11/25/14 Tuesday Arrived!

The long flight is over!   So happy to see Michael as I exited Customs.  I brought along my Moses Action figurine Kenny got me as a funny souvenir years ago when he was at the Jewish Museum in NY.  Makes me feel like he’s here too!

Went to the bank machine by baggage claim and withdrew 1000 NIS (New Israeli Shekels)  which will cost me a little over $300. The train we are on as I’m writing this from airport to Haifa cost 47NIS which is about $15 for the 2 hour train ride.  We are in a reserved car which will cost an additional 5 shekels each but it’s nice and quiet and we have plenty if room for our luggage.

This is the Moses Action Figure that Kenny bought me as my souvenir from his visit to the Jewish Museum in New York on a field trip!  It’s been on my book shelf in my office for years so I decided since Kenny can’t be on the trip with me/us, I would take Moses along and include him in pics as my way of having Kenny with us!  Moses in the Promised Land…you have to admit, it works!

During my layover in Newark, Moses and I had a cup of tea and some breakfast and my vitamins!!!

After the 11 hour flight and 7 hour time change, Michael and I are at the Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv after i’ve cleared customs, etc.  We are having a cup of tea for me because it is now 6:00am the day AFTER leaving Ohio!  A nice cup of tea and a discussion of how/where we go to catch the train to Haifa, to the Lev Hamifratz train station.  This train station will prove to be the ‘center hub’ of most everything we do while I’m here.  Michael has been up all night as well as, due to public transportation, in order to be at the airport waiting for me, he stayed up and traveled through the night to be there when I arrived.  He had all sorts of stories of getting on buses/trains in wrong directions, etc. but still made it in time to meet me just outside of Baggage Claim!  So happy to see his smiling face.  He’s so slim.  I missed him a lot!

So I’m testing using my phone not only for pics but for the blog as well.  It seems to be working!  I did happen to get this pic uploaded, but that was going to become a rare thing!  There was free Wifi on the train, but we struggled EVERYWHERE to get and use internet anywhere!  And, i was using a Tablet instead of my usual mini laptop.  I am NOT a Tablet person.  I llike to have too many tabs open and process too much stuff all at the same time so, while I was able to get some pics loaded, etc. most of the success was from my phone at very costly ($25/100meg) international data usage!!!

not sure what/how this pic came to be!  We’re on the train and well I must’ve accidentally snapped this or something, but since Moses was in it, I didn’t want to delete it and so included it in here.  Michael and I are chatting and both thrilled to see each other.  I wanted desperately to take pics of him too, but he’s sort of like me and never really much cared for that and I want to respect that.   As you’ll see later in the blog (if you continue one with my trip!), I managed to snap a few of him, him and me and even had him take one of me at the Baha’i gardens!

I took a few window views from the train from Ben Gurion Airport to Haifa….the scenery was incredibly beautiful and, while the train was moving fairly quickly I am happy these pics came out as clearly as they did.  The sky was gorgeous, the water pristine.  It was early morning and felt glorious!Another pic from the train!  I think most of us don’t realize just how much beauty there is in Israel.  What we see on the news is so not representative of how it really is.  What we see is scary and tragic and dangerous and I don’t mean to minimize this, however, when we watch these misrepresented news stories, I hope now that you’ve seen some of my pics you could see that there is such a beauty to Israel that, while I know it doesn’t abate what we are seeing on TV, nor does it minize the political tragedy of situations, there is much beauty, love and peace in much of this beloved land.  IT is also as lovely and beautiful BECAUSE it is Israel and because of the infrastructure and reverant way this homeland was protected and developed.

The train station, Lev Hamifratz, is also a huge mall.  It has food courts and stores and a huge 25+ movie theater.  And TWO McDonalds, one is kosher (which means they could not/would not serve cheese and meat, among other things, i.e. milk shakes with burger, etc.) and the non-kosher McDonalds.  We stopped at the non-kosher McDonalds so I snapped a pic with Moses for the blog!

another shot of the non-kosher McDonalds!  I wanted to take more careful and detailed picture showing the menu sign because it is very interesting…but it is, apparently, disrespectful and I didn’t want to be disrespectful.  I don’t know why it is disrespectful, but I remember on a prior trip when I tried to do it, I was forbidden and so I didn’t even ask here…especially holding a Moses Action Figure!

This is just outside the Lev Hamifratz train station and mall.  Michael’s “adopted family” on the kibbutz, Mariana and Ronen Oz (and their 2 year old Emma and 6 year old Ben) were so good to him and Mariana left her work that day to come pick us up at the train station.

This may seem like a strange pic.  It is outside of the Lev Hamifratz train station as well while we were waiting for Mariana Oz.  The hoses you see are part of the “drip irrigation” methods used to car for the soil and grasses using the most minimal of water.  Israel is very efficient with water use, for obvious reasons, and this necessity as created world-reknown water preserving methods, including drip irrigation.

I thought I should turn around and take a quickie picture of part of the building of the train station/mall!!

And I took this pic because it is a high intensity power line AND a Palm tree and I found it a bit ironic, and lovely!

OK, holding my breath, I’m outside the door of what would be “my room” for the next week.  I know it will be stark and minimal, and well from the condition of the building I entered, and the hall and stairs I took to get here, I’m a bit afraid!

Phew, not too bad.  Michael had ensured that the room was clean, and bought water bottles for the fridge and a box of tea bags so I’d be able to have tea in my room!  There were electric tea kettles around, but they were well, disgusting!  We found the least gross ones around, and cleaned and scrubbed the gunk inside of them, and boiled it clean and clear and then I had a nice electric kettle to use for tea!  He was so thoughtful and I was so touched.  You know us Mom’s just love feeling a little cared for by our adult kids!  I don’t ever want to be too needy and demanding on them, but this was sweet and not lost on me one bit.  And, I should add, knowing Kenny was home taking care of the poodles and the house was equally as touching.  It’s disruptive to their lives and well, I still remember being in my 20’s and not minding doing some of that “adult child” stuff, but also wanting to be sort of left alone from it all too!

Here’s my bed!  You can see that there were actually 2 beds in the room.  The 2-1/2″ thick foam pad that goes on the wood platform was, well, ancient and not cushy at all!  But Michael put BOTH pads onto the one bed for me and made up the bed nice and put the other one adjacent so I could use it as a table for my cpap, etc.!  It worked great.

The patio at the exit of the dorm building I stayed at.  The picture makes it look a lot nicer than it is!!!

 Another shot of the same patio.  And then, when I turned around to the left, I took the picture below:

I am standing on the building patio taking this pic and it is a Bunker (bomb shelter).  They are located all over the kibbutz…just in case.  This one was decorated quite nicely.  The door leads down below.  The steps up above are for lookout purposes.  It was thought-provoking…

These pics are from a short walk we took to nearby spots on the kibbutz.  It’s very lovely and so I just snapped a few shots here and there to give a feel for where I was staying!

The view outside my window!

Another view outside my window!

Yes, I finally took a pic of Michael!  He let me!

Moses on my fridge.  As you can see the words clearly written by a prior tenant in my room “Penis Fridge” and “certified kosher”!  This fridge kicks on with a HUGE bang of the compressor and sometimes has a really loud roaring motor sound that can go on for a long time or a short time, before it bangs and shuts down for a bit!  The prior tenant called it a “dick” and, apparently, one evening wrote that on it!

we walked a couple kilometers to the outside of the kibbutz to the “Stop Market” which is a grocery store complex.  It has a couple small restaurants and a grocery store and a bike shop which we tried to take my picture at, but the rains came before we could get that done.

While at the store I had to take a pic of the “Lila Stix” chocolate covered cookie sticks!!!

 Michael and another Ulpan guest, Gideon, sitting at the table outside the restaurant at the Stop Market plaza.  We ate there before grocery shopping and then, when we were going to walk back, the torrential rains came.  So michael called and someone from the kibbutz, Ari, came and picked us up.  I was so glad he called!!!  wE walked there and it started raining on the way there; I had actually brought umbrellas for the trip but the rain was so constant, they were quickly quite soaked too!

So, during the torrential rains, and while we were waiting for our ride, I posed Moses in hopes that we could see how incredible the water was rushing out of the room drain.  This was about half-speed of what it was just prior when I finally thought of taking the picture!  Well, I posted the pic on Facebook and said it was Moses parting the waters from the drain pipe and joked that I might also need a Noah figurine!  Probably not as funny as I thought it was!!!

This was a lovely day and I was ready to retire afterward.  I had taken a short bit of a nap after unpacking and before we embarked on our walk to the Stop Market.  This was the first reality of the beauty of not being on a TOUR.  I could take a rest here and/or there and get myself acclimated to the time zone, weather, etc. at my own pace.

I’m used to falling asleep to the TV.  Some think it’s a horrible habit…but, well, it’s what I’m used to!  There’s no TV here so Michael took my tablet and, during my afternoon rest, loaded it up with several seasons of a show called Bob’s Burgers.  He also put a bunch of movies on too…  It was great so I got the “white noise” I’m used to (even though that Bob’s Burgers Show is kinda weird!).  Ahhh, how nice!