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Published: July 16th 2010
The Return of the Feet!
In a park near my apartmentSo, I have a whole post written up about my recent trip to Jordan, but can't find my camera cord to retrieve the pictures. It's around somewhere, but in the meantime here's a quick run down (with pictures!) of my earlier trip to the central coast with my friend Alex.
Alex did the Birthright program in May and did some work on a farm in June, so he had been in Israel for a while. We met up at the very end of his trip, and after a really fun night in downtown, modern Jerusalem (which was something new for me!) with some of his friends, we took the bus to Tel Aviv. From Tel Aviv we took the train north a bit to Binyamina; from there it was a short taxi ride to the famous Tishbi Winery. We got a free wine tasting, complete with wine jam and olive bread and oil, that lasted for an hour and a half. Honestly, the spitoon was not used as much as it probably was meant to be.
Somewhat unsteadily, we grabbed a taxi down the coast to nearby Zichron Ya'akov, one of the earliest Jewish settlements in Israel. It was
Cloudy Day!!!
The first one I've seen since England founded by mostly Romanian Jews around 1880, and survived as a farming community with the support of Baron de Rothschild. It was an important site for the First Aliyah, the first wave of European Jews to establish a community in the modern Zionist era. Now it's a really pretty town set above a gorgeous rolling valley in the back, and a bustling beach in the front. There is also a great little pedestrian boulevard with shopping and cafes and ICE CREAM. The winery that we came to sample next, Carmel Winery, was closed for tours and tastings, so we contented ourselves with ice cream then grabbed the bus back to Binyamina train station after some sweaty walking.
Unfortunately for us, when we got there Shabbat had already kicked into full force and so we had to change our plans and go wherever the last train was running to. Unsurprisingly, it was back to Tel Aviv, secular capital of Israel. That turned out to be a great thing, as we spent the next two nights and days lounging on the beach (though the waves were HUGE and I got stung by a jellyfish), walking along the wide, leafy streets and
Hi, Alex
At Tishbi Winery eating yet more wonderful food. I also managed to deep fry my back and have some curious encounters with the other residents of our youth hostel, but those felt par for the course at any beachy place. We also met up with some of Alex's Israeli friends, young soldiers on weekend leave, and went with them to a famous bar in the Tel Aviv suburbs called "Mike's Place", where a band played fun rock covers of silly pop songs. It was much needed to get a wider view of some life in Israel outside the weirdness of Jerusalem!
Back in Jerusalem, Alex hunkered down with me one more night, and then I went back to the real world and had my first day of English teaching! It's been hard to pin that down properly, but the class has definitely been building in lots of ways since then.
So until next time, and my camera cord...
Love,
Jordan
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sam wilson
non-member comment
looks nice!
Beach looks beautiful! I am also jealous of the ice cream and waffles. While I was eating peanut butter sandwiches and getting eaten by bugs, you were living it up! Hope you find your camera cord soon!