Sukkot break

Most of the Sukkot holiday has been spent at the beach during the days and hanging out at our apartment or Raquefette’s with friends. Monday, October 1st was my self-mandated day to start working out again. I went running with Mike’s friend Josh (now to be known at Josh T) in the park. We found a bicycle festival of sorts. There were competitions and vendors and food. We kept running, but came back later with Allie and Mike. The boys were playing basketball but Allie and I walked around to check things out and ate dinner. The weirdest thing happened when we were watching the bike jump competition. I thought I saw Sean! I did a double take and then still stared at his profile until he turned and I saw his full face. I think my parents are withholding information about our family history, because this guy was Sean’s long lost twin!
Tuesday, Ali, Allie and I went to meet Meir and Josh F (from camp) in a town between J-town and TA, called Shoham. There was a festival there with a free concert by Idan Raichel. We had quite an adventure getting there. We had no idea where we were going, but the Superbus was taking us there! While we waited for the boys, we grabbed some food, which turned out to be more difficult than you would think because Israelis don’t understand the concept of a line. Meir brought his friend Rivkah and we found a spot on a field to watch the show. There were a ton of people there! Lots of sleepy kids, too. :)
Meir drove us back to Tel Aviv and after dropping Ali and Allie off at home, he took Josh F and I out to a bar in south TA. Gal met us there and we had a ton of fun. It was a very good night.
Wednesday morning, Josh F and I left at about 11:30 for the Kinneret. It was about a 3 hour bus ride to Tiberias in the north and then we waited for another bus to take us near the hostel we were staying in. We had scrapped the camping idea when we found out that our knowledgeable Israelis couldn’t come. While we were waiting, a cabbie offered to “help us” and charge us 70 shekels to take us right to the hostel. He was pretty pushy and annoying. We stuck with our plan to take the bus. It would drop us on the highway, but the walk to the hostel would be short. The bus driver was a little unsure of where we needed to go, but dropped us where he thought was pretty close. We walked in the direction we thought we needed to go, found it was wrong, but talked to a security guard who told us the “right” way to go. After about 20 minutes of walking, we decided to call the hostel. They didn’t answer at first, but when they did, we discovered that we had been walking in the opposite direction. Oy vey! So, we turned around and started the right way. At this point it’s about 5:30 pm and the sun is setting, so as we are walking, we stick our arms out to try to hitch a ride. There were lots of cars that pass us, but then, gloriously, we see a car slow as they pass us. They go around a curve and don’t stop right away. We are disappointed until we go around the curve and see 2 young women waiting at the first place they were able to pull over. They are super nice and speak English really well, AND they dropped us off right in front of the hostel!
The hostel is the nicest place I’ve seen since I’ve been here. It’s hard to believe it’s part of the same chain as the hostel I stayed in in TA. After dinner (huge, delicious buffet!), we went to check out the water. We couldn’t really see anything because it was so dark, but we pulled some chairs over and sat with out feet in the water, listening to the sounds of the people camping on either side of the hostel property. When the fish started biting, we went inside and to sleep pretty early. We got to the breakfast buffet, again huge and delicious, at about 9 am and then out to the water. We found a place to lay out and joined the masses of kids and families in the water when we got too hot. I love the beach, but swimming in fresh water is so much better. I wish I had deflated my raft and brought it. The Kinneret is the perfect place for that! It’s ok, I will be back, hopefully to camp. After eating lunch in their little concession/cafeteria thing (and getting a bottle of wine for later), I took a nice, midday nap. The sun was setting when I headed back outside, but Josh F and I hung out in our chairs in the water until it got too chilly. After dinner, we found a TA soccer game on TV. Our original plan was to drink the wine while sitting with our feet in the water, but we felt we needed to watch this game, so the wine got opened early. Halfway through the game, Josh F got a call from Ofir, one of our camp friends. It was the first time he had heard from him since getting to Israel. He was excited he was in the north and said he’d come to take us out after picking up some friends. We showered and got ready quickly and found out when he got there that he lives outside of Haifa...45 minutes away! He took us to a Kibbutz bar and we had a great time. His friends are hilarious! I couldn’t believe how well this trip was turning out to be. In the morning, after breakfast and checking out, we got some more sun and water time in. It started getting cloudy at about 11:30, exactly when we needed to get ready to go. We changed in the hostel’s bathrooms and walked to the closer bus stop that Josh F saw on our way back from the bar. It was literally at the end of the road that led to the hostel! As we were waiting for the bus, we decided to try to hitch back to Tiberias, at the least. We’d take whatever came first. As it turns out, the bus came first..and it was a bus that would take us all the way to TA. There were many stops along the way, and we didn’t get back to my apartment until about 5 pm, but at least we didn’t have to switch busses and deal with cabbies trying to “help”.
I talked to Noam (another friend from camp) when we got back Friday afternoon. He had just come back from traveling in South America the week before and was finally over jet lag, functional and ready to be social. Doron came into TA to hang out with him for the weekend. So they came over to see my apartment and Josh F and I went out with them. Noam grew up in TA and promised to take me out during the week to show me some good restaurants and bars, so I can get away from cafes! On our way to a bar, Noam suddenly remembered his favorite ice cream place that he hadn’t been to since he got back. It was delicious! The bar was fun, too. They had really good music, both American and Israeli. N & D rank pretty high up there on my list of favorite Israelis, so I would have had a blast no matter what we had done!
Saturday, Ali, Allie, Josh F and I headed to the beach. N & D and Lior (another camp friend) were hanging out and stopped by to say hi. They were wearing clothes, though, because they claimed that it’s winter now and too cold to go to the beach. I guess that I was unaware, along with the other hundreds of people there, that 80 degree weather is too cold for the beach. And here I was thinking it was perfect. How silly of me! :)
That night, Raquefette had party for her birthday which is today. Most of the people from the program showed up and lots of her cousins and other friends were there, too. It was the perfect ending to our long break. Now, I need to plan lessons for school tomorrow. I will post pictures when Josh and I exchange ours. Dad, I’m sorry this is long.