Rembrandt

We spent our last day in Israel at Yad Vashem. This is a holocaust museum that sits atop Mt. Herzl. The light rail ride there had us delayed about 40 minutes due to a "suspicious object" found near the tracks ahead of us. No one on or around seemed all that concerned so we took our cues from them. The museum itself is a beautiful work of architecture. Outside were a line of trees, each dedicated to someone considered Righteous Among the Nations. These are non-Jews who risked their lives to help the Jewish people during the holocaust. People like Oskar Schindler and Sweden's Raoul Wallenberg are honoured in the garden. Inside the museum, visitors are led through the meandering exhibits depicting the lives touched by holocaust and educating on the events from Hitler's rise to ... read more

Today is Rembrandt's birthday. Our little guy turns three years old. The day began with another scenic ride down route 90. This time we went south to the beautiful Dead Sea resort town of Ein Bokek. We had some spa treatments booked at the Shizen Spa at Daniel Resort. First we were massaged with Dead Sea salt and scented oils then wrapped up like mummies and left to marinate. After the exfoliating massage we were slathered with mud and wrapped up again. My skin never felt so soft. When our spa treatments were done we decided to take a dip in the indoor/outdoor pool filled with Dead Sea water. Took some time to get used to the buoyancy. The anti-gravity effect was pretty cool. We wrapped up our day in Ein Bokek with some floating around ... read more

Today started out with us catching an Arab bus from Damascus Gate and taking a trip into Palestine. It is there we find Bethlehem. Exiting the bus, we are greeted by what can only be described as the world's most annoying taxi driver. He followed us for a couple minutes chirping on about how the tourist area is 3km away and he could take us. First, I knew for a fact where we needed to go was just a 1km walk down Pope Paulus. Second, even if he was telling the truth, a 3km walk is nothing to us anyway. When ignoring him didn't work, we tried another tactic. We started answering him in Swedish. I used the few sentences I knew and Niklas did most of the babbling. By the end of the exchange, he ... read more

It took 12 hours exactly from door to door. Utterly exhausted and ready for bed. Impressed with the Turkish people and have decided we need to make Istanbul a vacation destination in the near future. Tomorrow: Old City sightseeing. Shalom... read more