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| Israel: Day One |
| 06.21.06 (12:24 am) [edit] |
First, let me tell you who everybody is: Mike - Dad has known Mike for over 20 years. He met him at Bally's and he's one of Dad's best friends. "Michael" and "Mike" are just American translations of his actual Hebrew name, Mikael, pronounced "mick-HAY-ell". He was formerly a paratrooper in the Israeli army. Arielle - Mike's daughter (she's American). Daniel - Mike's brother; Dad met him the same time he met Mike. Irit - Danny's wife, pronounced "ee-reet". Barak - Danny and Irit's son (who had his bar mitzvah the day before we left), pronounced "bar-awk". Jordan - Danny and Irit's son, pronounced "yor-dahn". Elana - Mike and Danny's sister, pronounced "ee-lahn-a". Edan - Elana's husband, pronounced "ee-dahn". Aiten - Elana and Edan's son, pronounced as it looks. Max - Mike, Danny, and Elana's father. Eliza - Mike, Danny, and Elana's mother. Heidi and Finette - Danny's two dogs. We stayed at Danny's house with his family, Mike, and Arielle. The house is at a small place called Shoresh in between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem - it's on the top of a mountain with a beautiful view! The house is modern and is no different from a house in America (except for lack of air conditioning, which I'll explain in a bit). It's a two-story house, with four bedrooms and two and a half bathrooms. I'll be typing out the notes I took at the end of every day, but I'll be adding a lot to them as I remember more, and I'll explain things better, since what I originally wrote was fast and not very descriptive. I know "taking notes" is SOOOOO nerdy, but if I hadn't, I could never have remembered everything that we saw, things that happened, and all the places we went. I'll be writing about one day in each post (ten days, ten posts), and will post a few pictures from the particular day at the end of each post. We got an awesome new digital camera right before we left (thanks to Tom and Darlene), and thank the Lordy because... I ended up taking over 600 pictures. Heh. This camera is awesome though!! I can take pictures at night now (only if you keep the camera on a flat surface and set the timer, because if you hold it and move it ever so slightly while the flash is off and the shudder is open longer, the picture will be very blurry). I can also take sunsets and CLOSE-UPS!! Which is great because I love flowers. Anyway, on with it! June 6-7th Ralph drove us all to the airport. We were flying with Edan and Elana (Elana is Mike's sister and Edan is her husband), they're so sweet and funny. --- Flew first from Miami to Atlanta, and before we boarded the plane to Tel Aviv (which left around 10pm), we had to go through yet another security check before we entered the gate (considering the destination and all). There were military guys with guns and German Shepherds standing around. --- Crappy, longarsed plane ride. The flight was AWFUL and uncomfortable, over 11 hours long. We were sitting at the exit row, so we had plenty of leg room, but since there was a 5x5 space in front of us (as well as the restrooms), people who got up to walk around seemed to congramorate right in front of us. Dad was sitting in the aisle seat and since he has wide shoulders, everybody walking by kept brushing against him real hard. He was miserable the entire time (which made me miserable). --- I got some beautiful pictures out the window of the Ireland coast and the Swiss Alps! --- Got off at Tel Aviv airport, it was gorgeous! OMG WE'RE IN ISRAEL. IS. RAEL. --- Mike can't believe we're here. He's been wanting us to come with him for over 15 years. --- Met Arielle, Mike's daughter, for the first time in probably ten years. I can't believe she's 22, and so beautiful! I remembered her with hair down to her butt and glasses. --- Met the rest of Mike's family - Danny (who I've met before, he's adorable and sooo Israeli) and his wife Irit, and their sons Barak and Jordan. Also met Mike's parents, Eliza and Max. Max is from France and kisses you on both cheeks and is always chuckling to himself and grinning, it's so cute. --- Mike, Danny, and Max met us at the airport - our plane landed in the late afternoon. On the way home, we stopped by the Armored Corps tank museum - Mike wanted to show us a tank sitting outside - got a picture next to it. --- Danny showed us around the house, then we walked to their parents' house. Eliza cooked us a ginormous dinner. I was unphased by it, I knew they ate a lot here, but Dad was ASTOUNDED by the amount of food. Dad doesn't eat much, even though you'd think he did. He's also very plain.. He likes some of the food, but not much. I try to take a little of everything. I especially like the bread with hummus - I LOVE that stuff. --- The view from Danny's house (where we're staying) is absolutely amazing. What I wouldn't give to have a view like this! We can see Tel Aviv in the distance - the lights are beautiful at night. --- I was worried A.E. was worrying about me; I told her I'd send her a text message as soon as we got here safely, but stupid me didn't realize that our cell phone wouldn't have service in ISRAEL. Duh. Thankfully they have a computer here and I was able to email her. I also asked her to email all my friends and let them know we were here and safe (which was the original plan if I could have texted her). It never crossed my mind that, since I had internet access and was then sitting at a computer myself writing an email to A.E., I could have just emailed everybody else also. Duh, again. Hey, it was a very long day. --- I'm gonna have to get up at 5:45AM tomorrow. Arrrrrrgh..... I need at least an hour to take a shower and get ready (as does Arielle, so I have to get up earlier than her). Luckily, even though the cell phone doesn't have service here, I can still used the alarm clock on it!! --- We saw an Israeli soldier with a loaded M-16 walking on the side of the road today. Hawt. --- I'm staying in Jordan's room (with a set of drums at the foot of the bed!), and Dad's staying in Barak's room. We both get twin-sized beds, which is fine with me because it's what I have at home, but...... Dad doesn't fit so well in it. LOL. --- Danny works for a company called Tree Of Life (and Sea Of Life) which sells Dead Sea products (Mike used to sell their products too, kind of like an Avon representative). They have shampoo and conditioner in the shower called "Yes To Tomatoes" and "Yes To Carrots" - they're part of the "Yes To Vegetables" series and are made from Dead Sea mineral water, silt (Dead Sea mud - yes it's good for your hair too!), and vegetables (obviously). I love the "Yes To Carrots" one, it smells so good. Besides carrots, it also has pumkin, sweet potato, and a couple other things in it. They also have this awesome jar of lotion in here. It's actually "mineral butter", made from mineral water, silt, and wheat extract. It's really thick and feels SO good on dry skin. --- We're having a problem with the shower head. It's hard to explain, but the hose is attached to the bottom faucet, and the head is held to the wall on this bar thing. Well, the head only points straight out, so you have to either take a shower holding the shower head the entire time, or turn the water down so it does spray sraight out and soak the bathroom. [We later solved this problem. We looked into buying a new shower head, but had to go home and take measurements first. It turns out we didn't even need a new one, all we needed to do was turn the contraption to the side and point the head down, doh!! That's what we wanted to do by getting a new one, but we didn't know the old one was capable of it. Long story short, it was fixed without incident]. --- The house has no air conditioner! It's dry heat here, but still hot. Electric is too expensive here for them to have air conditioners or dryers. I'm sure I'll be fine once I get used to it. I kept the window open and a fan blew on me all night and made it bearably nice. Dried out my throat though. --- Click to enlarge, and run pointer over thumbnail for photo description:
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posted by: aesav23 (reply)
post date: 06.21.06 (5:38 am)
You know, I *was* worried about you. I kept thinking, "Something happened to the plane;" you know me and flying. :o) LOL Was the flight horrible because it was so long, or was it a bad flight, as in bumpy and scary?
The Alps?! EMU!!
~ae
posted by: dustyjumpwings (reply)
post date: 06.21.06 (7:23 am)
Reply to: aesav23
I know, I'm sorry!! I got on the computer as soon as I could.
Both, actually. It was long and CRAMPED, and we had turbulence quite a few times. And it was almost always a bit bumpy, so I did NOT like getting out of the seat.
Isn't that AWESOME??? I had noooooo idea we were going over the ALPS. All the sudden Dad was watching the airplane map, and we were going over south-eastern France, and Dad was like "Hey look out the window you might be able to see the Alps."
So I did, (which required getting out of the seat to see out the little exit door window, argh) and there they were! The original picture was very light white and blue, I knew it was a good shot, but I can't believe how amazing it turned out when I upped the contrast and fixed the color!!
