yellow wildflower season

it is yellow wildflower season in Israel and this is a rare post with a couple of mar pics in it.

we went hiking south of jerusalem-at bet guvrin. about a decade and a bit ago, i went there on a weekend bus tour. the only problem was, being all of my late teens, i was definitely NOT paying attention to where i was. this meant that the last 12 years were spent trying to remember where on earth this one particular park was. bet guvrin has these crazy caves. i had wanted to bring adam here, but in my mind it was farther into the negev desert and i couldn't locate it.

there are a variety of trails and routes. school children ran amok over the site along with busloads of tourists. the parental units opted for the long route. clearly none of us thought this through because we all got various sunburns and levels of crankiness at the end of the 5 mile snackless sojourn. the lone building is a church.


the israel parks authority is denoted by a baby ibex (see left)
and, because we tansiks must always take at least one lizard picture a hiking trip, here's my buddy the chameleon, who clearly knew it was yellow wildflower season.

Yad Vashem

Several years ago, they opened a Holocaust museum in Jerusalem. Time had never permitted me to visit until today. We went early this morning, parked in a proper makeshift parking spot in the underground garage, and ventured through several seas of tour groups in chinese, spanish and english. The main portion of the building itself is concrete and tent shaped. Inside is dark, with endless multimedia--you are bombarded and surrounded by images from the time you set foot in the door.

For me, the beginning felt extremely claustrophobic and antsy. I nearly ran through the first few rooms, trying to make space (perhaps symbolically as well as physically) to absorb the powerful information. I wondered, to myself and aloud to anyone who would listen, whether this was part of the planning---to create a disconcerting trapped feeling, pushing you out of your comfort zone and into the history of a people who were completely annihilated. The statistics were gruesome, as were the pictures. At every turn, there were stories of each family with heirlooms, stories of the resistance, stories of fighting against fate. My soul began to ache about half way through as we walked past a glass covered area of the floor beneath which were thousands of shoes from those who had been taken to the gas chambers. A guide nearby said the glass had been put down to allow people to peer at all the shoes, but now people walked around the glass like it was sacred. Passports, suitcases, pictures and stories lined the walls. Tears flowed from visitors I slunk past. My heart continuously broke at the thought of the hatred that it takes to commit such atrocities and the ability for that kind of hate to continue to exist throughout the world today.

At the end, there is a room--wherein are books upon books of the names of all the dead. It is a room full of light in comparison with the rest of the exhibit-and it left me feeling as through the volumes were heaven's great list.

Adventures in Israel: Hula Nature Reserve

My parents are big fans of national parks. They always have been. We used to spend time camping in the Great Smokey Mountains and visited quite a few of the others on road trips over the years. In Israel, a lot of the ruins are national parks as well. My parents bought themselves an annual pass and, as they joked while we were there, it more than earned itself during our visit. Most of the places we went either they or I had been before--however, there was one place none of us had been: the Hula Nature Reserve.

In part, this is because the security situation in Israel for the better part of the last decade has involved flying objects coming from the north (ie Lebanon) and the Hula is within range of that. Although we weren't there during the right time of year, the reserve was still really lovely and reminded me a lot of some of the marsh areas of the Everglades. I spent way too much time looking for alligators.

The Hula Nature Reserve is a bird santuary. See, the migratory patterns of most European and West Asian birds takes them south to Africa for the winter. The layover destination of all these guys is Hula...over 200 different species. So in the high season there are tens of thousands of birdies hanging out with the muscrats and water buffalos (click the photos below).

There was also a video that went with the tour. You sit down in what looks like a really small and very old movie theater and put on 3D glasses...which work suprisingly well over real glasses... Soon, the music starts and you realize that not only is this a 3D movie, this little adventure also has other effects...the chairs move as the birds fly...when they fly past you there is a whoosh of air in your face. Unfortunately, the birds went through a rain storm at some point during the movie, which meant we went through a rainstorm, got shot in the face with water, and some strange little contraptions binked me in the backs of my calves. I say bink because they reminded me of the little mallets used to play that persian instrument called a santour (hammered dulcimer)...anyways, it was all very sensory and really pretty dope. There aren't usually things like that in the parks here and it was a really neat experience.

So, back to my alligator thing. I absolutely expected to find them...and go figure there weren't any, BUT i did find something else that was undoubtedly grateful for the lack of animals with chompingly big teeth: world's most enormous catfish.

Yes, more catfish--about the same size as the ones that live right by the Baptismal area on the River Jordan....These bad boys were ALL over the place and would jump out of the water.

It was a beautiful and super calm place. I can imagine it gets crazy with people during bird season---but the quiet (between large groups of American tourists) was really calming.

And just for good measure...here's A and I on the boardwalk.

Stories from Israel: Akka

On our second day in Israel we went to Akka (also known as Acre and Akko). It is a World Heritage Site and pretty cool place. Lately, there's been an increase in gang violence after about 4 pm, so we confined our visit to the day. We took a sherut (like a multi-person taxi) and then walked into the Old City. The Old City reminds me a lot of Jerusalem---small narrow streets and cramped 'souk' or bazaar like areas. One of the great things about it being a world heritage site is that they have done work to make tours available for reasonable prices. We went and got a multi-site pass which allowed us to visit the Crusader Fort, Turkish Bath, Museums, and the Templar Tunnel.

The Crusader Fortress is in varying stages of excavation

On the left are the Crusader Latrines, to the right is a Tombstone and below is Adam with some of the carved arches.

Touring around we climbed a wall and looked back over onto the Old City. From there you can also see part of a nifty looking cemetary:

Akko is alway full of smells (fallafel, schwarma (usually lamb---dripping fat from its turning skewer while you shave thin strips off into a pita), zatar and spices and the fish in the market), sounds (honking, loud discussions mostly in Arabic, and music from the cars of 20 year olds who have nothing better to do than drive) and stray cats. The Turkish bath featured a movie which is way over the top stereotypical, but funny and gives a sense of the history related to a ruthleess ruler named Al'Jassar, for who a green domed mosque in Akko is named. We didn't go in there because the guy wanted to charge us 10 NIS each. Okay, so i admit that's only $2.50 USD, but the thing is that 6 months ago it was 5 NIS a piece. I blame it mostly on Adam being so blonde.  :)