and from above the tree line and the clouds, we got to see the Dent Blanche, the Zinal Rothorn, and the Weisshorn.

Now we're on the TGV (high-speed train) to Paris, holy tamolly, is it ever going fast!

Talk to you later,
RANAD

Italy 2011 continued

Italy 2011, continued

So after Aaron was released on bail, we--
OK good, now we have your attention.

Our new landlady for the house we rented just outside of Florence, was extremely kind, but had a penchant for giving us "Dora the Explorer" style directions. For example, "turn left at the white van" (which was no longer there), "if this works, finish the road and then turn left", "go across the river, which isn't a river", etc. Add to this, she spelled the name of her town wrong, so our GPS could not recognize it. Also on the way there, we passed our first automated toll booth. The toll was 2 Euros. There was an "attendant" standing next to the toll booth, who kindly took our 10 Euro bill, inserted it in the machine, and gave us back 6 Euro. Now we're no mathematicians, but we have a hunch that he pocketed 2 Euros for himself. Perhaps the fact that he was in jeans and a t-shirt shoulda been a tip off to us that he was up to no good.

Somehow we got to our house and settled in fine. Our landlady took us back into town and brought us to a community dinner hosted by Casa de Poppolo. All across Italy there are these community clubs created by various socialist/communist parties. On the way in we saw many signs and communist posters from a different era, and even more current stuff too. The meal was very homey, with picnic table type seating, and loud families all around us. It was lovely.

The next day we headed off to Lucca where we rented bikes and rode on top of the walls of the city. Just to clarify, the city walls are very thick (15 meters wide), and have been turned into a park that you can bike or stroll on. We also relaxed in the park and read aloud our book, Brave New World.

Florence: the first day there was a tad overwhelming. The place is flooded with tourists and it was almost impossible to walk anywhere without being accosted by Schnochus venders (definition of Schnochus: crap that people sell to tourists); E.g., "10 Euro authentic paintings by Leonardo Davinci." Near the end of the day, we took a tour of the Santa Maria del Fiori and all climbed up the Duomo, including Diane whose fear of heights was relatively contained that day....she only asked a few times "What if there's an earthquake?" and when Rob reassured her, "This building has been standing for over 600 years," she replied, "Oh no! That's really really old, the railings could break". We were all rewarded for the 450 step trek with amazing views from the galleries and from the top of the Duomo. The next day we went on a tour of the Uffizi with an amazing Dutch tour guide named Klaus (artviva.com) who basically taught us Renaissance Art History 101. We went to the Academia to see Michaelangelo's David, with a different tour guide who must have missed her calling as a host of a children's TV show (she was super enthusiastic and cutesy) although the information was excellent, and at the end of the day, we got to stand in the presence of the David, very impressive. That day we learned that Boticelli's "Birth of Venus" was commissioned to hang in a 14 year-old boy's bedroom. If that's true, then as Aviva pointed out later, The David shoulda been commissioned for a 14 year-old girl's bedroom!
Dinner that evening was one of our funnest meals because we made it ourselves back at the lovely house we were renting; linguine with porcini mushrooms and tomatoes with basil from the garden.

A word on Gelato: It only takes one of us to convince the rest that we NEED to have gelato. Usually we've been able to keep it to once every one to two days. Usually.

Cinque Terre. We now understand why people say this place should be on your Bucket List. We did a 3 hour hike with spectacular vistas, winding through three of the five towns here, ending up at the beach at the end of the day. Oh, and we scored a free meal here too, although not on purpose: At the hotel, we had our worst meal ever in Italy - boiled flavourless vegetable mush, potatoes from a bag fried in reused oil, you get the picture. At the end, we politely let them know that we were not impressed and they refused to accept our money. On the last night here we had great pizzas and ended again with Nutella Pizza. Yum.

Now we're on a super high-tech train headed for Switzerland, enjoying spectacular views of the lakes and the alps, and trying to behave ourselves, but that's not really possible.

With love,
RANAD

Italy 2011

How do you know when you're in Italy? Maybe it's when the guy in front of you in the Budapest airport. starts yelling and gesticulating madly about his baggage surcharges and looks to the heavens and exclaims "Madonna Mia"! As most people know you're baggage must be a certain weight on these cheapo airlines, otherwise they fine you! He obviously never got the memo. On the plane, the flight attendant who spoke over the PA system, had a striking resemblance to a sex phone operator. Her overly breathy voice, drawling Hungarian accent, the occasional giggle as she told us where the emergency exits were, and the rhythmic punctuated pauses didn't exactly inspire confidence in airline safety. Upon arriving at the apartment/bed and breakfast where we stayed in Rome, in typical RANAD fashion we managed to set off the alarm for the entire apartment building. Thankfully, Alessandro, our host, wasn't fazed by it, and we couldn't actually hear it from the apartment.

After a delicious Italian coffee and Nutella bread, we headed out to spend a day at the beach. On our way out, we picked up cheese at a cheese shop, fruit at a fruit stand, bread at a bread store, you get the idea... Remarkably, the Roman rapid transit system takes you right to the coast for only 1.5 € each. At the beach, we swam, had a picnic, read and lazed about. We successfully ignored the pesky beach vendors, but the couple next to us weren't so lucky and got to see his entire kit layed out for them. On the way back from the beach, we had to wait for about twenty minutes for a bus. When the bus finally arrived, it was packed to the gills with other passengers. But we squished our way on anyway. Each of us were completely wedged between a mix of each other and complete strangers, to the point where Aviva didn't have to hold on to a railing or even support her own weight. And just when we thought you couldn't possibly fit more people on, the bus driver pulled over and picked up more passengers. The people at the back of the bus were throwing there hands up in the air and shouting "Basta! Basta!" (Enough! Enough!) Thankfully, we arrived at the station safely and headed back to Rome.

After a supper with an unplanned, uninvited accordion performance, we started walking around aimlessly looking for gelato. Upon asking some Italians for directions, they proclaimed "We live in Rome, and we're going for Gelato too. You should come with us!" So we did! And boy are we glad because they brought us to an amazing artisanal place, translated every flavour for us, and let us tell you, it was awesome gelato!

The next day we went on a tour of ancient Rome with our art historian guide, Silvia. She was like an encyclopedia of ancient everything! We saw the Colosseum, the Foro Romano, and where the Vesta Virgins lived. (Rob momentarily thought she said vespa virgins, so now every time we think of them, we can't help but imagine nuns on mopeds).

For dinner that evening, Aaron ordered ravioli stuffed with ricotta and pistachio. His first bite revealed some salty ground meat inside. When we complained to the waitress she looked aghast and asked if he was a vegetarian. To keep things simple, we said yes, and he ordered a veggie pasta. This being Italy, it took a while to come, so a very hungry Aaron had to sneak bites of Rob's meat dish whenever the wait-staff was out of the tiny dining area.

Okay, now we digress to list the top seven most peculiar vehicular behaviours we've witnessed in Italy thus far:

1) Man riding bicycle along highway without helmet, talking on cellphone.

2) Two year old child standing on front passenger seat of a moving car. Empty car seat in back.

3) Mother with two small children riding on moped.

4) Parked car with shirtless man and woman in car. Condoms strewn about outside.

5) Woman on moped, talking on cell phone headset, wildly gesticulating.

6) Motorcyclists everywhere weaving in and out between cars on the high way as if in video game.

7) Double solid yellow line on high way = Teeny VIP lane just for motorcyclists going in either direction.

Now on to Amalfi! Well first let's talk about the car rental. While Diane and Rob waited in line, they were kissing each other sweetly. The agent noticed and they stopped, bashfully. The agent smiled and said, "No no, don't ever stop. It's wonderful! Have fun in Italy." And she proceeded to give us a major upgrade on our car rental.

Our first night in Amalfi, in a town called Meta, our hosts recommended a local pizzzeria, where, literally all they serve is pizza; including (we're not kidding here) Nutella pizza for dessert. Each pizza was served on its own individual cookie sheet. It was extremely yum!

The following day we hiked up Vesuvius; an impressive volcano that is now dormant. Noah, taking a water bottle for himself, decided he would go ahead around the rim of the crater, but, tantalized by the vista, he didn't notice the "Access Prohibited" sign. After reaching a parking lot instead, he decided it wasn't interesting and would return back up. Meanwhile, the rest of us, who DID see the "Access Prohibited" sign, were growing a bit nervous, realizing that he must have gone ahead, and were greatly relieved to see him re-surface.

Later we took a tour of Pompeii. It really is remarkable how well preserved it is, especially in comparison to the Foro Romano. We learned that the city had numerous penises carved in stone or sculpted to ward off the evil eye, oh and also to indicate directions to brothels. On the way to dinner that evening, Aviva saw a dead bird (a major phobia of hers) and screamed and crawled on all fours into a gelateria. She has recovered, and they have thankfully removed the dead bird.

The next day our hosts sent us on the Malacoccola, one of the famous hikes, high up in the hills of the Sorrentine peninsula, from where we could see the sea on both coasts. If we could get a euro for every time we got lost and had to ask for directions from a local, we would have enough money to buy Diane a new iphone. (more about that in a moment). We ended up in Sorrento that night for dinner. It was a bit too packed with tourists, but still gorgeous.

On our last morning in Amalfi, we went to the beach for an early morning swim. We all had a lovely time, splashing in the waves while Diane took pictures with her iphone. Unfortunately, she somehow managed to drop her iphone in the ocean. It is currently recovering, but in critical condition, perhaps chronically impaired. We're not sure if it'll make it.

With love,
RANAD

Prague and Budapest

July 28, 2011

Hi all,

Skill testing question: Why does Europe smell like pee??
Answer: Hmmm...... I don't know.... Could it be because there are NO PUBLIC RESTROOMS? Yes, we've had our share of restroom-seeking challenges. First of all, we are grateful to Starbucks for being our free peeing haven. It's really hard to get used to the idea of paying 10 Korona (Czeck) or 1 Euro or whatever just to do your business. Now let's talk about Coffee Heaven, a coffee shop with free toilets... or so we thought. In this little joint we enjoyed mediocre coffee, left, came back 15 minutes later to use their washrooms, and got some serious sass - the guy told Rob "next time, go to Starbucks". The next day Diane couldn't hold it any longer and went back to Coffee Heaven to use the washroom. She hustled her way in, making no eye contact as the staff shouted at her "Hey, Hey!!", and on her way out the woman sarcastically said, "Thank you very much", to which Diane replied, "Thank YOU very much!" But our crowning pee saga was when we climbed up to the castle across the Charles Bridge in Prague. Rob dutifully followed the signs that read WC, 10 Korona coin in hand, only to find that it lead him to a locked washroom. Frustrated, we gazed upon the beautiful king's hunting grounds and thought "toilet!" We looked for a nice secluded bush where Rob (and then the rest of us) could finally pee.

So backtracking a bit, we got to Prague from Berlin by train and headed to our pretty apartment. Small notation, we don't speak Czeck and anyone over 50 doesn't seem to speak English. We can't even really read it. So even figuring out how to get tickets for the subway was a bit of a challenge and there have been several situations where we have resorted to mime and animal noises (to avoid eating pork or beef). Thank goodness for the people under 50, who speak pretty decent English, and it turns out you get subway tickets at convenience stores.

In Prague we took a free walking tour with a Canadian guide from Vancouver, who normally works in film, but has been living in Prague for the last year. We were a bit skeptical at first; a free tour of Prague by a Canadian 20-something named Crystal? Yeah right. But it turned out to be an awesome tour and we learned a ton about the city, its history, and the jewish quarter, for example, Hitler's plan to make part of Prague a museum about "the extinct jewish race."

That night we ate at a vegan restaurant near our apartment. It was fine....if you're vegan and enjoy salt and otherwise tasteless food. The next two nights, we opted for the "When in Rome, do as the Romans" policy, and ate awesome roasted duck, stuffed peppers, Czech dumplings, fruit dumplings, palacinky (pronounced palachinky), etc. and the kids shared a stein of Pilsner beer (the town of Pilsen is 45 minutes away).

On our second day in Prague, we went to the Museum of Communism, ironically situated above a MacDonald's and next to a Casino. It's located just off Wencislas square, the heart of the city, where events of the Prague Spring occurred (the failed 1968 uprising that led to two students' suicides in 1969) and the Velvet Revolution (successful pacifist uprising of 1989). Relevant sidetrack: At the top of Wencislas square we had noticed a seemingly out of place roadway with cars tearing along at break-neck speeds, making it dangerous to cross into the square. We discovered in the museum, that the Soviet's had planned this thruway so that they could get tanks into the square rapidly in order to stifle any uprising should need be. The museum itself lost something in translation, but it was interesting to see Cold War artifacts, the video documenting the police beating the student protestors even in 1989, and Soviet propaganda about the West.

On the train from Prague to Budapest, we didn't have to battle off any old people with canes, although to be honest, this time we were a fair bit more pushy getting on and finding seats for ourselves. Once we were safely seated, we proceeded to pull out whole loaves of bread, blocks of cheese, unpeeled carrots, jars of jam and pesto. We then enjoyed a delicious Philipp-Muller meal prepared by yours truly... RANAD!

And then we had to pull it together, because we were staying with Rob's family in Budapest, and they might not have appreciated our savage ways. So we acted normal for three days, while we toured Budapest with the cousins. The timing of our visit also coincided with Rob's uncle's 80th birthday, so on the second day, we all went for an extended and extensive lunch in the country to celebrate Rob's uncle Gyori (pronounced more like Dieu-ree). And then there was dessert. Birthday cake after birthday cake came flying out of the kitchen - dark chocolate cake, white chocolate cake, strawberry short cake, black forest cake, vanilla hazelnut cake, and even diabetic cake! Strong shots of Hungarian liqueur were had by all and pretty soon the language barriers made no difference and we were showing off our best silly faces, singing, and looking at Communist era advertising for sausage - check out the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watchv=9SIJmBd6D3o&feature=youtube_gdata_player

On the two other days, we had our own private tours of Budapest provided by our cousins, Borbala (nicknamed Bori) and Vera, whom we peppered with a gazillion questions, and they did their best to answer almost all of them. In general we managed the language barrier pretty well, as we had Rob's Hungarian, and a number of the family members there spoke English quite well. However, there was at least one noteworthy language mishap. Rob was talking about Toronto to his cousin Judit. He wanted to say that it's a hard city to live in because of all of the frustrating traffic (forgalom), but instead he said that it's a hard city to live in because of all of the frustrating revolutions (foradalom).

On the last day, we had a bit of a wild ride to the airport. We went in two cars - one driven by Rob's cousin, Miki, and the other by Rob's uncle, Gyori (whose 80th birthday it was). It was all going ok, until Gyori missed the cut-off for our terminal. Phone calls were flying between the two cars. Suffice it to say, that it culminated in Gyori pulling a U-turn on a highway, which did solve the problem, but both Diane and Bori had their hands covering their eyes and were saying "Oh my G-d" in their respective languages.

We all got to the airport safely, had a tearful goodbye and really hope to see each other more often than we have till now.

And now we're in Roma!!

We'll post again soon.
Love,
RANAD






Prague and Budapest

Summer 2011

July 24, 2011

Hi all,

RANAD here (as in Rob, Aviva, Noah, Aaron, and Diane writing together). Here's our first instalment of our Europe 2011 trip blog.

It all started off perfectly; we arrived at the airport with our bags packed, our passports and etickets booked, and our snacks prepared. We hadn't yet paid the cab driver, when Aviva turns to exclaim, "Oh my G-d, I left my costume at home!!" (she needs the costume for her upcoming performance in August at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival). So there was no choice; we had to go back and get it. While Rob and Aviva raced back to the house with the cabbie who should consider driving in the Indie-500, Diane, Aaron and Noah checked themselves in, anxiously firing off multiple texts to Rob and Aviva. At the house, Aviva dashed in and out in record time and, $183 later (the cabbie had no mercy), the two made it back to the airport two minutes before last-call for check-in. Meanwhile Aaron and Noah's backpacks needed to be wrapped in enormous plastic bags and sealed with duct tape, Diane and the boys tried several wrapping maneuvers, which we called "the mummy", "the parka", and "the birthday present".

On the plane we stopped in Quebec City. Thanks to a really awesome flight attendant, and beyond all post-911 odds, Aaron and Noah got to go to the cockpit and meet the pilot, co-pilot and crew! Aaron got to sit in the co-pilot's seat - it was way more comfortable than our seats. They showed the boys all the bells and whistles and answered some questions that Aaron had about flight school.

Berlin - We got to the apartment, which we would have never found had the cabbie not shown us - it was in a separate building called the "gartenhaus" behind the building with the street number on it - apparently this was evident to him by looking at the key. We realized we needed food for the next day, so Rob and Aviva went to get groceries at the local Kaisers, however, it was closed, so they brought back Vietnamese food instead....our first real German meal.

Our first full day in Berlin we went to the Jewish Museum. Designed by Daniel Liebeskind, it gives the history of Jews in Germany over the last 2000 years - including, but not exclusively about the Holocaust. What was perhaps the most interesting was the end, where they had the stories of current Jews living in Germany, a generation or two after the Holocaust. One in particular was of an Israeli guy who moved to Berlin in the 1980s as a young man and experienced preferential treatment from his housemates, which he enjoyed until he realized this preferential treatment was out of German guilt.

Dinner was at a pan-south-asian restaurant, where they told us that we should buy bottled water as their tap was rusty. The restaurant was uber modern and slick - hard to imagine that only the tap was rusty. At the next table were two transvestites who left half-way through. We told Aaron about them, but he didn't look till the second half of the meal; when two women were seated there. For Aaron, these were very convincing-looking transvestites.

Next day we went on a Hop-on-Hop-off bus tour in the rain (Berlin Circle Tours). They managed to make a pretty fascinating city unbelievably dull, by monotonously announcing random facts with no historical or cultural context. We hopped off at the Sony Centre where we dined on our picnic lunch in a back corridor, underneath an escalator as there is nowhere to sit and eat if it's raining. And as always in Europe, toilets aren't free, hard to get used to when what you pay for is sandpaper tissue. The Sony Centre is this gorgeous new indoor-outdoor complex in Pottsdamer Platz, which was formerly no-man's land when the Berlin Wall was standing.

We also got off at Checkpoint Charlie Museum and learned all about the Berlin Wall. The museum is a bit haphazard, and the biggest problem is that it ends with no detail about how the Wall came down and beyond. However, we learned a lot and had really interesting discussions about The Cold War.

Quick note about Starbucks. We feel we have given them plenty of money over the years and so we feel absolutely no guilt about going in there, hopping on their free wifi, downloading maps, finding restaurants, and then going elsewhere to have our coffees. We're in Europe after all; there's better coffee out there!

On our last day in Berlin we'd had enough with the museums and tours. We rented bikes and rode all over the city. It's an amazing city to bike in, with lots of marked bike lanes. In particular, we cycled along the Spree (river in Berlin, pronounced Shpray) and went to what remained of the Berlin Wall (a couple hundred meters), where various graffiti artists were commissioned to do murals. It's amazing how much more you can like a city when the sun is shining and you're not listening to a boring recorded tour guide.

Quest for the perfect German pastries: Based on our previous experience 11 years ago in Worms (another city in Germany....really), Rob has been on a mission each visit to rediscover the perfect hazelnut-chocolate butter tart, but to no avail. We have tried valiantly, sampling pastries from a variety of bakeries here. Last night we bought four different cakes and ate them all! Ok, they were small cakes. The poppy seed one came close, but not quite. Oh well.

Now we're on a train to Prague. The train is over-booked but we have reserved seats. Ha Ha Ha, as if anyone actually cares. En route to our seats, Noah asked Rob, "What if a little old lady is sitting in our seats?" To which Rob answered, "We'll show no mercy and kick her out!" When we arrived at our reserved seats, there was, you guessed it.....a little old lady and her little old husband, and...another little old lady with a CANE and her little old husband, all sitting in our seats. And no, we were incapable of kicking them out, though we really wanted to. But we did kick out the young man from the 5th seat, and we are now huddled in the aisles on our way to Prague.

As for being prepared for Prague, we know two words. We know how to say "yes" and "no", but we keep getting them confused.

We'll write more soon. Love,
RANAD

We're off

It's true, RANAD is off on perhaps her biggest adventure ever. Updates will be coming shortly. Now we have to pack,
Love,
RANAD

East Coast Part Two

Hi again, RANAD here with another Newfoundland update!

So after St. John’s we drove to Trinity. It’s a quaint little former fishing town on an inlet, with picturesque houses and a rocky shoreline; in a word, breathtaking. Even the three-story house we rented could have been in “House and Garden”. We rushed there from St. John’s in order to catch their “pageant,” an outdoor play that moves through the village, describing the history of Trinity. Some of the scenes were kinda hokey, but on the whole, it was very entertaining.

Later that evening, we went to “dinner time theatre”. First about the food: it was great if you like tasteless overcooked food, recycled mash potatoes, and edible petroleum product on your dessert. The show, on the other hand, was very entertaining, with great comedy acts, a magic show, and typical Newfie music; i.e. where the harmonies are gorgeous, the rhythms are cool, the fiddling totally rocks, and the lyrics tend to be only about adultery or drownings, and their love for Newfoundland.

The next day, we went on a stunning 5.3 km hike. It involved climbing up cliffs to look down over the shoreline where we saw puffins, picnicking on a hilltop, descending down into luscious bogs and back up again, and skipping stones along the glassy surface of Trinity Bay. The most physically demanding part of the hike was carrying our little 120-pound backpack named Aviva. Because Aviva had mono, after the first kilometer on flat ground, she was somewhat out of commission, so inclines were pretty much a no-go for her. So the guys, and even Diane on desperate occasions, took turns shlepping Aviva up the hills on our backs, managing to turn a 1 1/2 hour hike into a 4 hour one!

On our way across the province from east to west, we stopped in Gander to check out the Aviation Museum, touted as a “Find” in our guide books. You can hardly call this place a “museum” as it was more like walking through somebody’s attic, who’s really really really into planes. It was not well organized, but they did have some cool planes and cockpits to explore. We also learned that Banting - as in the dude who discovered insulin - died in a plane crash around here.

Next stop: Gros Morne Park, on the west coast of Newfoundland. The ads you see on TV do not exaggerate the majestic beauty of this place. We had less time here than we needed, but we managed to pack in a lot. The major highlight of our stay was an overnight sea kayaking trip with a guide. We had 3 kayaks and the most atypical Newfoundland weather imaginable: clear blue skies and 25 degrees. We paddled under towering rocky mountains, passed harbour seals within spitting distance, saw caribou grazing as well as tons of different birds, paddled along a mirror-like winding river, and then hiked the last part up to a waterfall. We filled our water bottles there and then paddled back to our campsite into the setting sun and wispy cotton candy clouds. And, were greeted by a welcoming committee of about 37,652 mosquitos.

Back at the campsite, we finally got to eat something, because we were absolutely FAMISHED at that point. Our uber rugged guide apparently doesn’t believe in eating or drinking, “I don’t really need to drink water.” We ploughed through 8 bottles of chili, all the dinner rolls, and basically ate everything else we’d brought other than the breakfast oatmeal.

Our guide was extremely knowledgeable; a walking, talking, paddling encyclopedia about nature. However, at one point he did turn to Aviva and say, “I really need to find a wife soon.........So what are your plans after you graduate?”

We paddled back the next morning and hung our clothing out to dry on our car and then headed to The Tablelands. This is a landscape where the earth’s crust got turned over, exposing the mantle. The mantle is rich in nickel, not allowing plant life to grow. The outcome: a Mars-like desert landscape that looks uncannily like Israel; a huge expanse of rusty yellow rocks and cliffs.

Let’s digress now to discuss some of Rob’s recent “toilet adventures.” While dining at a restaurant in Gros Morne, Rob went to use the WC. The toilet, sadly, got clogged, and one flush too many led to water over-flowing onto the bathroom floor. This wouldn’t have been quite so bad, except that the bathroom emptied out onto the proprietor’s laundry room, which had a full basket of clean white laundry siting on the floor. Rob did manage to save the laundry, but not his pride. Bathroom adventure number two, in L’Anse aux Meadows, even more embarrassing. From his bathroom stall, Rob misheard Aaron as saying that the public washroom they were in was empty, when in fact there was a 10 year-old boy there using the urinal. Thinking he was alone with Aaron, who had in fact just left the washroom, Rob started to sing animatedly to Aaron “Smoke on the Water” with a vocal guitar solo. Somewhere there’s a 10 year-old boy out there, who overheard some weird 40-something guy singing Smoke on the Water from a bathroom stall.

Back to the trip - After a gorgeous cruise in Western Brook Pond, a fresh water “fjord”, we headed up to L’Anse aux Meadows, the northern most point of Newfoundland. All along the highways of Newfoundland there is a serious road hazard. We Torontonians think we have it bad with the raccoons. Here, there are ongoing problems of moose unexpectedly crossing the highway and causing major accidents and even loss of life. Dusk and dawn are particularly dangerous, as they graze at these times and with the poor lighting, are very well camouflaged. We have seen 5 on the side of the highway so far.

L’Anse aux Meadows is the place where the Vikings landed about 1000 years ago. We met a bunch of really cool viking re-enactors who taught us a lot about who the first European settlers really were. One man explained to us the entire process of smelting bog iron ore into pure iron. All the folks working here are “experimental archaeologists” meaning they read about viking artifacts and then recreate them out of the same raw materials. For example, we met a guy who made a comb out of bone and horn. He also made a bowed harp; not something you can pick up at Long and McQuade. Aaron and Noah both played on some of the Norse instruments, impressing the crowd. We really enjoyed ourselves and learned a lot.

Now for our accommodations in l’Anse aux Meadows. When we arrived at the inn where we had rooms booked, there was a bit of commotion at the front desk. Apparently the manager had given away not only our rooms, but those of another group as well. There was only one room left for all 9 of us. When that other group put two and two together, they promptly dove into that room, slammed the door shut, and stated, “well we’re in it now!” and were never to be seen again. The manager suddenly sat down, put his face in his hands, and declared, “Why don’t you all just lay off! I need to relax,” and almost started crying. Knowing that there were no accommodations for miles around, we wondered where we roomless ones were to go. Eventually, a second man, whom we have affectionally called “the schleper guy,” materialized and suggested we sleep in the conference room; a large, dusty old space with a lumpy futon, book cases filled with university textbooks from the 80’s, an old TV, and a whole shwack of dilapidated armchairs strewn about. Shlepper guy shlepped mattresses and linens into our “conference” room. Later the manager told us we wouldn’t be charged for the room, but then proceeded to tell us this about 8 times, making us realize that he was a little bit senile - perhaps explaining why he had given our rooms away in the first place.

Today we drove all the way back down from l’Anse aux Meadows and are about to leave The Rock for Nova Scotia and PEI. More from us in a few days.....

Love,

RANAD

Off to the East Coast

As always, this is written by all five of us RANAD, RobAvivaNoahAaronDiane:
A tale of an acronym who decided to take the month of August to head over to the Canadian East Coast for yet another vacation.
So-o-o, let's get you caught up on what we've been doing of late. It took us 7 hours to fly to Quebec City; 9 hours door to door! We could have f@#$ing driven there in that same time! Why, fellow readers, you might ask? Well apparently it was "Monsoon Season" in the province of Quebec so our planes were grounded on various tarmacs due to outrageous rain along the way. But we made it to Quebec City just in time for a blackout that lasted several hours. This meant that both check-in and supper had a litle 19th century twist. We checked in by candlelight and were handed glow sticks and were sent to our rooms. Oh yeah, we had St. Hubert's BBQ delivered to our room where we dined by glow-stick light on the bathroom floor; a glorious supper with limited cutlery. At some piont or anoter during the blackout, Grandmommy (Eva P) arrived at the hotel, and we all tumbled into bed after a warm welcome.
Highlights of Quebec City... well it depends on who you ask. Aviva could give you the inside scoop on the workings of Hotel Dieu hospital. She spent chunks of the first day and a half getting herself diagnosed with mononucleosis (not the end of the world but still kinda sucks). Aaron, Noah, and Grandmommy spent the first day on the town exploring the city. They took the funicular up to the Haute Ville, saw the awesome vistas and the ruins of the original fortress, and had high tea at the Chateau Frontenac. From this point on in the trip Aviva has been joining us some of the time (often via piggyback) and some of the time has stayed back at the room.
Now back to the highlights of Quebec City. We toured the Citadel, and went to Les Chutes de Mont Morincy. We had thought to rent a van for this excursion for $150, but there were none available; so we had to resort to using public transit, which meant that on a $3 ticket we were able to go to Mont Morincy, go back to the hotel to pick up Aviva, return to Quebec City for supper, and return to our hotel for the night.
The next day as we were heading off to St. John's Newfoundland, we gorged ourselves on chocolate-almond croissants at the airport and scared off everyone else at the gate with our pig-like croissant-eating manners. We next parted company with Grandmommy and headed off for St.John's. During our layover in Montreal (which for some reason was further from our destination than our original departure point in Quebec City) we started reading The Hunger Games (an awesome family read).
St. John's: Yes, it's true, the stereotype about Newfoundlanders is correct; they are outrageously kind, or as Rob calls it "cult-like-love-bombing-friendly". Not only do the drivers let you in and stop for jay-walking pedestrians, but on one occasion on a main street, a guy in a pick-up truck ground to a halt, got out of his truck, walked over to our car, picked up Aaron's camera case that he had accidentally dropped out of the car, and asked us "is this yours?" Every moment is a chattable moment here - just when asking for directions or bagging groceries at the grocery store.
Our first day here, we went to the most eastern point in North America - Cape Spear. It is crazy gorgeous, so we took way too many pictures. All over the park their are signs clearly marking that you should NOT go off the trail as there are high waves and the sea can change suddenly. So, of course, we got off the trails, hiked right down to the waters' edge, and along a tiny grassy trail mid-cliff. To our mothers/grandmothers: it wasn't really THAT dangerous, but the story wouldn't be as good now, would it?
We also have been to Signal Hill, which over-looks St. John's Harbour, and for centuries was used by the military to send fire signals. But the most important signal to be sent there, was one to Marconi in 1901 -the first wireless trans-Atlantic signal from England. Today, we went to "The Rooms", a beautiful museum and art gallery where we learned about the history of Newfoundland and its strong Irish roots. They also had a visiting Art exhibit about the impact of oil on people and the environment. The artist chose St. John's as the first Canadian city to display the work because it is an emerging oil economy.
By the way, we have been eating really well here in St.John's. Who would have thought? Tomorrow we're off to Trinity on the Bona Vista peninsula to an authentic Newfie fishing village and for some local live theatre.

As always with love,
RANAD

Israel Entry 4

So Eilat......Eilat. Eilat. Eilat. Eilat was not our favourite city. But, to be fair, we came to it from an absolute highlight of the trip, Mitzpe Ramon and the Succah Ba Midbar where we enjoyed the wilderness, the stars at night, a vegetarian retreat, and the wonders of the desert. And then we plunged into this loud, touristy, 24/7 resort town with all the trimmings of any such place. The first day there we went to the coral reef reserve where we rented snorkeling equipment. In our, oh so Canadian way, we inquired about the cleanliness of the the mouthpieces. We were assured that all clients returning equipment are required to dip their mouth pieces into a special cleansing bath next to the front desk. We stepped outside, and the first thing we saw was a not-so-hygienic looking man washing his feet in said “cleansing bath”. We headed straight to the washrooms and we each thoroughly cleaned our mouthpieces with warm soapy water! After the cleaning fest we headed out into the sparkling blue waters of the Red Sea where we snorkeled for a couple of hours, admiring the coral and the gorgeous fish. It was really fun to swim together as a family, pointing out various things to each other as we went along.

The next day we took a tour to Petra, Jordan - the ancient Nabataean city carved out of a soft stone canyon. Crossing the border into Jordan was an event unto itself. We were given all kinds of instructions from the Israelis: you can’t bring any food or water with you, your tour guide will be in cahoots with the horse and camel handlers and will try to get you to pay for things that are already included in the price, etc. As it turned out, we brought food and water in, and our tour guide did not try to get us to pay for any extras! More on the actual border crossing: the oddest part of the whole thing was that we handed in our passports to the Israelis who gave us some stamped piece of paper. Then, with no instruction, we were left to walk across this 500 meter, fenced-in, no-man’s-land between the two countries. On the other side, we went through security a second time, and had our passports stamped up some more.

After a brief and very boring tour of Aqaba, Jordan (where they pointed out various hotels, most of which are still under construction, and one of which is considered a “six star hotel” - whatever that means) we headed off to Petra through some amazing desert terrain. Along the way, we stopped at a truck stop where we peed in real middle eastern toilets: two foot rests and a hole in the ground + a spray nozzle to tidy up afterward. We also had outstanding Arab coffee - they put cardamom in it, and it is so good. After the stop Aaron decided to use the toilet on our bus (mostly out of curiosity), unfortunately he proceeded to get stuck in the washroom and we had to get the driver to stop the bus and he and the tour guide worked for several minutes on freeing Aaron. Ultimately it was Aaron himself who worked the lock and got the door open!

When we arrived in Petra we got a very good, low key Bedouin guide named Madji, who toured us around the place. At the outset there was a bit of an altercation between Madji and one of the horse handlers who offers rides down the last 800 meters through the canyon and to the entrance to the city itself. No one on our tour opted to go by horse, and as a result, one of the horse handlers started yelling at Madji in Arabic. The only word we could glean from his tirade was “Arba”, the number 4. We all figured he was saying something like this: You schmuck! You promised me at least 4 of these suckers would ride my horses! ......or words to that effect.

We walked down to Petra through this amazing canyon, while Madji explained how the Nabataeans figured out a way to bring water down to their city through these extensive clay water pipes that they carved into the canyon walls. We learned about their gods and some of their rites, although much of this is still speculation as there are many questions remaining about this ancient people.

The last major site we visited while in Eilat was a hike in the Red Canyon as well as taking out kayaks in the laguna. Both were low key, but fun activities. Of note, the Canyon was completely deserted, so we wondered if everybody else knew something we didn’t about the Canyon. We emerged unscathed, had an amazing meal in a Pan Asian restaurant called Ginger, and headed off a bit late for bed. Little did we know that Thursday night would be party night in Eilat and that the “Sport Hotel” across the Laguna, would be blasting loud Arab/Israeli pop music and shouting over the mic until 4:30 in the morning. Noah and Aviva were finally able to fall asleep after midnight by moving themselves onto the floor in the hall of our apartment, Diane fell asleep around 2:00 on the living room couch; Rob was only able to fall asleep after the very last performer closed the show at 4:30 in the morning......and Aaron slept through it all.

We drove straight from Eilat to Tel Aviv the next day; traversing a huge swathe of desert, and transitioning into farm land as we got further north. We dumped our car at the airport and took a cab to our apartment. About where we’re staying: we are on the fourth floor in this amazing penthouse right in the heart of the city in a very funky neighbourhood. Also staying with us in our place are Bubu and Schnitzel, the owner’s cats. They spend most of their time on the roof outside, petrified of us, and we have worried on several occasions that Schnitzel had died due to dehydration. Another of our responsibilities is to care for his plants. Every morning Rob or Diane send Aviva out to the roof top garden, watering can in hand, to water the marijuana plants. Yes....you read it right, our landlord has a number of marijuana plants that he is licensed to have in his garden. Why? Because he is a film maker working on a documentary about the medicinal uses of marijuana. His film will air in early October in Israel and through the process of making the film, he has become quite involved in advocating for the medicinal use of marijuana in Israel to treat a number of medical disorders. He now also attends medical conferences, and brings the plants along for demonstration purposes.

Here in Tel Aviv we have visited with family and friends, dined amazingly well, and enjoyed the sites and sounds of the city. We saw our family friends, the Bar Selas for a delicious Friday night dinner and a 21st Birthday party; we are now in the 4th generation of a friendship that dates back to Budapest!. We spent shabbat with the Kofetz family; Rob’s dad’s cousin’s family. Michael (Rob’s dad’s cousin) and his wife, Sarah, made a huge feast for us. Once again, we have a long history with them also dating back to Budapest. A theme here. While there, Sarah told a story about when Rob visited them when he spent the summer in Israel at the age of 19. Apparently while waiting for the bus, he had taken off his shirt. Once he got on the bus, someone told him in Hebrew to put his shirt back on, at which point he claimed not to speak Hebrew (ah, the recklessness of youth).

The next day we rented bikes and rode all over Tel Aviv and to Jaffa. It’s a very bikeable city, and they have done a lot in the last few years to create bike lanes that are safe - a good thing given that you take your life in your hands when you go on the roads here....and that’s in a car. As per our experience in the past, the bike rental guy was able to give us an outstanding dinner recommendation (a place called “Sheila’s”) when we returned our bikes to him.

Yesterday we hung out at the beach. We took two chaise longes and an umbrella. At some point Aviva and Diane were approached by a guy who asked them in Hebrew to pay for the spot, at which point they claimed not to speak Hebrew (sound familiar?). Unfortunately this time the guy spoke English....so we told him we had no money and he went away.

Last night our family friend, Yoram Barsela took us to Mini Israel, a reproduction of much of Israel’s major sites and regions, but 25 times smaller than the real thing. It was the perfect way to wind down this amazing trip, as we saw so many of the places we had been to. After, we went to Abu Gosh for incredible, authentic Lebanese food.

Today we went to an arts and crafts market here in the city and we are now heading out for our last dinner. Tomorrow we fly out!!

Love RANAD.

Israel Entry 3

So, we got to Ein Gedi.....without any of Jeremy the GPS’s help; a good choice since most of the drive was again through the West Bank and he gives us the silent treatment when we do that anyway. Noah was particularly happy about Jeremy being shunned to the glove compartment as he has serious sibling rivalry with Jeremy (Noah has quite the navigational skills, as many of you know).

In Ein Gedi we stayed at the Kibbutz/spa/resort with breakfasts and dinners included. Breakfasts and dinners were in fact plentiful, fresh and quite good....so much so that we helped ourselves to “extra” breakfasts, that we stored in our knapsack until lunch every day. Note to future travelers: remember not to squish hard boiled eggs, yogurts, and buns in knapsacks already containing large bottles of water, unless using separate containers. We’ll leave the appearance of our first lunch to your imaginations - serves us right for yet again trying to beat the system!

For our first full day in Ein Gedi we went on a water hike to a hidden water fall (not the usual touristy 30 minute hike). In Israel it is popular to hike in rivers...yes, in the rivers not beside them. We thought this very strange when we heard about it in Canada, but having done it, it makes perfect sense. The heat is oppressive, but the mountain water is cool and refreshing, and we frequently immersed ourselves, in our clothes, and continued hiking. At the outset of the hike, Aaron noted some black creatures that we now believe are water slugs, but he worried that they were leaches, and was reluctant to step on the water, preferring to hop from one stone to the next. Eventually he was reassured and joined the rest of us as we slogged through the water. When we got to the hidden water fall we went for a lovely swim, but then quickly continued up another half hour to the fresh water pools that feed the river. The water comes down from the hills of Jerusalem, leaching through the rock over a period of days to years, and first emerges at these pools, cool, filtered and clean enough to drink. On the way up, we heard a cute little boy yelling out to the echoes in the hills. We called back to him a couple of times. Within moments of our arrival at the top, a person who we initially thought was a 12 year-old boy, but turned out to be a 20-something female park ranger, accosted us angrily saying, “Didn’t you hear me yelling at you earlier?!” Once again, we were in trouble with the Israeli authorities- this time for not responding appropriately to a park ranger; it turns out that the yelling child we'd hear earlier, was no child, but said angry park ranger. Apparently we were not supposed to have gone up to the very top after 2:00 pm. We consequently received a ranger escort back down the mountain. So we sang religious songs in 3 part harmony in the hopes of either entertaining her, or annoying her. We wondered if she was particularly angered by us because she doesn’t like kids, so Aaron renamed her “The Kid-Stop-o”. After the hike we went for our first dip in the Dead Sea and all enjoyed the floating, but not the stinging in various body parts.

The next morning we awoke at 3:45 am!! You’d think this would be an annoyance, but not for us; we did it on purpose. We got in the car and started driving further south.....to....Massada for sunrise. The hike is a steep 45 minutes, and you definitely need a flash light as the Snake Path is not lit up and it was pitch dark at the beginning. Even in the dark it was still quite hot, but manageable. When we got to the top, we sat on an ancient wall overlooking the Dead Sea. We watched the sun come up over the mountains of Jordan. It was beautiful. We then walked around the grounds of Massada, discussing the story of the 967 people who died there in order to be free and not to become Roman slaves. We took the cable car down; a mere three minute ride.

Back at the kibbutz, we had breakfast (and fed the knapsack more carefully its lunch), and then went off to bed for two hours. In the late afternoon, we headed to the spa of Ein Gedi, where we swam in the pool, smeared ourselves with mud and took typical tourist pictures of ourselves. The next day we went the spa once more so that we could soak in the Dead Sea again, and then we made our way to Mitzpe Ramon.

Mitzpe Ramon is a small desert town on the ridge of the world’s largest “erosion crater”. We stayed at a place in the desert called “Succah BaMidbar” which means, Huts in the Desert. This was the most amazing place we’ve stayed at so far. It is way outside the town, in the middle of absolutely nowhere, in the Negev Desert. It consists of several straw huts each quite isolated from the others. A gong is rung twice a-day, when it’s time to eat amazing, plentiful vegetarian meals in the main succah. The first morning we went on a hike to the crater and saw its immenseness. It reminded some of us of the Grand Canyon - vast, inspiring, and untouched. In the afternoon we met up with a guide, Oded, who took us off-road cycling along the ridge of the Canyon, as well as into the desert. He was the best guide we’ve had to date - knowledgeable, fun, and totally rugged. He described the geology of the place, pulled up a plant whose leaves have oils and salt and with a few drops of water can be lathered into a kind of soap, and found some camel poop that he opened up and dissected; bringing it up to his nose and taking a long sniff, claiming it smelled fine (camels are herbivores).

In the village of Mitzpe Ramon, we had a few adventures. It is a weird combo of artist colony and army base. So, in the main square we saw oodles of Israeli soldiers, young men and women, stocking up on junk food, buying pizza and falafel, and generally hanging out like the normal teenagers that most of them are. Around the corner from their is an artists’ cooperative and a true french chocoatier, where we nibbled on home made truffles and sipped on chocolat chaud. While driving through the town, we found ourselves being chased down by Israeli authorities yet again. This time the police pulled us over and we had no idea why. Turns out Rob ran a stop sign and made an illegal left turn all in one combo move. The police officer seemed quite irritated as Rob tried to explain that we were looking for a restaurant and got confused by traffic. The officer wasn’t impressed and said, with a thick Israeli accent, “If you were an Israeli citizen, I would take away your license and take away your car and make you take the bus. But since you are a tourist I will just give you a warning. Now, for restaurant recommendations......” - and he proceeded to tell us all the local restaurant options we could choose from. This is now our prime example of the Sabra (Israeli native); prickly on the outside, but sweet on the inside.

The next day we drove to Eilat, which is where we are now, reeling with culture shock as we have gone from a silent desert retreat to a booming beach resort town.

Until the next time....RANAD!

Tuesday August 17, 2009

Israel entry 2
Jerusalem

So, obviously we made it to Jerusalem safe and sound. Jeremy, our GPS, was not happy with us driving through the West Bank, and so he gave us the silent treatment the entire time. And then, suddenly, once we arrived in the city, he woke up from his passive-aggressive slumber and decided to start giving us directions again.

Our apartment here has been great. Great location. Great lay out. Great price. Great cockroaches. OK, we’ve only seen two, at the beginning, but they are massive here in Israel, so they are pretty scary. Consequently, we come home from our touring every night and have done “Makak checks” (Cockroach checks). By the way, both roach murders were committed by our hero, Rob. The first, squeezed between two bottles of olive oil. The second squashed with his foot (well....with his sandled foot; he’s not that barbaric).

The first day in Jerusalem we took a comprehensive guided tour of the old city, although not necessarily all that well organized. Our enthusiastic guide, Dorit, explained tons; everything from the coming of the various Messiahs to the current political situation, with a little about local plant life along the way. We went to all four of the Old City’s quarters, met the Armenian Arch Bishop in a little shop, hung out in all of Jesus’ stops along the Via Dolorosa, saw the Western Wall, where the kids placed notes they had written, saw a bunch of Mosques, one synagogue, and went into a gazillion churches. The number of churches we saw per minute kept increasing in our minds as we subsequently relayed our day’s site seeing to others. We also toured the Western Wall tunnel, which was most excellent thanks to a superb tour guide and really cool archeological work, and we ended with a tour of the Arab Shuk, which was totally cool. At one point during the day we went into a Messianic church, and received a little lecture from a New Yorker turned Jews-for-Jesus. The lecture started out factual, but was followed quickly by a healthy dose of full-on attempted conversion. We got outta there quickly. Of course, it goes without saying that we saw many Roman ruins. At one spot, there was a bunch of highly under-supervised kids, one of whom was whacking at a Roman pillar with a mallet; okay, it was a toy mallet, but still...

That evening we ate at an amazing Armenian restaurant in the Armenian Quarter of the old city. On the English menu they offered pieces of chopped lamp (perhaps they meant lamb?). On our way home from dinner we bumped into Rob’s dad’s cousin Michael and his wife, Sarah, who were in town from Tel Aviv to celebrate their 37th wedding anniversary. In the same block, we next ran into our friends from Toronto, the Newmans, We don’t typically run into as many people we know in downtown Toronto as we did that night in Jersualem!

The next day we had to buy Rob pants. You see, he somehow thought that he could show up at this Bar Mitzvah we were invited to in shorts and a t-shirt. So Diane had to explain to him that he is no longer 12 years old, and that grown men actually dress like grown men when they go to functions. While we waited for his pants to be altered, we ate lunch at Sam Bagel’s, which in the rest of the world is called Sam’s Bagels; one of many interesting alterations to the English language here. While on the topic of alterations in language, the hardest part about reading Hebrew is reading the English words transliterated into Hebrew. The other day, Diane saw a business and said “Oh look, that place is called ‘Disco-net’, I guess you can dance and go on the computer there!” It turns out it was really a bank called ‘Discount’ (both look the same when written with Hebrew letters). At the end of that day, we visited the museum of Islamic art, which is in the neighborhood we’re staying in. The first exhibit we went to could have been called Islam for dummies; it was very basic. But the exhibit on swords, shields, and armour, from the Persian and Ottoman empires was very cool. That evening we had Shabbat dinner at our friends’ Lee and Shira, who graciously answered about a million questions that we had been saving up for them on Israeli politics, army duty for Orthodox Jews, and so on.

Saturday morning we took a walking tour of the new city of Jerusalem, offered by the city. This time, our tour guide was less than desirable - speaking in a monotonous, quiet and uninspiring manner. He was far more organized, however. It’s amazing that the city of Jerusalem is this ancient ancient place, and yet the modern city only began in 1860. After the tour and a quick brown bag lunch, we went to watch a time elevator movie. Time-elevator is a company that makes video experiences for ancient cities. They take you back in time thousands of years, teach you the history in an animated way. All the actors were dubbed into English, including a 14-year-old boy who had the misfortune of having a woman dub his voice; he sort of sounded like he was on helium. For the afternoon we went to the Newman’s, grazed and hung out with them until the end of Shabbat. It was so fun, and we rolled out of there at the end of the evening.

The Newmans have a nephew named Ilan who has a vast amount of knowledge about the history of Jerusalem. On Sunday, he took us on a wonderful tour of the rooftops of the old city. We learned a lot about the current situations in Israel, as well as a ton of historical information. After having taken three tours of the city of Jerusalem, we feel as though we have barely scratched the surface of this incredible city. We then took a tour of the City of David, just south-east of the old city. This tour goes through underground tunnels that used to be the water system for the city of David, 2700 years ago. During the entire walk through the tunnel, we were submerged in water up to our thighs. The enthusiastic tour guide kept turning around to explain stuff to us. Since the tunnel was very thin, we all had to walk in single file, and so every time he would tell us something, we would have to relay it back to the people behind us who then told the people behind them, and so on. It was like a real life version of broken telephone. We figured that when he told us there were calcium deposits on the wall of the tunnel, by the time the last person heard it, they would think that’s where you can make bank deposits.

That night, we went to the Ellis Bar-Mitzvah. Aaron and Noah’s friend Eitan had his Bar-Mitzvah in Israel, and it was really lovely. It felt like a Heschel school reunion, as there were a number of families here in Israel from the children’s school. We had an amazing time schmoozing with everyone. On a funny note, Aviva was seated directly next to some of Eitan’s cousins, who had a bickery moment. The sister yelled at her brother about how disrespectful he was for not wearing a kipah to a Bar-Mitzvah. They had an elaborate argument in Hebrew, assuming that no one could understand them.

The next day, we all went to Yad Vashem for an emotionally-moving and informative journey through the history of the Holocaust. It’s hard to find words to describe it without sounding trite. We didn’t want to miss anything, so we only got part-way through the museum. We’re hoping to return.

Yesterday, we went to the Soreq caves in Beit Shemesh. The caves are just outside of Jerusalem, and so we took a sheirut to get there and back. A sheirut is a cross between a public bus and a taxi. People get on and request where they want to go, and the price is negotiated accordingly. Our bus driver was driving barefooted. On the way back, he kept yawning and shaking, and we realized he was falling asleep. So Diane asked Rob to start firing questions at him in Hebrew to keep him awake.

As for the Soreq caves themselves, they contained huge stalactites and stalagmites. We were forced to take a tour in Hebrew, with a guide who had a thick Russian accent. Through the five of us understanding various segments, we eventually figured out the full picture. That is, they were the result of millions of years of water dripping through limestone, leaving behind tiny deposits along the way, creating these formations. The caves were gorgeous, true natural wonders. This was the most impressive part of the trip, in Aviva’s opinion. We felt as though we were in a Dr. Seuss novel, because the formations were so surreal feeling.

We had dinner at this funky courtyard near the old city. At our table, there were a bunch of cats begging for food (Jerusalem, apparently, is the stray cat capital of the world). At one point, an off-leash dog chased one up a tree where we were seated. Rob was convinced that the cats, in the tree just above, would poop on his head. He insisted on wearing a napkin, and finally settled for a safari hat for protection. Then, one of the cats started having a coughing and sneezing fit, but eventually, the cat quieted down and fell asleep. We were all certain, at this point, that the cat had died, and Rob became convinced the dead cat would fall on his head. In explaining the situation to the confused waitress, we learned how to say, “We are afraid that a dead cat will plop on his head,” in Hebrew.

Today we are driving to Ein Gedi, an oasis near Massada and the Dead Sea.

Love to all of you,
RANAD

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