January 05, 2007
Israel, Day 8
Well of course because I was so excited about seeing Haifa and remembering Mom's photos (which she wrote to say were from 1983) and how blue and sunny it was, we woke up this morning to absolute pouring rain. After breakfast with Faina (Beni's wife), we drove over to Haifa in time for the 10:45 tour of the garden terraces at the Bahá'í World Centre. Standing outside, we realized it was hailing. Luckily the rain and hail stopped just in time and we were able to walk down the 500+ steps and enjoy the amazing view (though it wasn't exactly bright and sunny and blue skies).
After the tour, we met up with Shachar's friend Orly who he had met in California but who has since moved back to Israel and is now studying math and physics at the Technion (like MIT in Israel) so that she can combine it with her law degree and be a patent attorney. We had a nice brunch at Shany (another coffee chain). We dropped her back off at the campus and drove to Netanya (near Tel Aviv) to see Omer, who is in Israel visiting his family (yes, we just saw him in Colorado over Thanksgiving) and then drove back to Jerusalem.
Tonight we're hanging out with some of Shachar's grad school friends. We're at Haggai's house now in Jerusalem (its still thundering and lighting outside, but is nice and cozy in here -- he's cooking dinner and I'm taking a moment to update all of you...) waiting for Hila (a different Hila) and possibly some others.
Tomorrow we're heading to Tel Aviv to see Shachar's uncles and their families (hopefully the weather will pick up a bit... )
[Updated 1/17 with photos]
Posted by Emily at January 5, 2007 09:12 AM