Thursday-A lazy day

Thursday--January 13--A lazy day

I got up at my usual 8:00 a.m. but Emily slept in until around 10:00.  I did some laundry and used the Israeli dryer.

The Israeli dryer (balcony of apartment)

Emily said she is so tired because she works long hours and just wanted to rest.  I had thought we would go to Caesarea but she just wanted to hang out.

the view from the apartment

We did hang out until about 1 p.m and I said,

“let’s go for a walk and I’ll show you what I've discovered of the neighborhood.”  

As we walked along Hanassi Street, the main street in Carmel, we weren’t really hungry but kept seeing good food through the windows of the restaurants.  At one of the restaurants we saw lots of salads on someones table and thought it looked really good and decided to go in.  Looks can be deceiving.  We discovered that it was a fish restaurant and the salads came when you ordered a fish dish.  We really only wanted the salads, which was an option so the waiter said he would bring the salads and we could decide if we wanted to order a fish later.

I decided I would order the St. Peters fish.  I thought it was a local fish so wanted to try it.  The salads were the best part: tabbouli (in Israel they make it without tomatoes), hummos, eggplant, a cabbage dish with sesame oil dressing, beets, some purified white salad (we thought maybe it was herring) and the best part--fresh hot foccacia bread.  The fish was too fishy--mistake.  Oh well gotta try before you know.  In the end we decided we should have just had the salad.

Now we had two things to accomplish.  One, pick up the basketball tickets for the Sunday basketball game (my friend in Santa Barbara knows the owner of the team and helped arranged for us to get tickets to the game) and two meet Emily’s friend, Rachel, who was coming from somewhere in Haifa around 3 p.m. at our apartment.  

office of Maccabi Haifa team

First, I called the Maccabi Haifa basketball team office and discovered they were only several blocks from where we were eating.  

We walked over there and met the office manager, Merav, who explained how to get to the game.   This was not going to be easy.  The game was scheduled for 8:00 p.m. on Sunday (but Merav told me I needed to call her on Sunday because the time could change because it was dictated by TV broadcast time) and Emily and her friends would need to take the bus from Karmi’el  to Haifa and then a taxi to the stadium, which turns out to be in another town, Nesher.  I would need to take a very long taxi ride or several buses to get there.  The weather forecast had rain in store.   We took the tickets not completely convinced we would use them.

Next, we needed to meet Rachel.  She phoned and said she was at the Hof Ha Carmel bus station.  We were trying to direct her to the apartment telling her to take the #3 bus that would get her to us.  She was certainly taking a leap of faith getting on a bus not having any idea where she was and if she would find us.  This is when not knowing the language causes problems.  

We walked back to the apartment to see what the closest cross street was so she could try to tell the driver to stop there.  We did that and then waited at the bus stop hoping she would see us.  We were successful, aided by cell phones.  Technology at its best!

It was just about 4:00 p.m. and we went back to the apartment.  Rachel wanted to take a shower because her choice on the program is to walk the Israel trail 4 days of the week and doesn't get a shower every day.  (Emily chose to volunteer for this portion of the program so is in Karmi'el)

I had wanted to walk on the trail (the Israel Trail starts in the north and goes all the way to Eilat in the south.  You can walk or bike any portion of it), but wasn’t able to find out how to do it.  Something to save for another time.

We hung out for a while and then headed to the movies at Lev Mefratz, the other large mall here in Haifa and also the one with a 20+ movie plex, called Cine Mall. We took a taxi that cost 50 shekels and was a 15-20 minute drive from the apartment.  We were trying to see the 6:15 showing of “Little Fockers”.  We’d left a bit late and with all the traffic I wasn’t sure we would make it but indeed we did.  We had a very nice taxi driver who spoke excellent English because he had lived in England, the U.S. and South Africa.  

This mall is bigger than the Grand Canyon and we followed the film sign to try to find the theater.  However, we came to a sign that had an arrow straight and we weren’t sure if that meant up or actually straight ahead.  It meant straight ahead.  We found the movie theaters and found this to be the biggest movie plex we’d ever been in.  Unfortunately, the movie was horrible, stupid and almost not worth watching.  

After the movie I was hungry and asked the girls if they wanted to eat in the mall or try the restaurant in the German Colony that Tami had suggested.  We decided to go to Duzan in the German Colony.  We took a taxi and asked for the restaurant “Duzan” on Ben Gurion Street, which the driver had no idea where it was. Tami had told me it was on the main street of the German Colony, which is Ben Gurion.  When we got to the German Colony the driver went to the end of Ben Gurion and we still hadn't seen it.  We got out of the taxi and walked a few blocks and finally found it. 

The food was fabulous.  Middle Eastern cuisine.  We had a Lebanese salad (cucumbers, tomatoes, crispy pieces of pita and pieces of cheese) and a plate of several different kinds of cheese, which also came with cucumber and tomatoes.  Everything always tastes so fresh.

After dinner I thought we could get a bus back to the apartment.  We walked over to the place where I had taken a bus back to the apartment on Tuesday.  However, when one bus stopped he said no that bus wasn’t running now we needed to go across the street and take a different bus. O.k so buses during the day are different from buses in the evening.  In the end we took a taxi.  A bus schedule would be handy.  The Egged Bus (main bus within Israel) website is good for travel between cities but not so good for within cities.

I’m really frustrated with how difficult it is to get around here.  Getting information about transportation is not user friendly and the people we are asking don’t seem to know.  Can’t figure this one out.  

Oh well we arrived back at the apartment and were safe and sound for the evening.