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Published: November 17th 2007
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We left Seattle on Thursday, September 6, at 6:40 pm. We arrived in Haifa on Saturday, September 8, at about 9 am. Here's the story of our trip...
We had a long, but fun, trip here to Haifa, Israel. We were able to go see some of London. We rode the "tube" (=subway) into central London, walked all around and back to a little sandwich shop in Picadilly Circus, and then rode the tube back to the airport. We walked a little more than Zach wanted to, and we were carrying/rolling our carry-on bags with us (repacked as 4 for foot-travel), but we had a good time. We walked past Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park, Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament and Whitehall, the Thames river, the Eye over London (but didn't ride on it), several street performers, the British National Museum, Trafalgar Square, and finally ending our tour in the theater district of Picadilly Circus. At the sandwich shop, we got a taste of the really high prices in London! We bought only a sandwich and coffee for Stewart, a bowl of pasta for Zach, tea for Betsy. We had actually hoped to have Indian food in London, but everything
was so expensive. The sandwich shop was the cheapest thing we could find, and the bill was 14 pounds -- over $30!! I'm glad we're not spending a long time there.
The rest of the trip was long and mostly uneventful. The flight from Seattle to London was 9.5 hrs, but they had good movies to choose from and we tried to get some sleep. The dinner was good (Asian vegetarian). We arrived back at Heathrow from London about 3.5 hrs before our flight, went through security quickly (although we had to repack everything into our three carry-ons before security, then get out all the laptops and sensitive items for security, and repack a 3rd time after security) and we had plenty of time to wait. In fact, the monitors didn't even display the gate until 1 hr before the 10:30 pm flight. Zach got to charge up his PSP during the wait and we read. The second leg of the trip from Heathrow to Tel Aviv was shorter, only 5.5 hrs. The overhead bins were a little smaller and it took a tiny bit of rearranging for two of the carry-ons to fit in, but no great difficulties.
Arriving in Tel Aviv at 5:30 am, we got off the plane, walked to passport control, got our passports stamped for 3 months (as is the norm), collected our six checked bags, walked straight though customs (nothing to declare) without stopping or saying anything to anyone. By 6:30, we found the shirut to Haifa immediately outside the terminal door, and then waited for an hour while the driver tried to collect more passengers for the trip. The cost is fixed by the government - NIS 57.60/person, which would be $14.40/person. When we got to the apartment, the driver wanted $45 (should have been $43.20); all we had was $44 in smaller bills, and he took it. Notice that the drivers will often ask you for more than the correct fare, so be sure to work it out in your head first. But he dropped us right at the door of the apartment building, and let us use his cell phone to call Erez, the ex-husband of the woman who owns the apartment, for the keys. Unfortunately, the driver didn't recognize how to convert the international number to a local number, and didn't get through. So he just shrugged at
us and drove off, leaving us with our pile of suitcases on the sidewalk. But we saw a woman from the apartment building out on her porch, and asked her if she could help us get in touch with Erez. After some confusion, she worked out how to convert the number and called. Erez answered that he was right outside the building! He'd been hanging around waiting for us since 8, had gone for coffee at 8:45 and we'd arrived just before 9. He helped us carry our bags down (he carried our two 50 lb duffles simultaneously down 2 flights of stairs!), got us oriented, got the internet up and running for us. He said we should call if we have any questions.
In addition to the cooktop, the kitchen has a microwave, a dishwasher, and a convection oven. There is a wonderful patio and grassy yard with an area to plant some veggies if we want to. The eggplant bush that Daniella promised us has several ripe eggplants on it. The apartment is nice, but we're having a little trouble getting everything functioning. The hot water heater is apparently on a timer Erez forgot to show us,
so we took showers in very cool water today. We couldn't get the stovetop to light until Erez showed us the safety lock feature that he’d neglected to tell us before.
We arrived on Shabbat and there were no stores open, even in Haifa. There were apparently some restaurants open, but because we don't have a car, it was pretty hard to find them instantly. So all of us have survived the day on one package of rice crackers and protein shakes.
After Erez came to help us with the stove and water heater, he drove us to the Supersol about 5 blocks away. It seems that the Supersol's are open only two Saturday evenings a year - the one before Rosh Hashanah and the one before Pesach - and luckily we happened to be here on the Saturday before Rosh Hashanah. We bought our normal staples when we're in Israel - g'vinah lavanah (cream cheese taste and sour cream texture-wonderful!), melafafonim (cucumbers), agvaniot (tomatores), anavim (grapes), lechem (bread - this fresh out of the oven with raisins because we’re just before Rosh Hashana), café (coffee), beitzim (eggs), chemah (butter), shemen zeit (olive oil)... Erez dropped us back
at the apartment, and we had bread, cheese, and cucumbers for dinner at 10 pm. I'm looking forward with great anticipation to coffee in the morning!
We still need to go out tomorrow to buy supplies at the nearby "Grand Canyon" mall. This mall is named as a word play on the Hebrew - "kanyon" is Hebrew for shopping mall, and this is the biggest mall in Haifa (and maybe in Isreal!). However, for now, we are spending the evening on the mirpeset (patio) in the cool evening breezes and watching the sun set over the hills of Haifa. All in all, pretty nice end to an exhausting trip.
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