No need to wait any longer friends and cyberstalkers. It's time to hear about the wonders of the Holy Land. We went overseas earlier this year, partially for work, partially for vacation.


Let's start with our flight over. It was a long one. We flew Air Cananda through Toronto. In the airport before our first flight, we met a random guy outside the ticketing area. He, like us, was waiting for the ticket counter to open. Apparently, there is such a thing as too early for your flight. We started up a conversation, and then went through security and ate Dunkin Donuts (or Einstein's, I forget) together. We swapped business cards, and generally had a pleasant wait until boarding. His stop was in Toronto, so he didn't get to experience the most exciting part of the flight.

From Toronto to Tel Aviv, we watched movies. The whole time. No sleeping for us. I do not remember everything we watched, but I do remember enjoying it. I was in the middle of the middle. But with Christopher on the aisle, it was easy enough to get up and walk around, etc. We would have liked to have had an uneventful flight, but over France we were told that we'd have to make an emergency stop at Heathrow. So, we were almost to Lyon when we had to turn around. This added about 5 hours to the already long flight. Luckily, it wasn't anything life threatening. The toilets on the plane stopped working - all of them. There is some rule about the length of flights and toilet breakage/use. So, we had no choice. I got the impression that the issue was the waste tanks were full. Pretty gross. So, we stopped and then got traveling once again. Given that and the overly chatty families to our right and front - the last part of the flight was the most exhausting.

After arriving, we were taken by taxi to our furnished rental apartment for our stay. the apartment was awesome. There was anything that we could need to settle in, including a stocked kitchen (pasta, some milk, instant coffee) and internet. Not to mention, the first level had a pool and workout area, which we used a couple times. The view out the living room window was very nice. A building next door, part of the garden area downstairs, and then out towards one of the city's parks.


The night we arrived was Independence Day Eve. There was a party in the streets, so we went out to see what was going on. It was a lively evening, generally a lot of merry making and drinking. The photo at the top of the post comes from that first night.

The next day was equally nice as the entire city was off from work and throwing barbeques. We went to a friends house for a party they were having and had some really great food. We also met very nice people. Sorry, no food pictures, but we did walk there rather than take a taxi or other method, so we were able to get some nice shots of the city between our apartments.

Here, you can see one of the city parks where families and friends had gathered to throw down their grills and picnic blankets.

Here is one of the highways as we were walking on the bridge over it.

It was kinda warm/hot that day, but I don't remember being overly sweaty or anything. And the walk took us about 45 minutes. So, I suppose the weather must have been a nice temperature. It was a really great first full day in the country.

As this has already become rather long, I think I'll break it up, and you'll have to wait a bit longer for some more info on the Dead Sea and the Old City.

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