Summer in Israel

In October we are touring Israel. There are two web sites you can look at and comment on the tour and register if you wish. We will be glad to read all your comments.



http://heartandsoultour.weebly.com
http://asherhouseembassy.weebly.com/index.html


Hi to Flat Stanley, Emilee, Mrs. Oakes and the grade 3 - going to grade 4 - class.

Mr & Mrs C.

Flat Stanley is Home

A post arrived, " Flat Stanley arrived tired but well at home. He is now with Emilee, in Canada".
Glad to have met you dear Flat Stanley. Hope to meet you and Emilee again someday.
All the best to you, to Emilee and to the Grade 3 Class of Ms. Oakly in Alberta.
Mr. & Mrs. C.

34. Supper in Israel

Flat Stanley had supper with our visiting Canadian friends last night in a luxury hotel on top of the Carmel Mountain in Haifa. He is now on his way back to Emilee in Alberta, Canada in the postal bag.

We are grateful that Emilee thought of us and mailed him to us for the visit. We had lots of fun and interesting time while he was here.

We wish him and Emilee all the best.

Willie & Orith Cunningham

33. The Last Post

Dear Emilee,

On May 4th, Tuesday next week, we will meet with Canadian friends who will be coming to tour Israel. Mr. & Mrs. C. are planning to take me with them to Haifa for the visit. That will be my last day. So today is my last post. Mrs. C. will post the last picture for me while I will be flying home to you, in the post-office bag.

Your satisfied reporter,
Flat Stanley

32. The Last Week

Dear Emilee,

I thought that we cannot get up earlier then we do every morning, but last Tuesday we started at 3:30 am. If we would get up any earlier than that, I would meet myself going to sleep!

We took a taxi ride to the train station in Nahariya. Dawn broke into the night in Haifa around 6:00 am and the first sunrays colored the sky orange by 7:00 am in Tel-Aviv.

We got off the train at the airport. In there, we rode a shuttle bus from the international terminal #3 to domestic terminal #1, where we went through security stations to the main waiting area. At gate #44, about 5 hours after we woke, we set with a coffee and a baked something for breakfast, waiting for our flight.

I had no idea where we were going and although I peeked through the camera bag, there were no visible signs.

We did not wait long. We boarded the Dash-8 quickly and settled in the last seat near the exit. The pilot announced our destination: Eilat.

At 15,000 feet, we saw the Dead Sea, Masada, and the Jordan River, clear as day. What a beautiful site. Eilat is the most southern city in Israel. It is on the northern tip of the Red Sea and is a tourist place. It borders with Jordan in the east and Egypt in the south.
An hour later, we were in Eilat terminal. We walked to the hotel seeing the sites and stopping for window-shopping. There are shops and open tables’ venders all along the beach where our hotel was located. Eilat has many water activities: Boats equipped with glass bottoms for you to watch the unusual colorful fish; beaches with soft sand; dolphins you can swim with, and wonderful ice-cream kiosks. We did none of these activities; instead, we walked slowly looked at things, and enjoyed the sun and the palm trees avenue.

The next morning, I found out the reason for the slow first day and the motivation for the training on Nahariya beach. The days of walking four or more kilometer a day paid off – we went to Petra, Jordan.

At 6:45, we crossed the border to Jordan.
The kingdom of Jordan located on the East side of the Jordan River across from Israel. Again, the passports were checked, but now the main language was Arabic. The pictures of King Abdullah and his late father, King Hussein, are on every wall, and the crown of the kingdom is on the top of the border gate.

During the two hours bus ride from the boarder to Petra, our guide explained much of the history of the Royal Family. He also told us about some of the geography of the desert that we drove by; the mountains were very colorful because of various types of soil and minerals in them. He reminded us that Petra now has the designation of one “of the wonders of the world”.

Many Bedouin tribes live in that desert and they herd goats, sheep, and camels. They live in tents with black tops and white sides but some were relocated to an enclosed village where houses were built for them by the government.

But the animals they herd run free alongside the road, like this baby camel.

We stopped in a store on the way, and I found a camel saddle to ride. It was just too big to carry back on the plane.










Petra - the Red Rock as my hosts call it – is hidden in the mountains of the Jordanian desert. An archeologist, who followed the legends of the desert people, discovered it. The original area was populated by people called Navatim and they made the place into a garden. They used rain and floodwater in very unusual ways to grow many fruits and vegetables; they buried their dead in carved tombs built in the red rock, and they lived in carved holes in the mountains.











They believed that the place was holy, so they carved their gods of stone in the rocks. Later on, the Egyptians and the Romans conquered Petra and added carvings of their own gods into the rocks.

The walk into Petra was all-downhill. We met many who took horse-and-buggy rides or rode horses instead of walking. But we had training! We walked the up-hill back as well and arrived at the bus just in time for lunch.

The ride back on the bus was very quiet. Most people were sleeping off the hard walk and the hot day. Again, we checked passports and cross the same border to Eilat, Israel.

The next day was a slow walk around the promenade; a flight to Tel-Aviv airport, in a jet this time, and a train ride home to Nahariya. Mrs. C. told me that she lived in Eilat 46 years ago, but it changed so much, that she could not find the path she used to take daily with her (then) new baby to the beach. But it was good to visit again.

Thanking God for the earlier training,
Your in-shape-for-rock-climbing Reporter,

Flat Stanley

31. Israel Independent Day – 62nd Birthday

Dear Emilee,

What a week that was. After I helped to hang the flags for Independent Day, something happened daily and new faces arrived.

On Friday, a couple came for Shabbat dinner. Since Mr. C. patch my splitting head and drawn a Kippa on the top, I was all ready to help Mrs. C. to light the Sabbath candles. Together, we blessed the candles, the bread and the wine and had a great supper with Sigalit and Yossi.

Saturday we were at the Khila for the Shabbat services, reading the Torah and singing.
Sunday after Mr. C. returned from his day studying Hebrew and we had our supper, we stood in silence during the night sirens remembering more than 22,000 fallen IDF soldiers.

Monday morning we stood again in silence during the sirens and by the evening, we went for a walkabout in town. The streets were covered with people sidewalk to sidewalk. I had my first cotton candy, laughed with some little ones in strollers, listened to the loud sounds of popped balloons and toy cars and even stopped for pizza. We walked a long time, met with some neighbors from the building, and saw the fireworks in all their colorful glory. We heard the dancing music until the early morning hours and it was such a great feeling to be a part of Israel Independent Day celebration.

Tuesday, Marc and Leah joined us at the beach, where we had the traditional Independent Day “Al Ha-Esh” picnic.
We watched the F-16 fighters formation then the Passengers planes fly overhead and looked for the boats to pass by us on the water. We returned home with sand in our sandals and Mr. C. red as a lobster. In Israel they say, red as a tomato. He is working on cooling it off now so it will not peel.

Today, Wednesday, Shirley and Motti came for lunch and spend the day, relaxing and talking about their recent trips to the Far East. Tomorrow is Mr. C. Hebrew class.












We are winding down the month of April, and my stay in Israel. I promised Mrs. Oakey that I would return to Canada by May. I am not sure what surprises the last week holds for me, but I am sure my visit will end with a great flare. I will write to you all about it Emilee, and then I will be coming home.

Sad to go but missing you,
Your reporter Flat Stanley

30. BBB Again

Dear Emilee,

Today, we caught the 07:30 bus from besides our dwelling and went to Kiryat Bialik to visit Motti and Shirley.

I heard a lot about them, but I met them today for the first time. Shirley used to be a grade one teacher in USA and she recognized me right away. I used to visit her class! I meet so many old friends here in Israel.

They had a meeting all morning, than they went to celebrate Shirley and Mrs. C. Birthdays, again. The two ladies have almost the same birthday date so they went to their favorite restaurant, the BBB with a few friends.

Mr. C. got his portion of beef again. His pretty doctor will be very happy to hear that he is following her instruction so well.

Twelve hours later at 19:30, we returned to Nahariya on the bus. People have long days in Israel, no wonder I’m all tired out.

Your reporter with the full tummy,
Flat Stanley

29. Doctor Visit

Dear Emilee,

Did you ever go to the doctors’ office? Yesterday, I went with Mr. and Mrs. C. to the doctors.

The offices here are sure different then in Canada. They are wide and the whole building, all seven floors of it, is full of physicians. They have secretaries’ offices on every floor and lots of chairs to wait in. The pharmacy is inside the building as well as nurses offices, and the floors are separated to different specialties of the physicians.
Mrs. C. told me that it takes many visits to know which floor to go to and to find the doctors or the nurses who do the blood tests and all that stuff. But they must have been here a few times because they just pushed the button on the elevator, arrived at the 6th floor and knocked on the door to see the doctor.

Their physician is a very beautiful lady doctor. But she would not allow us to take her picture, she just let me have my picture taken with her stethoscope while I had my check up.

We walked there on the streets of Nahariya. Look how very wide the sidewalks are. It is laid down by hand all through the city. Many people walked down these streets, you just have to look down a lot because the dogs walk on these sidewalks also…

The doctor told Mr. C. that he has to eat more meat, so we went to the Falafel stand where he had Shwarma. This is a mixture of meats like turkey and lamb and it turns around and around the skew until it is well cooked. The seller shaves it thin; mix it with some sauté onion, places it in a pita, and adds veggies. Look at the colorful salad bar! and you can eat as much as you want from it...











Then we walked home again on the wide sidewalks.

All walked out,
Flat Stanley

28. Mrs. C. Birthday

Dear Emilee,

Today is Mrs. C. Birthday. All day long, she sighed, “I just love birthdays, especially mine”. She repeated herself so many times, I thought Mr. C. was going to cover his ears with his hands, but he just smiled and kept walking.

Yes, we walked all day.

Opps, again I started at the end of the story. In fact, the story began on Friday. Mr. & Mrs. C. said good-bye to me and left me alone at home. Mrs. C. said that I had enough excitement and she thinks I need some rest. So they took my picture by the blooming white Spathiphyllum, and left me at home while they went to the Shabbat dinner at the Khila. What Mrs. C. did not know was that I checked the web and found schedules for a surprise trip for her birthday today.

Yes, I arranged all of it. All Mr. C. had to do was to take Mrs. C. by the hand and take her to her surprise trip.

This morning, after we sang “Happy Birthday”, we caught the bus and rode to the 7:00 am train to Jerusalem. We arrived at 10:30 at the Jerusalem Biblical Zoo. And then, we walked all day.

The biblical zoo is a magical place.

The people at the zoo collected animals and birds from everywhere in the world, and are breeding them to populate the biblical land of Israel. Wounded animals and orphans are looked after in the zoo hospital and many nearly extinct species are being revived here.

A short movie shows the visitors how Noah collects these species in his 4000+ years ark and brings them to the zoo to make sure that they are saved and that they populate the land again.

Emilee, you will need to look at the birds and mammals in the pictures and see how many you and your class recognize and write their names in the comments. Each had its’ own sign near the cages but I did not write all their names down and by the time we returned home, all I could remember were the names of the elephants and the giraffes. Maybe you'll find some on: www.jerusalemzoo.org.il











The zoo was arranged by areas of the world and one was a Canadian section. The prairie dogs and the mountain goats were in there.










The bears at the zoo, had the same hump on their back as the grizzly bears, but they were small like the black and brown Canadian bears. They were Syrian.

By two o’clock in the afternoon, sand storms fill up the mountains around us and we were totally covered with fine dust. It tasted salty for some reason and when we showered later at home, it tasted like we just had a salt bath. Mr. C. said it was sweat, but we did not sweat at all we just got covered with sand. The day had no sun and was warm but not muggy. Weird.

I always thought that the Arbutus Trees grow only on Vancouver Island in BC, but here they were in the zoo! See, I'm hanging off one of them.











We caught the 4 pm train back to Nahariya and Mrs. C. just set all the way back with a great big green on her face. I think she had a perfect birthday.

Your Salty Tasted Reporter
Flat Stanley