Wednesday and Thursday...

Ok, so the blogging part of this is a bit harder for me to do than I thought. So much to say and so little time to say it. I have pictures I'm waiting to upload--it can take a couple of hours sometimes! But they will show you a bit more of Efrat's life in Kibbutz Gevaram. I don't know if the Israeli army blimp picture will be clear or not, but it's in the sky over the Gaza border, just a few miles from their house. Very interesting stories of rockets falling on her children's school, so they switched to one a bit further away. There's lots of bomb shelter shots if you can make them out. The day we were in Jerusalem, 4 missles were shot from Gaza to nowhere. Happens every day. Since Kibbutz Gevaram is in the middle of no cosmopolitan area and the missles are not very accurate, they are not really a target, but just in missle range. Now, Mom, I'm no longer staying there, so you don't have to worry.

Yesterday, we headed to the wedding near Nataniya. The place was one of the most beautiful I've ever been. The wedding itself was simply lovely. The pictures will tell alot of the story. Liat is tall and gorgeous, isn't she? And Amir is a great match to her. I would love to describe every picture but the Kodak website is just for pix. (Someone else needs to show me how to quickly insert pix and text into a website. This one is too slow and limits the # of pix.) I have video of some of the wedding, such as when he crushed the glass. The Ctoova (the wedding contract) is an outstanding shot, if I must say so myself. I had a front row view.

Btw, an interesting cultural note: The wedding invitations said 7 pm, but guests know it's safe to come up to an hour later or so. The chuppa/ceremony part didn't start until 8:15.

After the wedding, around midnight, I switched my luggage to Aba and Ima's car and headed to Afula with them. I said goodbye for now to Efrat and her family (until Friday evening for Shabbat). She deserves a reward for surviving my visit and travels. She was my "wheels" in so many ways. A true friend.

So now I am staying with Aba and Ima in the Jezreel Valley. I remember all the locations of things and today we went out traveling. First we had to visit the prior 2 homes I stayed in with them. Then off to where Ima was a kindergarten teacher when I first met her (in the same place where Aba worked as head of a part of the Kipat Cholim--health insurance I think we'd say). Then we revisited the center of Afula and I did indeed get a picture that matches my postcard. Email me if you figure it out and I'll send you a free ticket to Israel.

From there we headed in the car up to the Kinneret area. The mountains along the way were so green from the rains, they looked like they were glowing. You'll see the photos. And we tried to take a picture of me in the grass with the red flowers. Ray has an enlarged picture of me (in your room at school now, right Ray) where I was sitting in flowers like these years ago, so I wanted to recreate it for him. But the sun was blinding both Ima and Aba as they tried to take my picture, so I had alot of fun laughing with them about their photography skills. Thus, I left every photo attempt to be uploaded. (For the record, some of the other pictures reflect their fine photography skills...)

After getting a great overview of the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee), we circled around the south, then east side of the sea. Some pictures are from there, but you'll have to guess which ones, sorry! When we were driving below the Golan Heights, a family of 3 deer were cavorting on the mountainside. Really cute, but we passed by too fast to photo.

Then to Vered HaGalil, where Efrat worked for awhile and I came to visit a few times. It's a "western" horse ranch. Fun to see. Back when I was a student, I loved their hamburgers there.

I must digress at this point and say that everything an American would want commercially is now findable in Israel. I was amazed to see all sorts of familiar brands and stores and malls and technology. An American could set up a pretty similar environment for themselves here. But when I mentioned this to Efrat, she said an American would still have culture shock. That would come when an American got in their auto and had another car almost shove them over when they wanted to change lanes. And it's crazy how a few people honk the horn when a yellow light goes on before the green to warn drivers to prepare to go.

But hey, someone point out something Americans do that's crazy, too, ok?

Back to the traveling. We continued north in the Galilee area until we came to Hula Basin. There's a preserve there with more birds than any place on earth, I believe. Over 500,000,000 (yes, zeros are correct) birds pass through Israel every year, coming from Europe and some headed to Africa. Snowbirds, just like in Florida! Truly fascinating. The birds in the photos are mostly cranes.

It's late (1 am and I'm going to be tired tomorrow!) but I must say this trip's theme has been things of beauty: the wedding, the bride, the grass, the flowers, the snow, the birds, and the friends (who are truly family). And this trip is unique because there are many things I could have only seen in the winter: the grass, the flowers, the birds, and the snow (which some of you know I haven't seen in over 14 years and David our youngest has never seen).

I am very blessed. And tired.

I see some of the upload failed, so I'll try again tomorrow evening before the gang arrives here at Aba and Ima's for Shabbat dinner. There will be 18 of us! My how we have grown from the days there were just 6 of us...!

Off we'll go to see the very northern extent of Israel tomorrow, Rosh ha Nikra?? (Ray knows). It's a beautiful spot north of Acco, next to the Mediterranean and Lebanon.

Bye!

P.S. I finally got all the pix to upload, but the ones at the end may be out of sequence. Here's the link for Wednesday and Thursday's pix: http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=cj4qbcu6.cicvrrrq&x=0&y=-7qfi5u