Hotel Palace Netanya

... the hill some more, through Arab residential neighborhoods, down long flights of stairs, past schoolkids at play, laundry hanging out windows, and satellite dishes and water tanks. We got another good view of the shrine and gardens, this time from the very bottom looking up the hill. We walked through the German Colony neighborhood, now full of upscale restaurants in stone architecture from a hundred years ago.

We decided to take the "subway" back up the ...

... of thirty people, based on the Britney Spears theme we had jokingly (yet seriously) been instructed upon. A strange Shabbat tradition.



Next, we headed back down south to the large Bach Nahal base for infantry soldiers, a large amount of those being Lonely Soldiers (those who had made Aliyah). It was a very large unit with a great heritage and reputation, which all units in the IDF strive for and seek to uphold. One morning, we got to fire two new weapons, the Negev ...

... mention is that Nazaret Illit is so absolutely dirty that as I write and remember, it's hard for me to believe my own memories. The buildings are covered in black, rain washed stains, the sidewalks are half-built, almost no grass, just light coloured dirt. The grass that did survive the heat wasn't cut and had the look of begging someone to just pull it out of the ground to put it out of its misery. Buildings had the impression they were about to collapse, people hung their ...

... with possibly the longest peyot in the hall. Brendan translated between us, while I asked him questions like his opinions on non-Orthodox Jews, why the Charedim dress the way they do, and who appoints a rebbe. He was happy to answer all, and we had quite a crowd observing us - I suppose to Charedi youth, seeing a Jewish man in non-black clothes is quite a novelty

If Brendan thought taking me to a Tish would open my mind to Judaism, he was very wrong.

... you can store in. One of the nice things this tool does is to show you your flight information after you enter the airline and flight number. The other great thing I liked about this tool is that it lets you export an ical feed for your calendar. Now that I use Yahoo! mail and calendar to store all the info and booking details, TripIt to organize all my events and plans, the ical feed to synchronize everything into one calendar, I was looking for ...

... a higher discipline? What's in it for me!? I'll only agree if God places me above those whom he hasn't chosen." And they give birth to the fallacy that Jews - or, in some people's minds, only the very religious - are "special", "better than others", "more human". Thus, the first word I would use to describe religious Israelis is: "spoiled". And much of family-prioritizing Israel has the money to buy its children consumer goods and clothing that promote being ...

... narrow cobblestone streets built up and down a steep hill, very old buildings all piled on top of each other. Now, it is a series of art galleries, cafes and small shops - very colorful. We stopped at a famous Israeli sculptor's museum/gallery - Ilana Goor - she lives in and has a multi-story studio/gallery along one of the little streets that has been completely renovated but still retaining the old cobblestone walls. It is decorated with her art works ...

... and hebrew menus, which is nice so Ari doesnt have to read a menu to me at every meal. Ari warned me that Israelis are mean people, but I have been lucky so far. I have had rose petals falling on me from a balcony when walking around Ari's neighborhood and people have been so nice and accomodating so far (I will let you know if it stays that way or not). I couldn't watch the UGA game, but I was watching it on GameTrack for a little ...

... committed suicide in the MKSH the other week. i wasnt in the slightest bit suprised to hear the news. What with the pottery class they do on Wednesday afternoons, the psychologist type people that were milling about for a while, and the general gourmless look on peoples faces as they wonder round aimlessy, I just wonder when they'll start having group psychology with scary nurses who dont et us out to play

... and watching movies seemed such a luxury! Flew into the capital Tel Aviv and was picked up (Aahhh, another luxury) by Talmor's uncle Shimon. A long drive up to Netanya where they live, about an hour north of Tel Aviv. A home! Oh it felt good to put my bags down and be amongst family again. Talmor's family are in one word delightful. We stayed with Shimon and his wife Sarit in their lovely home for the first few nights. The food was amazing, we gorged a bit ...