Israel: Fri - Haifa, Beit Alfa, and Burgers

Friday morning we had breakfast in the apartment. Aviva enjoyed "talking on the phone" to Nana Frances. The "phone" can be an actual cell phone, a block, or in this case, a piece of pita bread.





Maybe she left the bread there to use it as a hands-free headset later. It sounds like Aviva responds, "Yeah" when Nana Frances asks whether she wants her milk, but trust me, she basically says "Yeah" and "Dah" to everything.

Then Aviva tried to help clean up by getting in the dishwasher.


Don't worry - of course now I realize how dangerous that was and won't be letting her climb into it anymore!

We then took a train to Haifa, Israel's third largest city, to meet Roye, Ilana's son. Roye took us on a great driving tour of northern Israel. First we went to Mount Gilboa, the site of a very important Bible story about the Battle between King Saul and the Philistines. Roye did a wonderful job as our tour guide. Many thanks to him for a really interesting and fun day.

In this photo you can see the view, as well as a paraglider getting ready to take off.

Our next stop was Bet Alfa, an ancient synagogue from the end of the fifth century CE. Almost all of the synagogue is gone, except for the base of some pillars and the entire floor mosaic, which is amazingly well preserved.

Here you can see the story of Abraham and Isaac.

At the end of the day, we drove back to Haifa and visited Roye's apartment. From a little park near their home, there is a terrific view of the Bay of Haifa.

Since their sukkah was still up, we sat in it and had tea and a delicious apple cake that Dalit had just baked.

Aviva spent time with her Roye's wife, Dalit.


Roye, Frances, me (Callista), Aviva, Dalit, and their younger son, Aviv (a modern version of Aviva!).
We also watched a video of Roye and Dalit's wedding. Frances' late husband (Aviva's great-grandfather) sang one of the blessings during the ceremony. It was nice to see Peter's grandfather sing, since I had heard so much about him.

We took a shared mini-bus back to Tel Aviv, and by the time we got home, we weren't interested in going to a restaurant. Peter brought back take out from Agadir Burger Bar: one beef burger with Emmental cheese and sauteed mushrooms; one lamb/beef burger with sauteed onion and pickled lemon; large fries; and a huge green salad. Yum. The burgers were delicious, plus they came in a very fancy McDLT-type boxes.

Keep the hot side hot, and the cool side cool.