Wednesday-Haifa-Akko-Karmiel

Wednesday--January 12--A better day

With all the horror of yesterday behind me, I had a coffee date with a woman Tami who is a friend of my friend Debra.  We met at Greg’s, which is a coffee house chain here in Israel and just up the street from where I am staying.  

When I told her the story of what had happened the day before she couldn’t believe it.   She said I should have yelled, “thief”, as though that would have gotten people to move faster.  It is quite shocking for Israeli’s to believe that such a thing could happen here.  It can happen anywhere.

Tami and her husband have lived many places in the world but have settled back in Haifa.  She has three grown children and two grand children, whom she babysits often.  As a matter of fact Tami told me she needed to go to her daughter Leemore’s house after our coffee to babysit her 10 month old daughter. 

Tami and the baby

how cute is this baby?

She told me her daughter is a massage therapist which piques my interest, as I certainly could use one.  She calls her daughter to see if she has any availability and suggests I walk with her to her daughter’s house.  As it turns out her daughter lives one block from where I’m staying.  What are the chances of that.  

I walk with Tami to her daughter’s house, meet Leemore and the adorable baby.  I am able to make an appointment for a massage and reflexology for Friday.  












I visit for a while but need to get going as I’m on my way to Akko and then to Karmiel to meet Emily’s host family and she where she is living.

train station in Haifa

I take a taxi to the train station to get the 12:37 train to Akko.  The train is only about 45 minutes to Akko.  Again, I’m lucky with nice weather so I walk from the train station to the old city, which took about 20 minutes.  

Entrance to Old Akko

I went to the visitors center in the old city and bought a ticket to tour the Knight’s Hall, the Turkish Bath and several other sights within the old city.  I had been here in 1976 and it was indeed quite different then.  I remembered parts of the old city had been used as a jail and also a mental institution.  

all of this is underground

Those were closed and then turned into this incredible tourist site.  Much more excavation has been done and is always continuing.  Now Akko is one of the biggest archeological sites in Israel and a world heritage site.  I took the audio tour which helped a great deal in giving the history of Akko.  It’s one of the oldest inhabited cities in Israel having had many different groups in control of the city over the centuries.  

have no idea what these embossed pictures are

thought they were very cool

I walked around trying to follow the numbers on the audio tour much of which is underground and found myself walking through a tunnel to the “Turkish Market” where I found a juice stand and several stalls of souvenirs. I had a wonderful pomegranate and tangerine juice then continued to the turkish bath.  

inside the 1st room of the turkish bath

At the turkish bath I saw a movie about “the last turkish bath attendant” which was kind of cheesy but ok.  The movie was about 30 minutes and after 20 minutes a door opens and you are led to the what was the actual bath area.  

looks foggy, they are trying to simulate steam

They have recreated life like models to depict what it was like “back in the day”.  I can’t wait to get to Istanbul to see if the turkish bath’s in Turkey are the same as here.  The Ottomans did rule here for a long time so I’m sure it will be similar.  

When I  came out of the turkish bath I was very turned around and found myself in an entire different area.  There was the Okashi Museum, more of a gallery that had some interesting modern photographs from I guess important Israeli photographers and paintings from Avshalom Okashi who was an important artist in Akko.  After visiting the museum I had no idea where I was and I still had this audio tour device that I needed to return to the visitors center.  I discovered I was on the opposite side of where I started, walked around the corner and was able to return the device. Time goes so quickly and I wanted to walk down to the port before I had to go to Karmiel. 

what I saw when I came out of the audio tour

Old walled cities are quite confusing.  Streets are not straight and the signs for the most part are in Hebrew or Arabic.  There are several “tourist” signs that give you some direction to the places they want you to visit.  So I followed the sign to the port.  

fixing the nets

I found the harbor and saw several fisherman working on their nets probably from the days catch. 

 From this vantage point you could see back toward Haifa across the sea.  I continued walking and found myself in the Shouk and really got lost.  I was very glad for those “tourist” signs and had to walk back the way I came to the port and then back to the visitors center.  

click on this link for info on akko.
http://www.this-is-galilee.com/akko.html  

Now it was time to find a Sherut (a kind of shuttle) to Karmiel.  Emily told me I could find one near the bus or train stations which are across the street from one another.  I walked back toward the bus station and started to ask where I could get a Sherut for Karmiel.  There isn’t just one spot to find these Sheruts, like a taxi stand, that would be too easy.  After asking several people it was determined that I needed to go to the parking lot next to the train station.  I was so happy when I got on the Sherut and confirmed it was going to Karmiel.  I phoned Emily and told her I was on and would call when I got to Lev Karmiel, the stop she told me to ask for.  I may have mentioned this before but the thing about the Sherut is they wait until it is full before they leave.  It didn’t take long, like our wait in Jerusalem because it was a bit after 5:00 and the train has just arrived.  Off we went.  

The ride was only 30 minutes or so and I arrived in Karmiel.  Emily told me to wait for her at the McDonald’s and it wasn’t long before she arrived.  We walked about 10 minutes to her house. Karmiel is much larger than I had anticipated.  Where I got off the Sherut was the center of town with many shops, a bakery, and a few restaurants.  Emily said there wasn’t much more to the town than what I was seeing.  Worst of all there is no movie theater.  I could never live here. 

Emily is living in a house with 15 other kids who are in her program.  It is much like I imagine a Frat house or some college house would look like.  Not so neat but not entirely disgusting.  Most rooms have three people and one room has five people.  They have a kitchen with two refrigerators, one that works and one that doesn’t.  Emily told me they have been having trouble with the electricity and the hot water.   It was only 6:00 and dinner with her host family wasn’t until 7:30.  I rested for a bit.  

Emily's host mom, Lea called and asked if we would be ready at 7:00 instead of 7:30 and came to pick us up.  Another girl on the program, Natalie from Spain went with us too because she shares the host family with Emily.   The host family only lived a 5 minute car ride away but it is on the other side of the city center.  So it was nice that she came to pick us up.  

Lea’s husband wasn’t home as he was traveling in Thailand so I wasn’t able to meet him.  They have three children but only two were at home because the oldest daughter is in the army.  The daughter who was at home, Shani is 17 and speaks excellent English.  The son, who is 10 doesn’t speak much English but very cute, and Lea spoke English quite well.  Emily tells me that Lea didn’t speak much English in the beginning but now speaks a lot more.

Dinner was very good and there was an over abundant amount of food.  There was barely enough room on the table for all the food.  Emily told me that Lea had made all her favorite foods this evening and that she is a very good cook.   For dessert Lea asked us to go sit in the living room where she served us tea and cheese cake.  Lea made the tea from leaves that were in her garden.  They weren’t mint and I’m not sure what they were but I really like it. She went outside and pick some leaves for me to take.  

I was so happy to meet Emily’s host family and know that she gets a nice meal at least once a week.  We had to get a Sherut back Haifa and the last one was at 9:30.

Shani, the daughter arranged for a Sherut to pick us up on the road near the house.  We had to wait outside in the cold and it seemed like it was taking forever because it was so windy and cold.  Finally the Sherut came and we got in.  We drove around Karmiel for about 15 minutes looking for people to fill it up.  

The ride back to Haifa took a little less than an hour.  However, when we got back into the Haifa area we drove past the central bus and train stations and I thought it might be o.k.  I didn’t really know but thought the further we got into town the better.  However, the driver stopped in a place we weren’t familiar with and said we had to get out.  I was glad we were together and we were able to get a taxi back to the apartment.

Emily was happy with the apartment and we were both tired so just got ready for bed.
Nice to be back on familiar ground.