Well as you read from Gabs, clearly we can go home now. If the trip had been solely those 5 days with the penpals, dayenu, if you ask me. Everything else is icing on the cake. Which brings me back to Shabbat.
**Just a note, I really want to put pictures but the internet is not working too well here :( Next pictures might not be posted til Tuesday.
Shabbat is seriously accentuated on these types of trips. You run around, hiking, back on the bus, take a bunch of pictures, hear a bunch of history, back on the bus, bathroom break, back on the bus... et cetera. For six days. Then it's Shabbat.
You sleep in, read a bit, and then you have to think of activities. We played some board games, we ran around playing salty-fish-tag (it's an Israeli thing), and then we still had 5 hours til havdallah. We did have a unique experience, though, yesterday. An authentic kibbutznikit came and showed us around Farod. She was born in Farod just after the War of Independence, she lived in the children's ward, she got married on the kibbutz, she was good at explaining everything, and it was totally cool.
She started by showing us the Ficus tree where they hang the paciphiers of toddlers who've outgrown theirs. I imagined planting such a tree in the Westridge park. Imagine if our penpals came to see Westridge and that's what we started our tour with...
She showed us the view of Syria, the old factories, and the current water reservoire and purification station. She showed us the old children's ward and the new houses under construction. Then she ended the tour pointing to Har Meron and the valley between it and Farod. And she quoted from the Mishna: Wherever the Ficus does not grow and north will be called the Upper Galil, and wherever the Ficus grows and south will be the Lower Galil."
Kibbutz Farod is named from the Hebrew letters פ.ר.ד which mean "separation." This is because it sits on the Talmudic separating line between the Upper and Lower Galilee. As proven by the paciphier Ficus. Isn't that cool??
We ended Shabbat with a trip to Rosh Pina for some shwarma, where most of the penpals came for one last hug.
And after waking up early to watch the Jets game, today we went from the Hills to the Sea to the Desert. We drove westward from the Hills of Farod to Acho - the Sea, where we saw the brand new displays about the Hospitallers and the Sultan, walked the walls that fended off Napoleon (played by Matthew), and walked around the prison fortress that Etzel was able to penetrate and break free Jewish prisoners during the Mandate. Then it was over to Us'fia for some Druze hospitality.
After a BIG lunch and a walk through the Druze town, we hopped back on the bus and wound around Haifa and Har Carmel, down the coast a bit, to Caesaria. There was a new movie in Caesaria, too! We checked out the amphitheater and the hippodrome, walked the plaza where Herod would watch ships come in, and ate ice cream.
Back on the bus, we drove south, and south some more, until ending up in Sde Boker - the Desert. Everybody had just enough energy left for some Rikudei Am, and I am ready for a shluff! I will leave you with one thing to ponder, though: If you race horses in a hippodrome, where do you race hippos?
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