Trip North to Golan Heights, Akko, Tzvat, etc.

Traveling can take the "blogging" right out of you.  Little or no wi-fi and two weeks later, finally an update to our adventure, and mostly in photos, (you can click to enlarge). Paul's dad and step-mother arrived and we traveled with them to Tzvat (Safed) the birthplace of mystical Judaism (where Madonna hangs out when she works on her spirituality) as well as a few days with other Fulbrighters (mostly college professors and some grad students... lots of brainpower on the bus).We made many of stops in out of the way places and at one point we were on the Syrian and Lebanese borders.

It was an interesting feeling to see signs warning us, "Caution Land Mines" and "Check Points" along the way. If you are interested in History or descriptions of places please see Noa's Blog.  Our hotel, Hotel Ron was expensive and dirty The breakfast was inedible.  When an omelet was delivered to our table it nearly slid off the plate as it was in so much hydrogenated grease (you could see the molecules) and instant coffee was served next to a hot water heater with a tap.  The most interesting thing to me was the old Tzvat cemetery.  Graves dating back more than 1000 years. In an earlier blog I mentioned being intrigued by grave-sites being painted blue, and learned they were Rabbis' graves, on the Mount of Olives there were a handful.  In this cemetery there were what looked like a hundred or more.  Some were in caves.  In a town nearby we saw a rabbi's grave in a cave where he lived for 13 years as he was hiding from the Syrians.  The story was that he lived naked (to preserve his only clothing) and covered himself with sand unless he was praying, and then he put on his black suit and hat so he could show respect to god. For the life of me I can't figure out where Madonna would sleep in this town, let alone eat.  On the bright side there was a cute street of artists shops. In Akko (Acre) the longest continually inhabited city by Jews, we were warned by our tour guide that the is some occasional mischief by young Arab men/boys towards westerners, and we were not disappointed.  On our way to the old walled city our Fulbright group of about 40 people was the target of two Arab teens on a motorcycle... they tried twice to run into us:-(  One of the men in our group socked one of them in the back and let them have it... other than that we enjoyed our visit.  Akko dates back several thousand years and has a very interesting history. Inside the old city is a Crusader Castle who hashad  many landlords since it was built.  Most interesting to me was that it was used as a prison during the British Mandate,  a huge prison break by the Jewish underground took place and the prisoners, many of my heroes of the Irgun and Jewish underground were hung (see gallows). Sorry about the layout, my net-book is a windows machine... need I say more?