one foot in front of the other

Time for an update on my recent excursions!

So, Wednesday I rode in to Akko with Tomer and his driver (he goes to a private school there). Akko is about an hour and a half from here, on the coast, and about a half hour north of Haifa. It is apparently the oldest port city in the world. I figured it was a good place to start since it was relatively close, and I could hitch a ride and not have to figure out bus schedules using Egged's website. Egged, the bus company here, is apparently super well organized and extensive and used by everyone. However, their website is a large load of crap. I tried to use it to figure out getting around Tel Aviv and just gave up, so now I'm putting it off as long as possible by using the trains and other various modes of transportation.

So I got to Akko around 9 and went to the hostel first to drop my stuff. The woman there, Zipi, was extremely helpful in navigating the city and gave me this awesome map that basically saved my life. Ok, it would have been a little more awesome had it been in english instead of french, but I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. She pointed out some things to check out around the city, and I struck out on foot.

The first place I went was the Baha'i shrine and gardens, which I had heard were beautiful. Northern Israel, Haifa actually, is the world capital for the Baha'i faith (if you don't know what it is, go wikipedia it). I thought that the gardens in Akko were like, THE gardens, but actually there are also gardens in Haifa. I apparently went to the less outstanding of the two. They were nice, but (a) most of them are blocked off, so you only get to walk around for about 20 minutes (b) I forgot about the whole modesty rule in holy sites and was given a very thick sweater to wear over my tank top (which would not have been an issue had it not been about 90 degrees....or whatever the Celsius equivalent is) , (c) the tour I was tagging along behind was given entirely in Hebrew, and (d) I walked roughly 45 minutes there and back and it was totally not worth it. Oh well....

I then went to explore the Old City, which was a long walk but nice. I checked out this citadel that is a continuing archaeological site which was kind of cool, but then I went down the wrong alley and ended up getting a bit lost in an Arab neighborhood. Found my way out of that eventually and walked to the beach, where I spent a couple hours. Then walked to the promenade along the sea which was nice, and back in to a different part of the old city. I was looking to see some old churches but didn't have much luck there, apparently they must not want you to come to church because the doors are impossible to find. Apparently the old city is also a popular spot to get married, I thought I had seen the same bride and groom in about six different places until I realized there were actually two couples and the girls just happened to be wearing the same dress. It would seem there is a shortage of atrocious TLC wedding shows on this side of the globe.

By the time I made it back to the hostel I was exhausted, so I took a shower and got in bed around 6pm. I also had a horrible blister on my toe from my flip flops, the first blister I have ever gotten from my tevas, and greatly regretted deciding not to bring tennis shoes OR the first aid kit with me. So I had to tough it out and make do with wrapping a piece of toilet paper around my toe until I could find a place to buy bandaids.

The next day I got up and walked to the train station, where I took the train to Haifa. I did manage to get off at the right stop and found my way to the next hostel. They were also very helpful about where to go and how to get there, but unfortunately did not give you free wifi, which made me extremely unhappy since the internet hadn't worked the night before either. Spent the rest of the day exploring the city/lying on the beach, which I have to say is the nicest beach I have ever been to. I am loving the Mediterranean. I also rode the Carmelit, which is Israel's only subway, and if you can believe it is even more useless than Miami's Metrorail. It was built in the 1960's and despite being renovated in the 80's it is still pretty retro. It has two trains and six stops and that's about it. However, it did prevent me from walking up and down Mt. Carmel, which was nice. The major detriment of the day was the fact that on my last bus ride of the evening, my camera fell out of my pocket. Sigh. I really do have the worst luck when it comes to cameras. Despite making an early morning trek to the central bus station the next day to see if they had it, I still have not managed to recover the camera. I am currently working on a solution, aka finding a new one here. Anyway, other than the internet situation, the hostel was very nice. I met a slew of Christian motorcyclists who were riding from Finland to Jerusalem, and a variety of American jews around my age who invited me out to join them in that night's revelry. I declined, but did hear the results of "All you can drink for 8 shekels after 2am" in the bathroom on the other side of my wall three separate times in the early hours of the morning. Not sure if that was one person throwing up three times or three different people, but sounds like they had a pretty epic night.

Took the train back to Akko in the morning to catch a ride back to Nimrod with Tomer and his driver. Ended up getting on the wrong train and arrived way early, so I got to look super sketchy sitting on my backpack outside the train station for an hour.

Traveling was fun but it takes a lot out of you doing it on your own, so it's nice to be back for a few days. You'll be happy to know I cleaned up the house and a weeks worth of dirty dishes in preparation for my new roomies coming tomorrow.

Also, a very happy Father's Day to all you fathers out there. They don't have Father's Day here; apparently they used to have Mother's Day but changed it to Family Day to make it more fair. Sonny Lemmons, I hope for your sake your kid doesn't celebrate today like he did Mother's Day.