On January 8, I was concerned with my small quantity of money. For some reason I do not know, I wasn’t able to transfer money to my debit card. I had to then ask my parents to put money on the card (promising to pay them back), wait for them to do it, and wait even longer for the process to complete. This meant I was not going to have access loaded onto the card until the morning of January 9. I still had some money, just not a cushion that may be necessary with traveling.
The plan for this day was to go to Chaifa, and while that should be extremely exciting, the limited funds were not the lowlight. I woke up really early, which was bad because it was very little sleep, but great because it meant I had more time to get everything out of my room (I had bags to put into short-term storage). Somehow, I managed to still be late, something for which I am very sorry. Julia and I missed our bus and had to wait for the next. This bus also came quite late. I was upset about our shortened day in Chaifa.
The bus came, we both slept some (while I was half asleep and we were almost there, Julia was awake and saw Kfar Chasidim!), and we found our way to destination 1 at the perfect time! This was the Bahai Gardens. You are supposed to reserve a tour, which we did not do, but getting there right at 12, right when the English tour for the day begins, we managed to join. I was hoping to learn about the Bahai religion, but I heard a total of about six words from the tour guide (wind, nearby roads, a lot of people=loud). I think the gardens are beautiful in a man-made nature kinds of way: everything is very well tamed and groomed. It’s set up as several layers with the shrine at the bottom, which gives it a nice effect. Overall, not my thing, but I’m glad I went.
We walked past the science museum, destination 2 for the day, but decided we wanted to drop off our heavy backpacks at the hotel, so we walked a little farther to check in. The hotel turns out to be the exact opposite of the hostel in Tel Aviv. We got there, and it looked so nice. We had a choice of 2 rooms, and there is space and color. And then over the next 5 ½ hours, during which time we did not leave the room once, we discovered it was not so great of a place. It was really loud from the road and had weird things, like the toilet was in a little room on the balcony while the shower and sink were in the main room. The maitre d' smiled like how creepy murderers smile in horror movies, and whole hotel reminded Julia of “The Shining.”
We left around 7 to get some dinner, see the water, and just walk around. We really did only 1 of these- walk around. Walking towards the water, we were blocked by the train tracks and industrial buildings, and we couldn’t get near enough to really see anything. Probably because we walked toward the port and this is really just a business area, all of the restaurants were closing. What a lame city! We got food in a 24hour mart. We returned to the hotel and hung our before going to sleep early.
Conclusion: Chaifa is probably a nice place to spend a couple hours and see museums (and Lucy told me she did a really great hike there), but overall a lame city. Can’t wait to live 20 minutes away next semester…
HLOTDTF
M- successfully using the camera which she has had for 7 years for the first time
K- discovering no utensils are needed to eat a Milki (pudding) (Thank you, Avital, for getting these for Suzanne, and thank you, Suzanne, for leaving them in the fridge J)
Jan 9
Monday morning we woke up early to check out early to get to Tverya early. Check out took longer than we wanted because we didn’t have the money at the time, but luckily, by booking through a website, they were able to charge my card a few hours later, and all was swell. We take the bus to Tverya.
We wanted to go there to hike Mt. Arbel, which is supposed to be a really great hike. We needed a cab to get there, we got there, and it was closed due to weather (it had rained earlier). Sadly, this day was mostly a waste of time and money. We drove back down to down the street from the central bus station to go to a small national park. It was pretty cool, but not the most exciting of places. We saw the remains of a very old synagogue with a cool mosaic floor, remains of dwellings, and the hot springs. Interesting, but overall, this day could have been better. Especially as it started to rain pretty hard. We walked back to the bus station, but had trouble with this because we didn’t know where it was, so we were left in the rain for a while. We were very close to the Kinneret, and I kept on thinking the water and beaches would be so pretty if it were not so foggy. And for every mountain I saw (and this was also true for nearly every mountain I saw when in a bus during all of break), I just wished I could climb it.
As we finally approached the bus station, there was a random Statue of Liberty on a store. I have no idea why. While waiting for the bus, a cat was hanging around. She kept on walking around our legs, and not knowing what diseases she might have had, we tried to shoo her away. Didn’t really work. A crazy cat lady, also waiting for the bus, would pick her up, pet her, and feed her. I hope the cat wasn’t rabid or anything.
We arrived in Jerusalem early, settled into our new temporary room (with Pam as a 3rd roommate), saw other Nativers who were at base, and had a nice break from vacation.
HLOTDTF
M- sitting after long walk from national park
K- the cat hanging around the bus station
Jan 9-10
Monday afternoon and all of Tuesday, neither Julia nor I really did anything. We were both doing our own thing during this time. I watched 3 movies (total during break is probably around 7) and had a nice run and a nice walk. On Tuesday we had to switch rooms because our shower was broken. And that’s about all.
HLOTDTF
Non-existent, we were never walking or waiting together.
Trivia: What is a core value in the Bahai faith? The spiritual unity of all humankind.
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