Imperial Tel Aviv

... narrow hill of about 7 kms.<br><br>Rest of ride went okay with many brief rain bursts.<br><br>After lunch my hammy died, and i felt like quitting, but my thoughts of the young soldiers that I had had dinner with on Saturday, and what they are doing for Israel, and the great time I had singing with them, and that combined with thinking of these young kids ...

6 days to go<br><br>Tons of topographic maps were downloaded, cracked and installed.<br>Dozens of routes were re-calculated.<br>Two hundreds of ...

... He asks me what I like about Toronto. My favorite things are the diversity, the embracing of Other Cultures. The fact that you can be anybody and do anything, as long as it isn't harmful to others, and it's cool.<br>I point to a rock "lets say you have a fascination with this rock." Not only would it be cool in Toronto, but you could probably find a group of people, a club, that does nothing but celebrate the glory of this rock. I betcha you could ...

... Why would you ever want to be there?' <br><br>The crossing itself was relatively uneventful, having become routine in the 10+ years that it has been possible. Nonetheless, as we crossed through no-man's land between the 2 countries, we felt an internal sense of anticipation, and we were heartened by the Hebrew-English sign welcoming us. We were carefully scrutinized, both physically, with a full luggage search, as well as personally, with respect to our desire for ...

... but long enough before the light changes for vehicular traffic to make it across. <br><br>Traffic lights display yellow and red together just a moment before turning green, which drivers use to begin accelerating.<br><br>Taxis: ask to use the meter or negotiate the price up front, your choice.<br><br>Taxi/bus lanes: In Jerusalem, there were often special lanes of traffic downtown for bus and taxi traffic, which sure made getting ...

... was really hard to stand up once you were floating.<br> <br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br ><br><br>I'm pretty sure I don't need to mention how salty the place was ... but there was salt EVERYWHERE!<br> <br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br ><br><br><br>Afterward, we went and played in the mud! It is supposed to have all sorts of health benefits and makes your skin all nice and soft!!<br><br> <br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br ...

... they succeeded, and of course, they were already gone. One kid told me that he had heard how Sayeret Malkal trains over the course of a few years for a single mission.<br><br><br><br>It would have been very interesting to hear this "battle" raging in the middle of the night, but I had not been aroused from sleep, one reason being that I was the tzatan (team leader) this week. Every week, each of the nine 11-person teams has a new person in this role. Since we ended up going out into the ...

From Jerusalem we left for the west bank with the intention of spending the eve in Bethlehem, birthplace of Christ our savior. Turns out Mary chose a ****in expensive location to be ******** out the son of god so we opted to just stay for a couple of hours or so before heading over to Tel Aviv on the mediteranean coast. The West bank is part of the remaining land that the palestinians have, that along with the Gaza strip in the south west of the country. I say have ...

... there is hope for peace in Middle East :-) it seams there is just a relatively small group of fanatics on each side, pouring oil in the fire of the conflict. I will stay at DN&amp;A's for at least one more night, maybe two. maybe i will go to Bethlehem than, or directly to Ein Gedi, I do not know. Tomorrow, I will take a trip through the Old City. The good old tourist tour of the various holy sites. I will try to shoot some pictures than - if I think of it.

... we get to Israel. This prompted me to ask a flight attendant about our kosher meals (since I realized our seats are different) &amp; we were notified there were no kosher meals on board (although we had ordered them). Later, a head attendant asked to see our itinerary to note that the kosher meals were requested and were not provided. &amp; they only had vegetarian meals for those who ordered. We were taxi-ing and on the runway for almost an hour with the traffic waiting to ...