Author: bevwilso

On Tuesday night (January 1st) we will leave Jerusalem around 9:00 pm with all our stuff and travel to Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv for a 1:00 am flight. I am feeling excited about going home, so much that I don’t mind the three planes we will have to take to get back to O’Hare.

When we booked these tickets, the route was Tel Aviv to Paris, then Paris to Chicago. However, a few months ago Air France unceremoniously emailed that we would now be stopping in Detroit. I’m sure the Motor City is lovely in January, but adding a stop like this while traveling with kids can be deflating.

We have a ten hour layover in Paris and have arranged for a whirlwind tour of the sights. A driver picks us up at the airport and takes us from tourist attraction to tourist attraction, before returning us to the airport. The girls and I have never been to Paris and Adena has not been there since 1992. Hopefully we can stay awake long enough to enjoy it.

We should land in Chicago around 9:00 pm on Wednesday and will be staying at a hotel on-site. In the morning, I will take an Uber to pick up the minivan we reserved at Alamo. We will pack our stuff one last time and drive to Champaign. We’ll have to try and remember the code for the security system, and hopefully the spare key is still on the garage.

Thursday promises to be busy. In addition to driving from O’Hare, we need to visit Verizon and AT&T to re-establish cell phone service and get new American phone numbers. We also need to clean seven months of dust off everything and buy groceries.

On Friday, we visit Aviva’s new daycare classroom (same place, different building) and the campus parking department to restart our parking permits. Millie goes back to school on Tuesday, but there is no room in the afterschool program she had been doing. Adena and I will check out a similar one at Chesterbrook over the lunch hour next Tuesday.

It has been a productive and enjoyable sabbatical for me and Adena and the girls have had a wonderful time. I am finding it more difficult to leave than I expected, but I am also excited to get back to our house and our lives in Champaign-Urbana.

Lots of things happened since my last blog post. We are happy to report that our security deposit for the apartment we were renting on Sderot Yitshak was returned in full. I always wonder what the “sweet spot” is when moving out of a place. You want to clean well enough to get the deposit back, but not so much that you throw your back out.

On December 21 we moved out of the Airbnb on Margalit Street in Haifa. As we were packing the car, Millie moved the book she loves (Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls) from its place on the counter and it was left behind in the apartment. Luckily, the Airbnb host lives and works in Jerusalem and goes to Haifa on Fridays to check the apartment, so we are hoping to meet her this weekend to retrieve it.

Paul came up to Haifa to help us transport our stuff because it would not all fit in the Picanto. I drove back with the girls, while Adena went with Paul. We intentionally drove out of Haifa using the route by the water for one last look at the waves.

The drive was fine, despite a bit of traffic in Tel Aviv. There was also a little rain and a rainbow on Route 1 near the Latrun exit. We made it to Paul and Laura’s in time for Shabbat dinner and everyone was there: Kayli, Ziv, Amalia, Avi, and Noam.

Saturday was a lazy day. I got in a run (down to one per week now) and we watched Smallfoot as our weekly family movie in the afternoon.

Sunday we headed down to the town of Mitzpe Ramon in the Negev desert and spent three nights at a hotel one block from the edge of the “crater”. It reminds you of the Grand Canyon and apparently, it was formed by water and erosion rather than a meteor impact, hence the quotes around the word crater.

We had a great time despite what felt like a five hour drive down. South of Be’er Sheva (Beersheba), there were road signs warning of camels wandering up to the roadside, lots of military vehicles, and drivers going way too fast around winding desert curves. The room layout was perfect with a separate sleeping area for the girls, a bathtub, and a kitchen table for working. We found some dinner at this unassuming restaurant down the street, but the food was amazing and the staff was super nice. (It was so good, that we went back the last night we were in town.) When we got back to the hotel, we saw this bus parked by the door and I assumed it would be hard to sleep.

Sure enough, this busload of young adults were loud, but the noise stopped promptly at about 10:30 pm.

The next day was Christmas Eve. The breakfast spread at the hotel was not as large and varied as the one at Ein Gedi or Marom Golan, but had more things I actually wanted to eat. After breakfast, the girls wanted to use the indoor pool. I never remember to bring flip-flops and so we all walked down the stairs and across the courtyard in bare feet. There was a fully clothed (sweatpants, hooded sweatshirt, cellphone) lifeguard sitting in the corner and some of the windows were open to help with the fog that had formed due to the temperature differential. After the pool, we walked from the hotel to the Mitzpe Ramon Visitor’s Center where were learned about things to do in the area.

The grey area in the bottom-right corner of the image above is the “crater” and we walked back along the rim trail shown in the green dotted lines. The weather was sunny and in the sixties while we were in Mitzpe Ramon and the view was spectacular.

There are Nubian ibex roaming free all over town, but they seem to be pretty harmless. Millie and Adena continued all the way up to Camel Hill (Camel Mount on the map above) while I took Aviva to the playground near the trail. They enjoyed the view from the top of the lookout.

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We rested a bit in the hotel, then headed out for a 90 minute jeep tour down in the “crater” with Amnon Bakar. There were times when I wondered if the terrain and rocky dirt roads would be too much for his Mitsubishi Pajero and I was relieved when he whipped out a pair of sunglasses as we drove directly into the sun. He was talkative and told us a lot about the Bedouin who live in this part of country including government efforts to resettle and assimilate them into Israeli society. Amnon was good with the girls and we even got to see the sunset from a ridge.

After the tour, we had a WhatsApp call with grandma and grandpa, then had pizza and salad in the room.

The next day we visited an alpaca farm just west of the “crater”. This was one of the best experiences of the entire trip. It was very laid back and self-guided with a few roaming alpacas and llamas that you can feed by hand with the bags of pellets you get with the admission ticket.

There were three other English-speaking kids who were staying at one of the cottages on the property and the girls made friends quickly, petting Blintz the border collie and holding her puppies (Potato is shown here).

There was a swarm of birds that kept flying overhead in these awesome, fluid formations. The sound of their wings was really cool. We got coffee, tea, and hot chocolate at the little cafe but Aviva was too small for the horse rides and Millie was way too big for the alpaca rides, so we didn’t do either. It was mostly an enclosed space for the kids to roam and explore without much supervision and it was very nice.

In the afternoon, we took the Picanto down in to the “crater” and collected colored sand in bottles.

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Then we dashed across Route 40 to the Vulture Lookout, which is part of a quarry reclamation effort.

We were able to climb back out of the “crater” in the Picanto and then went to the pool for a bit. As I mentioned, we went back to the same restaurant as on the first night in town and Aviva fell asleep before the food arrived. We had been out in the sun all day and the girls were both exhausted. They ended up going to bed about an hour earlier than usual.

The next day we packed up the car, walked over to the rim for one last look, then headed back to Jerusalem. We stopped at the Ikea in Be’er Sheva to pick up a gift card and had lunch. When we first arrived in the desert, the girls made this checklist of things that we might see (with some help from me).

As you can see, there was lots of rocky sand, cacti, sand dunes, and even a chicken, but no dragon glass or lizards. Maybe next time…

If you have ever binge-watched a show, you know that the most exciting things always happen during the next-to-last episode of the season. That leaves exactly one episode to sort through the fallout and make sense of that penultimate one. Last week was our next-to-last week in Haifa.

We had a great time with Aviva’s friend Itamar and his parents last weekend. I made potato latkes (see photo below) and the kids played and played. Loudly. So loudly that I wondered if the downstairs neighbors would complain.

Adena already described our family adventure to Tel Aviv on the train in a previous post. On Monday Aviva went back to gan, but Millie was still out of school for Chanukah. She and Adena went out for breakfast at Cafe Cafe while I got in some work in the morning.

When it was time for Adena to start working, Millie read for a bit. That afternoon she and I went for a hike down Wadi Lotem, which starts near the Haifa Zoo. Because Haifa is mountainous, there are steep ravines on both sides of the ridge where it is impossible to build or develop. They have lots of trees and shrubs, and since 2015 have been officially maintained as recreation trails. During the rainy season, they become (intermittent) streams and when it is really dry, they can burn and bring wildfires into the heart of the city.

About halfway in I noticed that the ground was torn up. At first I thought maybe it was the rain, but then I realized it was wild boars. I didn’t want to scare her, so I picked up a really thick “walking stick” and we pushed forward. We walked along for about one mile and were having a great time. When we stopped to have a little snack Millie thanked me for bringing her out there and said it was “amazing”. A few minutes later, we saw the first wild boar. It grunted and ran up the slope, but Millie freaked out. She wanted to go back even though we were closer to the end than the start of the trail. So, we backtracked and I was able to calm her down. That is until we saw the second wild boar. This one was closer and not as hidden by shrubs as the first. It was big and you could see its tusks, but it just stood there. We kept walking and eventually made it back to the trailhead. We were able to talk about it then and now in retrospect, she’s able to laugh about having seen wild boars.

The next day everyone went to school and Adena and I headed down to the Azrieli Mall and eventually found Arik Tires (אריק צמיגים) underneath the parking area. We needed to get the leaky tire fixed ourselves because the car rental company is basically useless.

These guys were incredible. They were very nice and responsive. I took a picture of this religious-themed poster near their office. One of them even gave me and other customers who were waiting small cups of flavored coffee from his own private thermos. They were playing 80s music like ABBA and Toto, which made it more surreal. The tire could not be repaired, but they gave us a used tired for 100 shekels and we were on our way.

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This week I gave my keys back and said goodbye to folks at the Technion (I’m still finishing up a few things from home). The first photo above is of Haifa Bay as you approach Aviva’s gan. She and I talked about how we will only be in Haifa for another week, so we should enjoy seeing the ships out on the water.

On Wednesday night we met Adena’s cousin Zehavit for dinner. Zehavit is vegan so we wanted to find a vegan restaurant. We took the Carmelit for two stops to get to Masada street.

The restaurant, called the Rabbit Hole, was definitely a hole-in-the wall place and I am pretty sure they are not used to having young kids as customers. We ordered and it took a looooong time for the food to arrive (about an hour). There is basically one guy who functioned as waiter and cook. Everyone in the restaurant had dreadlocks and at one point there was a funky smell that wafted in from the outside seating (the restaurant used to be called Doobie’s). We had no idea what to expect. As it turned out, the food was delicious and I really liked the music they were playing. Home made hummus, fried mashed potato balls, and a truly amazing black lentil salad were the highlights. Zehavit lent Adena her coat (until we are back in Jerusalem) and gave Millie one of the rings she was wearing. I also learned a new word: satlan (סטלן) vinaigrette, which was one of the salad dressing options on their menu.

We moved out of our apartment (in the above slideshow) into an Airbnb for a week. The move is almost complete and seems to have gone well, but has taken up the better part of a day for me. The new apartment is a little less than one mile south of the old one. The girls are sharing a bed, it is dry (did I mention that our former apartment became quite damp once the weather changed?), and the heat works well.

This apartment is not as shiny and new as the other one, but it has way more character and charm. I just hope the girls don’t break any of the delicate things on the walls and shelves. It also has a huge window with a view of the Azrieli Mall, Student Beach, and the Mediterranean Sea.

We fly home in 24 days, and so the last two weeks have been intense. I have been trying to wrap up some work items and we have been moving down the list of remaining things we would like to do/see/experience in the north of the country. Two Sundays ago Adena and I dropped the kids off at school and daycare and drove thirty minutes south to the Tishbi winery located in Binyamina. Their website is not great, but we had a very nice time. Maya led us on a short tour of the facility, but since the harvest season (there are two each year) was over, there wasn’t a lot to see other than the barrel room.

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There were several other small groups there for the tasting, which consisted of six red wines paired with dark chocolate squares. The host explained that dark chocolate opens your tastebuds and so you take a sip, eat the chocolate, then drink the wine. We liked the Cabernet Franc best, but at 130 shekels per bottle, we didn’t bring any home. We picked up some of the chocolate and a few bottles of red wine to give to folks at the Technion as parting gifts. We sat next to a group of sisters (maybe between 50 and 60 years old) originally from Scotland and they were delightful. One of the sisters made aliyah decades ago and now lives outside Tel Aviv and the others were visiting from Aberdeen, Scotland and Florida. We ended up talking about scotch and I learned that in Scotland, you drink it with water added—never with ice because it compromises the flavor and never neat. After the tasting, Adena and I had a lovely lunch at the restaurant on site to recover from the tasting. The food was good and the bread that came with meal was fantastic. I had the second best shakshuka of the whole trip there (Greg Kitchen in Jerusalem is still #1!) and sitting under the vine-covered pergola was pleasant. We bought a loaf of the bread from the onsite bakery on the way out and headed home.

That week, a few kids in Millie’s class had birthdays and so their parents pooled resources and took everyone to the Elite chocolate factory. In addition to birthday cake, each kid came home with a bag of mini Pesek Zman and Mekupelet bars.

On Friday, Aviva had her Chanukah celebration at daycare. We arrived a few minutes late and she was in tears because she thought we weren’t coming. Eventually she warmed up and we all had a great time. I even participated in the “dance of the dads” where we paraded in wearing paper short order cook hats and dancing with trays of sufganiot.

That afternoon we drove down to Jerusalem and had a belated Thanksgiving dinner with Uncle Paul, Aunt Laura, and all their kids. It was really nice to see everyone and the girls had fun making hand turkeys, but three-month old Amalia was the undisputed star.

Last Sunday, Adena and I took a lunch break and visited the Tikotin Museum of Japanese Art here in Haifa. It is basically next door to Aviva’s gan and we had been wanting to see it. We enjoyed the paintings and woodcuts more than the ceramics and even picked up a few gifts at the museum shop.

That night we all took the bus across town to Millie’s class Chanukah party. The kids lit candles for the first night, played games, and ate lots of candy (and pizza). It was interesting to see another part of Haifa and surprisingly fun to be out at night with the girls. Schools close for Chanukah and so on Tuesday morning, Millie and I took the Carmelit down to the Hadar neighborhood and took in some of the street art on Masada Street.

We wandered over to HaZikaron Garden near city hall and there was a street protest happening. I’m not sure what the protest was about though. We picked up Aviva from daycare and after lunch we drove up to Merom Golan resort in the Golan Heights. This area is less than 40 miles from Damascus, but in order to get there one would have to backtrack 4.5 hours and enter through Jordan. Politics.

The drive up was easy, except for the sharp turns and switchbacks once you start the ascent (around where Route 90 becomes 91). I drove up and Adena drove home on Friday (more later). The scenery is amazing, but we were worried that the weather would be a problem given that rain was in the forecast each of the three days we would be there. The room was fine, with a separate sleeping area for the girls and forced-air heat! We were so happy to be warm and dry that we barely noticed that the room didn’t have cable TV (considering how much they charge, this is a definite oversight). Each evening there was a communal Chanukah candle lighting in the lobby with all-you-care-to-eat traditional (red jelly filling) sufganiot. The girls made friends with some kids their age (Noa and Tamar) who happen to live in Haifa.

I drove us up to Mount Bental, which is a dormant volcano with a military bunker on top. We spent a lot of time exploring the bunker and taking in the view.

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We rested a bit in the room, then toured the Beresheet apple factory down the road from the hotel. It was a lot of fun to see the operation and we even got to eat one of the apples from the cryogenic refrigeration room.

The next day, we drove down to the Hula Valley and toured one of the nature reserves. The 3D video at the beginning was crazy, with moving seats and jets of air that shoot into your face. The self-guided tour was just what the girls needed, even though it was a little rainy.

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The girls got their faces painted at the Agamon Market down the road and we had a late lunch before heading back up the escarpment.

Friday morning it was super foggy and rainy. We had the hotel breakfast one last time, packed the car, and headed out. The plan was to make a quick stop by the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee). Adena drove and we had to proceed very slowly, given the weather conditions and the fact that we were in a Kia Picanto (negative horsepower). Luckily, swinging by the Kinneret allowed us to bypass the steepest parts of the descent and we were able to at least see the water. It was raining when we got there with huge waves. We got gas and were about to get on the freeway to Haifa, when the rain stopped and the sun came out. I made a U-Turn to go back and take a quick drive by Mount Arbel when we heard the unmistakable sound.

We had a flat tire, but I was able to put on the doughnut pretty easily. I could hear the call to prayer from the mosque down the road and an older Arab man and his wife stopped to ask if we needed help. Of course it started raining again as soon as I got the leaky tire off, but soon we were on our way. Here are a few photos of the fog on Mount Arbel.

If we ever get back here, I would want to spend some time in this region. We had a quiet Shabbat dinner last night and drove down to the beach this morning to give the rocks and shells the girls collected that won’t fit in the suitcase back to the sea. We each made a wish out loud as we threw them into the water, which was kind of nice.

Right now we are preparing to host Aviva’s friend Itamar and his family for latkes and candle lighting this evening. Here’s a photo of them at the Louis Promenade overlook.

It is going to be hard for them to say goodbye. I think it will be hard for the whole family to leave Haifa in two weeks. You can bet that we will not go quietly though.

A few weeks ago, we visited with Adena’s cousin Zehavit (and her super cute dog), who is an artist based in Tel Aviv. Many people—Zehavit included— are amazed to learn that we have been in the country since June and have not yet been to Tel Aviv. There is a local saying that goes “the best thing about Haifa is the road to Tel Aviv” which underscores how little respect and consideration Haifa gets as a city.

On Wednesday I took the train from Haifa down to Tel Aviv to give a talk at the university and meet with a few faculty. The trip was surprisingly easy. I had taken the bus from our apartment down to the train station area a few weeks ago for the 10K race, and so I knew where I was going, how to navigate the tunnel underneath the station, and how to get to the entrance near the water. The clerk spoke perfect English (the customer in front of me was talking to her in English) and I bought a round-trip ticket―that included all day bus fare―for 40 shekels (just under $11).

This bundled ticket is only available if you pay with cash or credit card rather than the Rav Kav smart transit card that we use for the buses. The train was on time, but really full. I walked through five or six cars and it was standing room only. I later learned that for an additional ten shekels you can buy a seat reservation, which would be totally worth it. I’m just not sure how one claims a reserved seat.

Standing for an hour is not ideal, but at least the scenery was fun to look at. I got off at the Tel Aviv University stop and spent about an hour walking around the massive Yarkon Park.

Moving from right to left in the image above, there is a playground, a lake with a hot air balloon ride, outdoor exercise parks, a climbing wall, two dog parks, and some public art.

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I made it all the way down to harbor area, which is really clean and upscale (there is a Hugo Boss shop on the promenade). That area felt a lot like Suburban Square in Ardmore, PA and I am regretting not taking a photo of the public restrooms which are repurposed shipping containers.

Then it was time to head to campus and finish preparing for my talk. Unfortunately, I wasn’t paying as much attention as I should have been and got on the right bus (there are two bus companies operating in Tel Aviv), but moving in the wrong direction.

I arrived on campus about an hour later than planned, but I got to see a different part of the city and it was fine. The guards at the gate were a little confused by my camera bag and lack of a Tel Aviv University ID card, but luckily I had my passport. I learned about the dissertation work of one of my host’s PhD students and saw a little of the Architecture School facilities. The talk was well attended and I was able to successfully maneuver the toughest questions from the audience (students ask the most challenging questions here too). Afterwards, I chatted with my host and a senior colleague of hers at a restaurant on campus over edamame, pickles, and beer. There are a lot of similarities between their institutional context and mine and I already have plans to go back in a few weeks for a more focused research discussion.

I appreciated the taxi she ordered for me later, but the train station was a little hard to find in the dark. The ride home was just as crowded, despite the double-decker train coaches running during the evening rush hour. Luckily a bunch of people got off at the Hadera West stop and I was able to sit for about half the trip.

My initial impression of Tel Aviv is that it is a mix of New York and L.A. in that it has the really tall buildings and urban amenities of the former, with the beaches, sunshine, and laid-back feel of the latter.

Thanksgiving is a non-event in Israel, but inexplicably, Black Friday sales are wildly popular. Here are a few photos from a quick trip to the Grand Kanyon Mall yesterday.

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Adena actually bought some clothes at H&M, which is shocking if you have ever been shopping with her. We watched “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” on YouTube (heavily edited and only about 20 minutes long) yesterday and made our annual donation to the Eastern Illinois Food Bank.

There was a huge thunderstorm last night that woke everyone up. When it rains, it pounds on the skylight glass near the bedrooms and makes it impossible to sleep. Here is a photo of one of the large snails that seem to be everywhere now.

Today was Millie’s performance at school. They put on a play about Shabbat and we were so proud of her for sticking with it. She is very sensitive to bright lights and the flash photography at performances has been debilitating. She was a real trooper though. Here is a short clip.

This afternoon we are planning to make hand turkeys with the girls. We also have planned to go to Tel Aviv for the day as a family on December 9th because both girls are off for Hannukah.

We are also sampling sufganiot from various bakeries around town. Expect a blog post on this from Adena in the near future!

It’s hard to imagine, but there are only about six and a half weeks left in this adventure. Things have been quiet (in a good way) as we have been lost in our daily routines and weekly rhythm, so we’ve made fewer blog posts. With our time here growing short, planning activities and seeing people has taken on a sense of urgency that wasn’t there before.

A few weekends ago, we met Adena’s cousin Rotem, her husband Yair, and daughter Amit in Caesarea. Unfortunately Rotem’s son had a foot injury and couldn’t join us. The 30 minute drive from Haifa was easy for us and it was even closer for Rotem who lives in Pardes Hana-Karkur.

Caesarea is a modern city with a national park to the south where visitors can wander through ruins, ask holograms of historical figures pre-formulated questions, and enjoy the waterfront. It was built by King Herod as way of attracting investment and currying favor with the Romans—and it worked big time. Imagine the pitch: “Caesarea will be a thriving global city with a world class harbor and shipping facilities. It will offer all the urban amenities you have come to expect—Roman bathhouse, amphitheater, and a hippodrome.” Here is a photo of the kids playing on a sculpture outside what used to be the stables and near where chariot races were held.

Note the large “no climbing” sign in the foreground! The water was really beautiful and we spent a lot of time exploring the ancient harbor.

The kids had a great time and it was good to see Rotem and her family again.

There was one day where Aviva was sick and couldn’t go to gan (daycare). For part of the day I took her down to the playground (the one with the pirate ship from Adena’s post) in this new neighborhood, down the western slope of the mountain. The playground is as extravagant as the apartment buildings with multiple, connected climbing structures, swings, a splash pad, a climbing wall with mega slides, and the aforementioned pirate ship.

We also went down to the Bat Galim neighborhood last weekend. If you’ve been paying attention, this is one of the places I visited on my birthday wanderings back in July, but Adena and the girls had never gone. There is a small beach and swimming area, playground, fishing piers, and a waterfront promenade. Surprisingly, some of the buildings are abandoned and falling down.

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The medical school is nearby and you would think that property that close to the water would be put to better use. Maybe there is some unseen environmental contamination that complicates things and makes the area only inhabitable by medical students.

As we were heading out, a DJ set up and starting playing really cool music along the promenade. If it wasn’t dinner time, we would have sat and listened for a while.

This week was punctuated by two exciting developments. First, we noticed drops of water on the floor underneath the skylight by the front door. After some investigation and visits by two repairmen, there is some debate about the cause of the issue. One guy says there is a leak and water is coming in from outside. The other guy says condensation is collecting on the inside of the skylight and falling back down on the floor. It is incredibly damp and chilly in the apartment now (there are space heaters, but no radiators), so our money is on Ahmad—who says there is no leak, only condensation. It is supposed to rain a lot tomorrow, so we will see. Hey, it’s a rental so what’s the worst that could happen?

The other notable thing to report from this week was my disenfranchisement… by my wife.

We dutifully completed and sent in our absentee ballots a month ago, but they came back to us yesterday. As it turns out, registered mail cannot be delivered to a post office box. Although she meant well, by paying 30 shekels per envelope for trackable delivery, Adena ensured that our votes against Rodney Davis would not be counted. Luckily that race wasn’t very close or I’d feel worse about it…

So we are making a flurry of plans for these last six weeks. On the 25th we are touring Tishbi winery while the kids are at school, and when the kids are off for Hannukah we will stay at a kibbutz in the Golan Heights. It is near the Mount Avital Nature Reserve and apparently there is a volcanic crater that you can hike. Thanksgiving is next week and we are planning to just work through it (not an Israeli holiday). It will be hard not spending it with our friends—shout out to the Shargo family! We will be heading back down to Jerusalem for a belated Thanksgiving celebration with Uncle Paul and Aunt Laura at the end of the month.

Millie is definitely ready to go home, mainly because the school situation is tough (language barrier) and the teacher hasn’t made much of an effort to engage her. I am tired of the clothes I brought and my pants don’t fit anymore. But I think the rest of us have gotten pretty comfy here, damp and drippy apartment aside.

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.

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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.

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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!