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Trip Start Jan 15, 2006 Previous
Entry Trip End Jun 2006

  Tiberius, Israel
Monday, May 29, 2006

And thus is was so that at some point during the fifth month that Philip of Britian asked Daniel if he wanted to go to Nazareth and Haifa for a weekend in the very near future. As it transpired that was to be the weekend following their discussion. And so on Friday morning a couple of weeks ago, I got up at the frighteningly early hour of 7.30 after going partying the night before to meet Phil, Sam and Tali at the Bus Station. We purchased our tickets, got on the bus, changed at Afoula and eventually arrived in Nazareth. Initially, I'd agreed to go on this trip because I thought that Phil, the instigator of the excursion, was somewhat of an adventuer and a prolific organiser. This was not the case. Due to the last bus leaving for Haifa was at 3.30ish we only had two hours in Nazareth which meant we had to do everything we wanted to do but ultra mega fast. Nazareth is a Christian Arab town and was thus very different to a lot of other places I'd been here. We went to some interesting churches including one where Gabriel apparently told Mary that she would give birth to Jesus. I took a photo of it. After that we went in search of the best Baclava shop in the world (well as the tour guide book led us to believe). We found it and indeed it was the best Baclava shop in the world. We indulged in top quality Turkish sweet eating like we'd never done before. After this we did the most stupid thing you could possibly do in Israel. No it wasn't doing anything that could be seen as culturally insensitive or dangerous, oh no, we went to a Jesus theme park. It was so stupid that I am not saying anything else on the matter. Then realising we needed to get to the bus station to get to Haifa pretty immediately we started looking for the bus station. We couldn't find it. Oh no. We ran around for about half an hour with no luck. Eventually we stopped an Egged intercity bus in the middle of the street and got on, while simultaniously enraging all drivers stuck behind the bus.

We eventually made it to Haifa where we met up with Swiss Dave from Hebrew U. We stayed in a great Hostel called the Port Inn. The Hostel had a guestbook, which funnily enough some guests had signed. I had a read through it to see that a whole load of people I knew had stayed there before on their own years out over the years. I left my own message and left one for future Brits - advising them to eat loads of Humous. The next day we hiked up a huge mountain to go and see Elijah's cave. The views at the top were great - I say this, but who ever really goes up a mountain and says the view was crap? Anyway, after going forth up the mountain we followed the signs to Elijah's cave which lead us down the moutain right to the bottom. After climbing a great big bloody moutain in the boiling heat to find the cave was at the bottom I was rather annoyed. This was a fine example of Phil's organisational non-prowess. It's not like the cave was inconspicuous or anything - there was a huge sign saying Elijah's cave HERE - with an arrow. It was closed anyway. And it came to pass that Daniel was annoyed.

Midweek, the Office of Student Activities organised an end of year beach party on a private beach. It was a great party. Nice beach, barbeque, loud music and obviously scantilly clad girls. No real stories to tell here except that our bus left first from campus and arrived at the party last because the half wit of a driver got lost. After the party we had a Pimms party at British Phil's flat.

This last weekend I went forth to the Kinneret/Galilee/Lake Tiberius - call it what you will and had a brilliant time. A friend who I have met here, Joel from England (going to Bristol next year), had organised a weekend away for about ten people. We took a whole bunch of food with us and stayed in a Kibbutz made into a Hostel/Hotel which was situated right on lake Tiberius. The views were amazing. The weather was stiflingly hot. We had an excellent Friday night dinner and just hung around beachside on Friday. Saturday was spent sitting in the sun while studying for my Hebrew Oral. It was so hot all day long and I loved every second of it. British Phil came with once again and he can speak Arabic pretty well which is always helpful round these parts. The staff at the Hostel/Hotel loved him as he could speak their language as they were all Arab guys. One even gave him his phone number and invited him around to dinner. This guy genuinely appreciated it so much that Phil spoke Arabic. Also at the Hostel was a big group of Canadian Birthright kids. We hung out with them on Friday night and they were very excited about my accent. It is fantastic being British, so much attention given to you (especially by girls) just because I talk correctly. Brilliant.

'Tis all for now,

Daniel

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