Well this is the last post of mine dealing with my trip to Israel. At least this trip to Israel. So Friday we woke up with Alia and the boys. We discussed possible events for the day but eventually Alia and the boys had to leave for work/school and grandma, mom and I stayed at the house. Alia, Yusef and Ibrahim were supposed to get home around 1 but at 1:30 we decided that if we didnt go to Appollonia then we were goning to get cabin fever. So we walked about 40 minutes to Apollonia, which is a fortress on the coast in Hertzilya (the town that they lived in). We got there at like 2 and the guard was closing the gate, things close early in Israel on Fridays because of the Sabbath. Sabbath is the Jewish holy day, for those who dont know, and I'm not sure about the details but it starts sometime Friday and ends sometime Saturday I think. Anyway, so the guard tells us that he is closing at 3. So we wander around to see this fortress, which is really cool. It was built on a cliff near a natural harbor. It was REALLY windy, REALLY windy, but fun and interesting. Not much to report other than it was windy and we saw lots of ruins, which was intersting.
After seeing Apollonia, Alia picked us up and we went to the beach. The beach was fun and I can now say that I have set foot in the Mediterranean Sea. Pretty cool. But it was very windy and cold and so we didnt get very far!! It was rough, which apparently is very unusual in Tel Aviv, or so Alia says. She says that its usually smooth as glass. So after stepping into the Med. Sea we decided that we would like to do a little shopping but it was Friday and the start of the Jewish sabbath. And Israel is a Jewish state, therefore pretty much everything was closed. It was worse than Sundays in the states. So after a half hour of driving around we decided to just go home and hang out with Alia and the boys before flying home.
Alia cooked a dinner of potato/chicken soup, rice and turkey legs. I wasnt going to eat anything but they started laughing and said that just once they would like to see me eat something. So I ate some rice, to which everyone cheered. But apparently that too was too plain and too similar to bread. So I decided what the heck, and tried soeme of the soup. I dont believe that I have eaten soup in 2-3 years, not even chicken noodle. So on the last day I tried something new, and it really wasnt that bad. Maybe just maybe I will start trying new things more.
After dinner, grandma, mom, Alia, Ibrahim and I sat around the table and just talked. It was laid back and easy and fun. Then we took pictures and at a wuarter til 9 headed to the airport. We checked in and went through minimal security, like our checked luggage got thoroughly checked and then we were going to do some shopping before we went through human security. Alia and Ibrahim came into the airport with us for a while. And then after several minutes of discussing exchanging money and buying things we said goodbye. Two rounds of hugging and through security we went.
On the other side of security there were LOTS of duty free stores. And since we had kind of a lot of money left we spent it!! :) It was fun. But after a while we got tired of shopping and went to our gate. The plane ride was fairly uneventful. It was pretty empty on account of it being sabbath and so we got to spread out a little bit. It was a long flight and luckily I got to sleep through some of it! Once we got to New York, JFK and we learned that there was a tornado in Atlanta, where we were supposed to go. SO mom and grandma tried to get us on a direct flight to Louisville but it didnt work. So we took our chances. We got to Atlanta fine but getting out of Atlanta was another story. We loaded the plane to go to Louisville fine and we were out on the runway but then air traffic control shut down the WHOLE airport on account of more weather coming in. So we sat on the runway through a hail storm. NOT fun. But between the storms we were able to take off and we got home around 6pm, a full 24 hours after we started coming home.
Well thats the end of the trip. It was fun and I miss Israel but I am also glad to be home. Now I just have to do all the homework that wasnt done on the trip!!
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