So Wednesday we were very lazy. We all just sat around the house and did nothing at least til 4pm. Then the boys got back from school and we conned Ibrahim into walking around Herzilya, the town where their house is. We spent a couple of hours just walking around, first we went to a castle thingy but it was closed and then we tried to go to the beach but it was not easily accessible. So then we headed back to the house. We stopped on the way back to get fruit that I would eat... things like Kiwi and Apples. And Ibrahim made fun of me because he thinks that kiwis are about as weird as you can get and he was totally surprised that I will eat them. So we get back to the house and Alia is sitting in the car waiting for us. She wants to take everyone to Caesarea for dinner. Well I was tired and didnt want to go, she asked mom to go for her and so mom, grandma, and Yusef went with Alia to dinner. ibrahim and I stayed at the house and just hung out. First we ate, which for me was some bread and a few kiwis and for him it was half a chicken and some curry and such!! He was shaking his head the whole time we were eating! Kinda funny if I say so myself. At that point I got on him for never replying to emails and he told me that he hadnt gotten one from me on just over a year. To which I told him that was bull and that he should check his email! So he said that he would prove it to me. Therefore we checked his email and what do you know there are 252 UNREAD emails. He laughed and I showed him about 7 that I had sent in the course of a year that he hadnt read. He said that he was sorry, he doesnt do well with the whole email/internet thing, he runs out of things to say. He told me that he was better at talking when he can see peoples faces so I should get a webcam so that we can talk over Skype. I also showed him facebook and conned him into getting one, not that he ever checks it but hey hes got one!! lol. I also showed him all my friends at Transy- I used the pic of Megan's birthday party. So then we cooked snails. This was a really long process, we started at 8:45 and didnt finish til 11:30. First we dumped all the snails out. Then we made sure that they were all alive- this by far took the longest. In order to make sure they were alive we had to make sure that they were moving, some of them didnt want to move! Then after making sure they were moving we cleaned them, scrubbed them really, and rinsed them. After that we put them in boiling water to kill them. And then put them on the cake pan type thing and smothered them with butter and garlic, and stuffed them in the oven to cook. I did not try any of the snails but I had fun cooking them. Ibrahim and I also had some good conversation throughout this whole time.
Thursday- The Dead Sea and Massada.
Thursday we woke up REALLY early and I set off the alarm by going out of my zone before it was turned off. OOPS!! But once it was turned off we were all good. So we got ready, went to The David International Hotel and caught our tour. The man that was our guide was very knowledgable and has even published two books, so I look forward to reading one of them when it is printed in English. Once we were picked up we drove to Jerusalem to pick up other people on our tour. We had 2 people from Chile, one from Spain, 4 from Canada and 3 from California. From Jerusalem we went to Massada. The way to Massada was beautiful. We saw some Bedouin people hearding their sheep and that was really neat. We then drove through the West Bank, but we were never fired at nor did anyone in our group get killed! From the West Bank we drove along the Dead Sea, which was BEAUTIFUL. During this drive we also saw the caves where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, talk about interesting. I remember seeing these caves on the TV when there was news about them, and now I have seen them in real life! Then we drove past a real desert Oasis, we didnt get to see it but Ibrahim told us that it was amazing. Still it looked neat as we were driving by. And finally we arrived at Massada. Massada was the place where the Jews lived and the romans came and took three years to get to and then the Jews killed everyone the last night. I remember seeing a movie about it in Mr. Music's AP European History class I think, one of Mr. Music's classes anyway. :) Anyway it is like a plateau but really high and kind of hard to get to. I dont really know how describe it so people will just have to wait for pictures or google it! Anyway to get to it we had to ride a cable car. That was a new and interesting experience for me. I wanted to rock the cable car but my mom told me I couldnt. :( So we spent an hour on top of Massada and visited the first EVER synagogue. We even saw a boy celebrating his Bar Mitzvah. After that we went back down via cable car and had lunch and shopped. We got some fun dead sea mineral cosmetics. EXPENSIVE but hey we are only gonna do this once so why not! lol. After lunch we went to the Dead Sea. We went to a place called Mineral Spa or something like that and swam- or rather floated- in the Dead Sea. First we got in, and it was really cold!! Then we floated for about 20 minutes. Amazing really, but we had to be careful not to get it in our mouth- it tasted bitter- or eyes- it REALLY stung, or our ears- no problem. As you can see, me being me, accidentaly got it in every place your not supposed to! Ok so after floating we got mudded. It is said that the Dead Sea has healing powers especailly the minerals in the mud. So we put mud all over our bodies- mom and I did. EVEN IN OUR HAIR!! And the mud was BLACk- so we looked like black people. We waited for 15-20 minutes while the mud dried and then washed it off. It didnt come off very easily! We then went and floated in a hot spring pool that fed the dead sea but it wasnt in the dead sea, it was something different. It was VERY nice and warm, and sulfer-y. After spending some time in the sulfer hot water where we floated, just like in the sea itself. We took showers and got ready to head back. As we were driving back our guide let us off to take pictures of the 4 Dead Sea Scroll Cave, the library where the found a map of all the caves. That was pretty darn interesting. Anyway, our trip back to Tel Aiv was long because we hit rush hour traffic in Jerusalem. But once we got back I was pretty tired and just about fell into bed.
Today I think we are packing and taking it easy. We will walk to Appolonia which is a fortress on the coast I think. Apparently its really cool, and its close by. I will write about it when we get home to Louisville. I have had a good time and I dont really want to leave!
Anyway... off to breakfast- see I told you writing this would be the first thing that I would do today!!
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