Fruit Tour of Israel 1

Before the camera broke, M spent many hours documenting the various exotic fruits on the kibbutz. All of these aren't commercially grown; some were planted as ornamentals here years ago and random people can pick and eat them. Do you know these fruits?

Sapota (or sapodilla). The inside is purplish brown and it tastes like cotton candy. Lilah loves it, and J thinks it's foul (although pro-cotton candy).

Papaya.
Sabra (prickly pear).
One of the many varieties of dates around here.

Avocado.

Lilah and figs (ate many of them).

Spondias dulcis (Tahitian apple).

Kumquat.
Passionfruit. It's ubiquitous here, in chocolate bars, drinks, gum, cosmetics and everything else.

Pomegranate. We went to a winery that makes only pomegranate wine today. The dessert wine was pretty good. Unfortunately, we left the bottle in the car for two hours and the cork popped.

Ode to the BFF (in celebration of her birthday)

New playgrounds are fun

But you are so far away

I miss you, Svea!

Jerusalem Old City

We were in Jerusalem for 5 days. Last Saturday, after eating a lovely breakfast with Yorke in the Albright courtyard, we walked over to the Old City. After some window-shopping, we paused for yet another plate of chips (too bad you can't see the pink ketchup) in the Christian Quarter before braving the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on a Saturday afternoon.

Something is spotted outside the entrance (12th century Crusader).


Lilah pauses in front of the Stone of Unction. This is precisely when she started rubbing her face that day - she wound up with a pretty bad rash that lasted the whole time we were in Jerusalem. Was it the incense in the air? The smoke? The grease from the nasty $6 plate of fries?

This picture, taken by M, makes Christ's tomb look pretty impressive with the light from the ceiling and all. The view closer to the ground is pretty bad - the tomb walls are buckling in a serious way and supported by ugly scaffolding from the 19th century.

This pic only hints at the crowds present that day. Actually, it wasn't so bad, but we didn't stay in for long.

The lioness howled (probably for another popsicle) as we wandered past the stalls not far from the church.

And we stopped at a shop on the Via Dolorosa to buy some souvenirs (a bunch of hamsas; I'm feeling the need for special protection these days).

Cana and Nazareth Village

This week we spent a few days at Kibbutz HaSoleilim, where I worked on the stone from Khirbet Cana. My work in storage rooms reached new heights.

But only briefly, as it was way too hot to be in this thing after like 8:30 am. Generally we enjoyed the lovely weather; there was lots of outdoor dining on the picnic table outside of our room. Here we ate, among other things, giant pita and labneh with zaatar. This pita is so big that it can be worn as a skirt.

The crowded kibbutz pool was full of helpful signage.

The kibbutz is near Nazareth, so we spent yesterday there walking around downtown, briefly visiting the Church of the Annunciation, and touring Nazareth Village. L really liked the doors to the church; she keeps talking about how small Jesus is in these images. There were also lots of beautiful mosaics of Mary and Jesus by artists from countries all over the world.

And then we went to Nazareth Village. I have been using this as an example in classes for a few years but had never been there until yesterday. Basically, it is a faux Roman village from the time of Jesus with reenactors, animals, traditional crafts, etc. It was not as cheesy as I expected, which is something, but I have some complaints. For one, it was noon and hot, and there were only like 2 reenactors working plus a couple of goats and a donkey. For some reason we didn't get a tour of all the reconstructed buildings, which made me pretty annoyed as there were some pretty good installations, tools, etc. that I wanted to take pictures of. Our guide was ok, but honestly his inauthentic dress, Sprite bottle, and frequent text-messaging were all wrong.

Here is a member of our group with one of the reenactors on the watchtower.

This olive press was used pretty recently, as it still had olive chunks and delicious-smelling oil on it.
The reconstructed synagogue was really nice, and Lilah was all smiles in the relative coolness in there.

I sort of recommend this place. In cooler weather with more reenactors it would be better. The gift shop was full of great stuff but it was way expensive (which didn't deter me). We got little replica Roman lamps as souvenirs, and successfully burned one last night while watching Snow White for the millionth time.

Matthew at Dor; Binyamina again

Late last week we returned to the coast to visit people and places. We found UE student Matthew preparing to leave the excavations at Tel Dor and we took him to eat Thai food for lunch before he made his way to Haifa. Here he is in front of the museum at Dor:


We spent two nights in Binyamina visiting Lior, Adi and kids. The twins and L enjoyed the pool and all the hammocks and swings, and L even befriended their somewhat large dog.

We then went to visit Ran, Eti and Or in their new house. Here's Ran.

On Sunday we went to Jerusalem so I could do a few things at the Arch institute at Hebrew U. Lilah helpfully worked on the Hazor report while I looked at some rocks.

And then we stopped by the Albright - the American archaeology school in Jerusalem - for tea. L enjoyed Hisham's herb garden.

L passed out practically as soon as we hit the road back to Degania after a really long weekend. On the way I bought some glass balls from a roadside shop near Jericho.

I only wish this donkey could make the trip.

I'm getting sick

of all these freaking rocks.

Britt at Megiddo; Marzipan

A few days ago we went to visit Megiddo. As always, there were exciting things to see, among them UE student Britt and a newly-uncovered, huge EBI temple. Britt gamely posed for some shots (gazing at baulk; scraping mudbrick).

On the way back home, after stuffing ourselves at Yehuda Avazi in Afula, we stopped at the Marzipan Museum at Mt. Tavor. We were here 3 years ago with Lilah, and not too much has changed. This year Lilah was old enough to make her own marzipan treats in molds, but only after watching an idiotic movie about the history of almond cultivation at Tavor. This is what a still chocolate fountain looks like; I don't know who that guy with the mustache is.

There are many beautiful works of art in the Marzipan Museum, among them biblical scenes rendered in marzipan,

along with creepy marzipan portraits of Israeli heads of state, and even a nearly life-size Elvis.

Here we are making little cats and dogs in marzipan, most of which did not survive the trip back to Degania.