On March 22nd I headed down to Tel-Aviv to meet the Hoffman clan. I got in from the train station around 12 PM and my plan was to walk around Tel-Aviv for 6 hours before meeting up with the Hoffman's at their hotel at the David Panorama. Unfortunately, there was a sandstorm that blew north from Egypt that captured almost all of Israel. It was hot and very dusty. I decided to rest at a place I knew very well. The bench outside the Chertock's apartment, which was conveniently in the direction I first walked. To my luck right as I passed by the apartment driveway, Mika, the Chertock's daughter was getting something from their car and invited me inside. I felt a little bad for dropping in so unexpectedly, but the Chertock's welcomed me with open arms.
After some rest at Chateau Chertock, I dropped my bag and walked around Tel-Aviv for a few hours and got some lunch. I met the Hoffman's at their hotel via Noam driving me, (eeek!!!!) (just kidding he was much better than the typical Israeli driver). It turned out that they had actually been in Tel-Aviv since 2PM. After I got my stuff situated in the nice rollaway bed the hotel gave me.
We had a lovely dinner at a restaurant in the nice part of Nevezedeck then walked around. Ellen showed us the center for dance in Israel which was right around the block from the restaurant. This area contained the top four dance companies in Israel.
The next morning we woke up at around 10 AM and went to the delicious hotel brunch. I swear there were 5 different kinds of cheese, all the types of fruits I could think of, 4 different types of fish, and a bunch of other delicious foods. This was the overarching theme of our brunches: delectable and all you can eat.
From there we headed up north, but we had a pit stop at a place right near the kibbutz: Cesaria, a community about 10 kilometers south of Ma'agan Michael. The cool thing about Cesaria, was that it used to be giant Roman port, palace city built by King Herrod 2000 years ago. We saw the ruins/ relics of the ancient city including its amazing amphitheater, horse racing stadium, and the foundation of Herrod's palace.`
We ended our night at Kfar Blum, a kibbutz hotel up north near Kyriat Shmoneh. We had dinner at this Italian place called Ciabatta, a good lead up to Pesach.
The next day we went on a big Ti-ul all around the north and the Golan. First, we went to a former 1967 Syrian bunker. It was amazing hearing the story from the Hoffman's tour guide, Uriel, about how the Israeli army captured the base in the 6 day war. After that, we went to the Banians springs, supposedly the play ground of the Greek god Pan.
From there we drove up to Nimrod's Castle. It was an ancient crusader castle built in the 12th century by the Templer Knights. It was a crucial point to controlling the entrance to the holy land and to the Mediterranean Sea.
We went to have lunch in a Druze Village. It had AMAZING labana. At lunch we heard some rockets fired. At the time we thought it was just a Israeli military test, but the following day we found out that the Syrian opposition had fired into Israel, so to counter the attack, Israel destroyed one of their bases.
The next day we drove back to Tel-Aviv.
From there I returned to the Chertock's Apartment for Pesach Sedar. The sedar was a bit smaller than normal. It consisted of the Chertock's, Hanush's brother, nephew, and sister-in-law. It was very fun and intimate. We read through the whole Haggadah in Hebrew, then did a dance we found online to Echad-mi-yodeah. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHw8lZvH4Es . We had rice with , beef bergonion gulash, and lamb chops. After dinner, Noam showed me the bar scene at Allenby street. It was really cool, too bad every bar was either empty or closed so we didn't stay that long.
