Up and down

I chose our zimmer to be in the center of the Galil because on our last day we were supposed to volunteer to pick the fields with Leket, an organization that donates produce to needy families and school children. Their northern fields were slightly on our way back down. Perfect. Convenient. But then they emailed me saying those fields were mostly all picked out and they were going to be picking at fields about an hour and a half further south. This would be even more convenient except for one small detail, we were supposed to pick in the morning so I scheduled an afternoon activity nearby, so driving 3 hours round trip was less than appealing. I cancelled on Leket, we will pick up another chesed activity later.
So, now I had to figure out what to do in the morning. I decided that since Rosh Hanikra did not work out on our way up, we will do it in the morning and work our way down the rest of the day. It was about an hour and 15 minute drive to Rosh Hanikra, which is at the border with Lebanon.

We took the steep, but short cable car ride down to the grottos. They had an English movie for us to start with, which was interesting enough. We learned about the natural formation of the area as well as the man made tunnels from the time of Alexander the Great. We also found out that the train tracks that we could see in the ground were made by the British, but destroyed by the Haganah when they heard that the Lebanese were going to use them in an attack against Israel. We then explored the grottos and tunnels and paths that traversed the mountain. The water was a clear blue- turquoise. As much as we couldn't see through the Jordan River, we could see the bottom of the bay through the Mediterranean Sea.  Popscicles and ice cream were in order once again as we headed out to our next stop.

Our next stop of the day was to Kfar Kedem.  Here we go to experience life as in the time of the Mishna. We dressed up in tunics and head scarves. Our guide Amir took us through time (more explanatory than role playing imagination). He explained the religious significance behind what we were wearing and doing. Since it is nearly Chanuka one of our options was to make olive oil. We went to a small area with some olive trees. They had several real ancient olive presses and oil collecting stones. We gathered olives and pressed them. He showed us how to work the various oil collecting tools. Next we went to a small wheat field mock up. We learned about planting and harvesting wheat. He connected it to the laws of Shabbos and the laws of a field. He gave us some wheat kernels and brought us to an ancient grinding/milling stone. Next we made fresh pita on an outdoor oven. After that we went into the tented area to enjoy more pita, fresh hummus and techina with olive oil and spices, olives that they cured there on site, fresh dates and herbal tea. Yum!

Our final activity was donkey riding. Amir taught us how to hold the reins of the donkey to guide it. He taught us the voice commands for getting the donkey to walk and stop. We lead each other around the corral. It was a much more comfortable and soothing ride than the camels, but we all agreed we are glad we are in the days of automobile, even the tin can on wheels we are renting.

Our next stop comes with an "Only in Israel" story. Atara has a wubanub (a pacifier attached to a stuffed animal) She likes regular pacifiers too, but seems to lose at least one every two days. The wubanub seems to hang out with us for several months. For some reason only known to her she decided to bit off the tip to her bear wubanub. Now, I could have decided that it is too bad for her and now she is pacifier free, but we have several more days her along with a long trip back home. I wanted a paci replacement more for me than for her. I asked an online board if they sell these things anywhere in Israel. We were going from Rosh Hanikra to Beit Shemesh and eventually to Yerushalaim so I had nearly half a country to find one. No one could concretely tell me where to go. Suddenly one woman from Tel Aviv told me she has a brand new one that her baby daughter doesn't use and we can have it if we could come and get it. So, off to Tel Aviv we went! This kind lady gave us Atara's new monkey paci and she was even on our way home.

Last stop of the day was back to RBS. Along the way we passed a forest fire in Zichron Yaakov. We would only later find out that this was the first of the catastrophic arson terrorism fires set by the Arabs that ravaged Haifa and other parts of the country.

Calm waters, rough waters

After we woke up and found delicious healthy muffins hanging on our doorknob compliments of the Villa owner and hostess Chana, we took our time getting ready to head out. Our first activity of the day was only 15 minutes away. I quickly phoned them to be sure us showing up this morning was still fine.
We piled into the car and headed out to Rob Roy Kayaking (which is really canoeing) http://www.robroy.co.il/
Rob Roy is an Native American (Indian) Themed encampment just off the Kineret on the Jordan River. They display some totem poles, teepees, dream catchers etc. I think there are other more full day activities you can add on to do there, but we were just going to be canoeing this morning.
I had everyone change into swim clothes just in case we ended up getting wet. There are a few signs saying no swimming, and when you look at the Jordan river you can easily guess why. It is one big murky mess. You can easily imagine a variety of nastiness swimming under the water, but you can't see a thing below the surface. We were the only ones there that morning so they didn't mind putting up with Atara insisting on a life jacket that looked like everyone elses and not the "baby" kind. She also had to have her own oar. I tried to explain that she just needs to hold her own, but wouldn't be using it, but the man said he can only give us 3 oars. So basically Mendel and I rowed and steered the boat and Meir and Atara took turns whenever Atara thought Meir could have the oar for a few minutes.
/The water was very still and once we got into a rhythm rowing the boat was very easy. We had an hour and half total water time. There must have been some sort of scavenger hunt along the river because there were a bunch of signs with hand drawn eyes and numbers. Around them were wooden creatures and animals. There were some homemade rope swings every so often, but there was NO chance my kids were going to use them to jump in the water. Even when I suggested they try them out, they shot that down faster than we could paddle away.
The route was not circular, so we had to pick a time to turn around and come back. Atara had pretty much had enough and could no longer be distracted by dragonflies and random songs, so we returned to the launch site after about an hour. Of course everyone was rewarded with popsicles and ice cream. We changed back into our regular clothes and headed into Tiveria.

Tiveria (Tiberias) was only about a 30 minute drive away. There we went to the Kever of the Rambam (gravesite). I had Mendel look up the Rambam and some of the other tzaddikim who are buried in Tiveria. He was most interested in Rabbi Meir Baal Haness. I told him that I had previously davened and given tzedaka in his name to help me find lost things. We learned that he is buried standing upright so he can just walk out of his grave and greet Moshiach. When we got to Kever Rambam (which looks like a modern white flame structure surrounding it) we split to our designated sides and said a bit of tehillim. After that we went to the Maimonides Heritage Center  http://mhcny.orgThere is a small museum that goes over the life and works of the Rambam. We had an appointment at the Center to do their puzzle game. We first watched a short, but well done and interesting video on the life of the Rambam. We then did the one hour puzzle game trying to answer clues to earn us keys to unlock a safe with a surprise inside. This puzzle room was a little different than the escape rooms we had done in the past at home as we were given all of the clues at once and asked to either collaborate or to work alone finding the answers some where in the museum. The clues were written in cryptic form and we had to put in answers into an ipad to see if we were correct. We were able to complete all 5 clues in about 50 minutes. This was a fun and educational activity. The docent couldn't have been nicer. He even provided crayons and blocks to try and keep Atara busy. He prompted is with hints when needed. I highly recommend this activity. On our way out Mendel was needed for a mincha minyan at the Kever, so we waited for him realizing that since we are north of Yerushalaim his minyan was facing south instead of east.
We decided to go walk along the Tayelet (boardwalk) to see what was going on and to find food for our dinner. Pretty much nothing was open. It was EXTREMELY windy by the Kineret (Sea of Galilee). The water was very choppy. Meir had his own delight at finding his name in Hebrew as graffiti. We tried to walk along the water but it was too windy and cold. When we stopped to take a picture the stroller started rolling away. Obviously there weren't any boats to rent to cruise the water. Most things seemed closed for the season. We did find our usual Pizza and ice cream stops for Meir and Shnitzel/Shwarma stop for Mendel.
As we walked back to our car we stumbled upon an open air art museum. We learned that the vowels for reading Hebrew were developed in Tiveria.
This was one of our less packed, hassle filled days with less driving but one of our more enjoyable.

Going up the coast

Monday was day one of our trip with in a trip to the northern part of Israel. We are just going to the Galil, not the Golan this time. As always I strive to avoid as much traffic as possible, so even though we have big plans and need an early start, unless we were going to leave at the crack of dawn, I needed to wait a bit to time our pass through Tel Aviv correctly. Our first official stop was in Akko (or Acre for some reason....) but that was too long of a haul for kids, so I made sure we had a pit stop at the Namal in Tel Aviv (basically a seas side promenade). I knew there was a great play ground there, but that was the only detail I had. We parked near Max Brenner (not kosher as far as I know) and let everyone out at one awesome playground.
There were trapeze style ziplines, death defying slides (as usual), a large spiderweb rope climbing thing, a variety of unique swings and a bunch of spinning and balancing devices. We probably could have stayed there an hour or two, but I really wanted to move on to do as much other things as possible this first day.

In 1994 a section of the Old City of Akko was excavated and Templars Tunnels were found. They weren't officially opened until 2007. I had never heard of them until researching for this trip and I was intrigued. In fact I didn't know much about Akko and really wanted to see it. When we got there my kids were a bit wary of being in a city full of Muslim Arabs even if their reputation was one of a peaceful lot. We saw signs for the Templars Tunnels and tried to follow them, but they led through an Arab shuk and the kids (and to a lesser degree, me) chickened out and walked back. We then sought out the Visitors Center. We spoke with a docent there and she assured us that we were on the right track. She told us we had to go all the way through the shuk to find the Templars Tunnels. Oddly enough it was the one time in Israel I privately wished my kids were both wearing baseball caps. We did our best to navigate the area, going through narrow ancient streets and what seemed like alley ways, finally finding the Tunnels. It is no wonder that it took so long for experienced archeologists to find and excavate the place!Templars Tunnels  We paid our entrance fee and went down into the tunnel shaft. By this time my kids were not in their best explorer moods and we went through rather quickly. There were a few signs explaining the time period and significance of the tunnels. Supposedly there is a movie that projects on the walls, but my guess is it is in the tunnel that we did not go through since 2/3 of the kids were starting to melt down. I pretty much forced Meir to eat a sandwich (I don't care if he didn't like that kind of bread or that kind of cheese).
The tunnels exit at the sea port walls. So now we had to figure out how to get back to our car while avoiding some of the creepy passageways and not getting utterly lost. Some how we figured it out. Just as I was rewarding and fortifying my kids with their usual popscicles and ice cream, the Muslim call to prayer sounded. We watched some of the women go to pray, but then they really just wanted to get out of Akko STAT.
On my list of things to do that day was to head up to the Lebanon Border and see Rosh Hanikra. I knew the area closed at 4 pm. Given my past experience with national parks in the winter, I assumed the last cable car down would be around 3pm (with little flexibility). It was now around 2:30. My pocket wifi decided to not load. WAZE which I had come to rely upon was not functioning. We found a gas station and I tried to ask for a paper map. They no longer sell them. An English speaking customer gave me basic directions that I wasn't thrilled to follow, but I knew we were close and assumed I would see some signs along the way. Finally my phone restarted and we headed north. I knew we were cutting it close. Just before one final turn, there was a major traffic accident and the police closed the roads. WAZE could not re-route us. It was 3:05, it was time to give up on this plan for today.

Next on my list for the day, however was to back track a bit into Haifa to this totally quirky place called "Ballers". One day I showed my son their Facebook page and he was completely insistent that we go there. He doesn't ask for a lot of things, so I had to fulfill this one if at all possible. Ballers is a room with giant pool tables and instead of playing pool with cues, the balls are small soccer balls and you stand on the tables and use your feet. It doesn't open until 3pm, so I knew we were in great shape. We got there a little after 4pm. There was only one other table being used when we arrived. The employee let the boys use one table and let Atara do her thing on the empty adjacent one. You rent the table an hour at a time. The boys played about 4 games of pool. By then I think even they had their fill, but Atara was certainly done. She did enjoy rolling around on the balls, throwing them into the pockets, jumping into the pockets and getting the balls out and dancing to their rock music. The employee was very nice and accommodating. If you are looking for an evening activity with a slightly older set to entertain, I recommend you give Ballers a try.  Ballers Facebook page

Instead we made our way to Yavne'el to our zimmer Villa Rimona The zimmer's site My kids were delighted to have free wifi and a TV with netflix. I was happy to have a shower attached to the wall, my own little bedroom area and netflix for my kids so after dinned they could space out and go to sleep! Every morning the guesthouse owner Chana delivers healthy, yummy muffins that are pareve and mehadrin. Pretty much the rest of the food you are on your own for, but there is an electric burner, a mini fridge, a hot water urn and an area you can BBQ (we didn't, but you could). We made do with a pasta dinner eaten al fresco. It may not have been a perfect day, but it was a memorable and full one. Looking forward to the next couple of days up north.

Animals for my wild things.

Sunday morning we waited out some of the Tel Aviv area traffic (I have enough traffic of my own at home) and then went to Ramat Gan Safari Park. We took my niece Chana who apparently has been begging to go since the family had made aliyah. I was happy to fulfill her wish and to get the nagging of my sister to stop.
http://www.safari.co.il/content.php?id=3

For the cost of 69 shekels a person (under 2 is free!) you stay in your car and drive around the "Safari". You can see a wide variety of animals like hippos, zebras, gazelles, giraffes, flamingos and other animals that can be identified with the guide they give you. The animals are free to graze and roam around the open grounds around your car. You aren't supposed to open your windows or feed them obviously. As much as Atara LOVES animals, probably her favorite part was being allowed out of her car seat and sit on Mendel's lap as I drove about 5 miles an hour through the park. There is also a special lion enclosure. You go through an automatic gate into a corridor in front of another gate. When the first closes, the second one opens and you can enter the lion enclosure. This was actually the least exciting area as there were about 6 female lions and one male just laying under a tree hardly moving.
They are pretty relaxed about where you drive, so I imagine you could go around again if you wanted to. We chose to park and to explore the rest of the zoo.

The difference between this zoo and the other ones I have been to seems to be the casualness they are with the animal enclosures (of the non dangerous animals of course). My kids could practically pet the giraffes, reach over and touch the penguins (there was one who hung out near the window watching us eat popsicles and seemed like it really wanted a bite that it followed the kids around and around its area.) Of course there were the usual monkeys, elephants, giant lizards, alligators, birds etc. to be seen. We went to the petting zoo where you could pet goats, sheep, llamas and even feed the camel. There were dozens of chickens roaming around and other birds hiding in the brush.  Everyone had a good time exploring and finding out what was around the bend. The zoo was empty (definitely a perk of touring during off peak times). I dutifully avoided it, but they had an amazing extreme play ground with child size ropes course type structures and lookouts. Why did I avoid it? 1) I was tired 2) Atara was tired 3) Even if she wasn't tired she would have wanted to climb on it and I would have to chase her. I gave the kids sodas and off we went. The way out of the zoo parking lot was back through the open safari. The animals seemed to know that the visitors were leaving as they were more freely roaming near the road, we had to wait for the zebras to cross the road -- yes this began a round of "why did the zebra cross the road" joke attempts) basically bidding us a fair well.

We dropped of my niece at her father's office in Petach Tikva. He works in a building next to a gas station. As we drove away my son remarked that he didn't realize his uncle worked at a gas station, he wouldn't have guessed that is what he does!

For dinner time we arranged to meet with my other sister-in-law and niece in Hashmonaim/Modi'in. We went to their house to relax and play with their puppy. Then off we went to the mall for some kid approved mall food (aka pizza or burgers). We roamed around the mall checking out Israeli offerings. The kids marveled at the kiosks with yarmulkas and tichels. I let them chose some candy from another kiosk. When we felt the traffic peak had come to an end we headed back into Ramat Beit Shemesh.

Shabbos is family time

Shabbos in Ramat Beit Shemesh with my sister and her family was simply wonderful. Friday night my son went to shul with his uncle and cousin while the rest of us stayed home and chatted and watched the kids play. My other son Meir got a good chance to reconnect with his cousins without the distraction of electronics and other things to do, including brothers of various ages. Atara discovered her cousins American Girl Dolls and accessories and was busy, busy, busy.

The meal was a classic Shabbos meal, lovely and tasty. Towards the end Atara climbed onto my lap and promptly fell asleep. We were able to continue to talk with each other as long as I didn't move a muscle or a falling asleep hand. We walked home and I put her to bed and hoped for the best as far as jet lag was concerned. 

As predicted the kids woke up early. Fortunately there is a park with grass and daredevil style slides that Israel loves so much and a climbing structure for older children. It was insanely windy out so after about 45 minutes of play I was ready to head over to my sisters house. Both of my boys went to shul during the day, but my 9 and 11 year old nieces were more than happy to take Atara to the park nearer to them. 

After lunch I got nap trapped yet again. My hand has a new state of slightly asleep holding a toddler. Meir and Avigail decided to explore each park their neighborhood has and to determine which is the best one. I would have loved to have had an activity tracker on those two. They did not stop for hours. 

After Shabbos we took my 2nd niece Elisheva with us to Kever Rachel. I don't know if it was because her yortziet was one week prior or if it is always so full Motzei Shabbos, but it was PACKED. I parked in a semi parking space. When some one in charge (likely army) started making announcements about cars parked where they shouldn't be, I took that as a cue to leave. It took more time to leave the parking lot than anything else. Part of the problem was in order to back out of my very tight space I had to do several maneuvers. Each time I either moved forward or backwards another car would decide to get in as close to my space as possible. When I finally got my car pointed the right way to head out of the lot, another car was blocking the exit. The driver simply couldn't see why he had to back out if he wanted to go forward. If I was able to go forward out of the lot, he could go in. Finally some one came out and started directing traffic to free us all from the gridlock. 

At least I got everyone out of the house and back.

Short but sweet Friday

In November Shabbos starts at around 4p.m. Most activities (museums, national parks, stores etc.) close around noon if they are open at all in order for everyone to get ready. I found that even places that are open on Shabbos close early Friday. So even though I did not need to prepare for Shabbos to the degree that I would if I were home, I needed to find something nearby, and brief to do Friday morning.
The Biblical Museum of Natural History http://www.biblicalnaturalhistory.org/ filled the bill exactly. One catch to the whole deal was they require a minimum of 8 people to open for an English tour on Friday. We were 4 if you count Atara. I emailed the museum informing them that we are more than happy to join another group or to have other people join us to fill the quota. On Thursday morning they phoned me to let me know that another small family from Efrat was interested in coming to the museum and also needed a few more people to join. A shidduch was made.
The Biblical Museum of Natural History is in Beit Shemesh, just a few minutes down the highway. It consists of 2 large rooms. The first room has a few tanks with fish and reptiles, a bird, some animal bones and shells. We were greeted by our guide. Instead of a museum where you wander around reading inscriptions, the guide talks to you about animals in the Tanach. He talked about different snails and sea creatures. He showed us different bones and skins. We watched a short video about lions all the while connecting the animals to Torah and Israel.

touching things we shouldn't have, but look at that happy face

The second room had more taxidermy. We walked around the full size animals continuing the discussion about their historical basis in Israel. He talked about kosher birds and fish. He showed us real hooves of kosher and non-kosher animals. We got to see a variety of insects including the specific kosher grasshopper. There were several tanks and cages of live animals and reptiles. One of the highlights was him feeding a very large lizard an egg for lunch. We also talked about the first animal mentioned in the Torah, the snake. The museum has a few snakes that can be held or touched. Atara thought this was the greatest. She loved petting the snake and was desperate to touch its head.
Another wall of artifacts was kosher and non-kosher shofars. If germs don't bother you much you can try blowing the varies hollow horns.  Outside they had some animals that could be pet or held such as rabbits, tortoises, and birds. We stayed there until everyone was all touched out.
All in all we were there for about 2 hours. We came back home for lunch, a basic cleaning of our apartment and to get ready for Shabbos.

Kotel Bar Mitzvah for Mendel

Atara peaking over the partition

bringing in the sefer torah

The reason for this trip is my 3rd son Mendel's Bar Mitzvah. He had a bar mitzvah celebration back home the Shabbos right after his birthday, but instead of a party he opted for a 2 week trip to Israel with a bonus Kotel Bar Mitzvah. We learned from past experience that it gets pretty busy on Mondays and Thursdays with an onslaught of bar mitzvah boys making their way down to the kotel through the Old City of Yerushalaim (usually with musical instruments, shofars and a chuppah with balloons). We also know that when the sun is shining on the kotel square it gets quite warm. So, we planned for an EARLY morning Bar Mitzvah. We were entertaining a "Netz" Bar Mitzvah (as in finishing up davening as the sun comes up) but since it is November that would mean leaving our house no later than 5:00 am. Realistically that wasn't going to happen, but some how leaving at 5:30 would be practical! We took a back route to Jerusalem in order to beat any early morning traffic and of course got stuck behind several large construction trucks making or pace painfully slow. We arrived at the Zion Gate Parking at 6:45, got to the wall at 7:00 am.

Our friends who had made Aliyah a few years before were there waiting for us. When you come this early you can just pick a bimah next to the mechitza and go for it. It took a few minutes to round up a minyan, some random guy took charge of the davening and acted as gabbai. I brought a pocket wifi in order to stream Mendel's reading and aliyah live for our friends and family back in the states. Mendel got his aliyah, my nephew Shlomo got the second one, and our friend got the third. Mendel read very well, candy was thrown and mission was accomplished.

Mendel with his Kotel Bar Mitzvah certificate

After the main event we were sure to take some group photos and to get Mendel's Bar Mitzvah certificate from the Rav of the Kotel (we will just ignore the not one but two spelling errors in his name....).
Our family was introduced to Israel's latest restaurant food fad "Cofix" where everything you order is 5 shekels. Coffee, danishes, burekas, pasta on and on. Our whole family at a substantial breakfast for 50 shekels. A bargain!

The next thing on our agenda was to test run an Old City Scavenger Hunt. Scavenger hunts have gained in popularity in Israel. I was going to reserve a slot with a well known company, but was asked by another company if we were willing to test run their scavenger hunt clues. They would supply the scavenger hunt with questions, we would follow the trail, take pictures of each marker, learn a bit about the Old City all for FREE! and if you know anything about me and my past trips, Free is free. We started at Jaffa Gate and worked our way all through the Old City, down the Cardo, to the Broad wall, into the square, back down to the Kotel Plaza, over to Dovid Hamelech's kever (gravesite) and more. We walked and searched for about 3 1/2 hours. There were a few bathroom breaks and snack breaks along the way and since we weren't racing as in a regular scavenger hunt the pace was more relaxed. We also had Atara who protested the stroller most of the time. By the time we got to the end, any more tourist attractions for the day were declined for a ride back to Ramat Beit Shemesh with some late lunch.

Later that evening my 11 and 9 year old nieces helped my 13 and 9 year old sons navigate the bus to the Ramat Beit Shemesh A' mercaz to purchase their own dinner and shabbos treats. They came home late and exhausted!