Tiyul B'Tsafon (Trip in the North)

Last week we had a week in the North of Israel. Highlights included two hiking trips in the Golan Heights, along streams that feed into Lake Kinneret; on one section of the first hike, you had to actually swim through a waterhole to get across. I didn't take my camera so unfortunately I haven't got any photos from that day. Another day we hiked the Banias stream, where there were also many optional swimming opportunities. We came across an old tank, Syrian, along the streambed. No-one's quite sure when or how it fell down there, but I guess it was probably in 67.

We also had the chance to visit two important somewhat unnerving lookout points. First the Ben Tal lookout, which overlooks the Syrian border (I remember coming here in 2001), and second, a lookout hill in the Northeast of the country which looks over Lebanon. Standing there, one can see quite clearly, only a few kilometres away, a huge Hezbollah flag flying on the hill.


We did heaps of other things too; live floating down the Jordan River on inner tubes; visiting the Rosh Hanikra caves, and going to Rosh Pinna and Safed/Zfat. Yada yada yada....it was a good week!

Rachel and the Watermelon: A Love Story

Blog vs. Facebook

Yes, my blog has been rather dormant lately. I see the problem as twofold: First, I am becoming increasingly lazy. And B) Facebook has reduced my ability to write updates about my activities to one or two sentence "status updates". I will continue my lazy ways by posting for you my Facebook Status updates for the past couple of weeks (In reverse order) :) THEN - this is the fun part - you get to IMAGINE all the stuff in between the status updates! Instead of me telling you in boring detail what I've been doing, YOU CAN JUST MAKE IT UP FOR YOURSELF BASED ON THESE CLUES! Isn't that great? Isn't Facebook SO much better than a blog?

Today
Rachel is eating the newest bestest watermelon YET! 11:27pm
Rachel is possibly eating too much fruit. 7:36pm
Rachel is developing a very unhealthy dependence on spinal adjustment. 12:24am

August 25
Rachel is sorry she made Laura walk home 5 kms. 11:57pm

August 24
Rachel is eating popping chocolate. 11:57pm

August 23
Rachel is in Haifa for the weekend. 11:43pm

August 19
Rachel is going away on a tiyul for a week...bye! 7:30am

August 18
Rachel is hoping to have a bucket-tube some day. 2:08am

August 17
Rachel is a name in the bible (not the Bolstad bit). 10:44am

August 16
Rachel is dot dot dot. 10:56pm

August 15
Rachel is cooking eggplant for the first time in her LIFE. 7:05pm

Rachel is only listening to NZ music today. Starting with The Black Seeds. 9:08am
August 14
Rachel is only wanting to listen to Beck today. Only Beck. Perhaps even only Guero and Guerolito. 3:45pm

August 12
Rachel is spider pig, spider pig, does whatever a spider pig does. 11:14am

August 10
Rachel is part Lisa, part Homer, and a little bit Ralph. 1:03am

August 9
Rachel is unable to clean her room. Why? One word: entropy. 10:24am

August 8
Rachel is so bad at sleeping she even dreams that she is sleeping restlessly... 3:10am

Rachel is waiting. 2:02am

August 6
Rachel is puzzled by friends who say things like "oh sorry, I'm just not a Facebook person". 6:53pm

August 5
Rachel is hoping to enter a watermelon-eating contest. 10:28pm

August 4
Rachel is going to the beach to get even more sand permanently embedded in even more obscure parts of her body. 2:24pm

August 3
Rachel is having a nap. 4:53pm

August 2
Rachel is drinking a homemade watermelon cocktail and she is a drink-making GENIUS. 11:12pm


July 31
Rachel is making identikit pictures AND gorging on Watermelon. 6:48pm

Rachel is making identikit pictures. 10:24am

Wellystalgia

I am a famous photographer! Ok, not really, but one of my photos of Days Bay has been chosen for inclusion in this cool little web application called Shmaps Wellington. If you go to "Trips and Activities" and "The Great Outdoors" and "Days Bay" there you will find two pics - one by me!! Famous!! And I didn't do anything... they just found the photo on Flickr and asked if they could use it for their shmap.
Anyway cruising this site is making me go all Wellystalgiac :)