The previous week was action-packed. On Friday afternoon we drove from Haifa to Rosh Pina (a town of about 3,000 in the Upper Galilee) and visited for a few hours with one of the urban planning faculty at the Technion.
Rosh Pina is one of the oldest modern settlements in the country and was founded during Ottoman rule. Meirav (our host) baked not one, but two cakes, and gave us a quick tour of the old town along with her husband and one of her sons.
In the old part of Rosh Pina there was a medical research station that was part of the successful effort to eradicate malaria in Israel. We got coffee and treats at the cafe shown above and talked about coming back later to hike up the canyon visible from the overlook to see the spring.
The Galilee region is really fun to drive through. The landscape looks so different from anywhere else we have been here. From Rosh Pina, we drove about another 35 minutes to Metula and spent the night at Adena’s cousin’s apartment.
Metula is a town of about 1,600 on the border with Lebanon. This part of the country gets a lot more rain and is therefore, much greener. The girls know cousin Avi from his visits to the States, and he is currently studying computers and Japanese at Tel Hai College located just south of Metula. We arrived around dinner time and Avi made a fantastic meal. I told Adena it was like going to a restaurant. Later we had family movie night featuring The Pagemaster with Macauley Culkin. Saturday morning it was chilly out, but I got up early to go running. Here is a picture of the view and you can clearly see the border with Lebanon.
We had a leisurely morning, then spent several hours at Kibbutz Dafna southeast of Metula. Here are some photos of us frolicking in the Dan river, along with a guy pushing a baby in the strangest stroller I have ever seen.
We had a great time visiting with Avi and walked up to the Dado Overlook before heading back to Haifa. Saturday morning was also when we heard the news about the shooting in Pittsburgh, coming on the heels of the Kroger shooting in Kentucky and the spate of intercepted package bombs. It is surreal to be here while all these things are happening in America.
To the extent possible, Sunday and Monday were normal workdays, with the exception of meeting Adena’s friend Jessica (who lives in Jerusalem, but was in Haifa working on a story) for lunch. Adena and I worked at home in the morning, then took the Carmelit down to the German Colony neighborhood. We had been wanting to try a Lebanese restaurant called Fattoush for a while, and we finally made it happen.
On the way back, we popped by HaZikron Garden just to check it out.
As it turns out, Tuesday was election day and all the schools and daycare facilities were closed. Adena and I were caught a bit off-guard and decided to visit Ramat HaNadiv in Zichron Yaakov for half of the day.
We walked around the memorial garden and took a nice family walk along the Spring Trail. It was a nice outing overall, but we did have a bit of a meltdown towards the end.
Wednesday was Halloween. Israelis don’t celebrate it, so we all felt a little like we were missing out. The girls and I made Halloween punch and spider cookies after school. The punch called for gelatin, which made it goopy (no idea why that was part of the recipe!). We tried to drink it, but quickly gave up. The spider cookies on the other hand, were a big success!
We made them from Double Stuf Oreos (although they have something called “Extra Creme” here that is not quite the same), pretzel stick legs, M&M eyes, and peanut butter (or frosting) to stick on the eyes. Yum!
Adena hates scary movies, but each year we watch one for Halloween and we take turns choosing it. This year I picked Hereditary which was hyped as an innovative take on the horror genre, but it was massively disappointing. Aside from being super slow, I had no idea what was happening until the last 30 minutes and then came the mad rush to cram in too many details and too much background. The constant, scary music was over the top and there is literally nothing new here for anyone who has read Lovecraft stories or watched the first season of HBO’s True Detective. I was also considering Alien, Candyman, and Donnie Darko (she hasn’t seen any of these) and any of them would have been much more satisfying. So much for trying something new.
On Friday morning I left the house at 5:30 am and took the bus down to Dado Beach for the Haifa 10K.
I’m really glad I did it and I was even able to shave over four minutes off my time from the Champaign 10K I ran back in April. The constant walking here combined with running every two or three days has really helped my conditioning and I feel good. So much so that it is hard to imagine going back back to our sedentary lives and driving everywhere. The race route was along the waterfront and I realized how much fun it is to run in a pack of people. I can totally see why wolves find it so appealing.
I had hoped to post this twelve hours ago, but Friday afternoon we had a bit of scare. Aviva was playing in the bedroom and something happened. She couldn’t open her left eye and we eventually figured out where we could take her on a Friday evening. The cab was about to pull away when Adena discovered that Aviva could miraculously open it again and seemed to be able to see out of it. Never a dull moment!
Keeping It Israel 