On Friday morning The Chicken had the dangerous job of waking me up at the god-forsaken hour 4:45 am. After I grunted a few times and my feet reluctantly made contact with the floor, we quickly packed and caught the first bus to Haifa for another Warrior Weekend.
Haifa is a beautiful deep-port city on the Mediterranean which only in modern times has surpassed the importance of the ancient natural port of Acco across the bay. It is through Haifa that the long lost package from my mom that accidentally came by sea snail entered Israel (Thanks mom for the chili powder and the cofffee!). Haifa is built on the side of a steep hill that only the poorest of backpackers walk up as there is a five-stop subway that tracks up and down the hill.
In the last hundred years or so, Haifa has become a major religious site for the Baha'is: a widespread six-million-strong religious group that believes all of the major religious figures of history are messengers of the same god within their own historical and cultural contexts. The latest two prophets lived both in the 19th century. The Bab and Baha'u'llah, both have ties to the area around Haifa. In a wide swath down the hill is the shrine to the Bab (his bones are interred there) and all the administrative buildings for the religion. To glorify the site, believers have made 18 terraces down the hill with impressive and heavily manicured gardens that in 2001 were finally finished. But if I know gardeners, I am sure there are still more plans in the works.
I have decided that if God decides that I should be his latest megaphone, my apartment in Jerusalem should become a shrine to the new Religion of Janet. I think Israel needs to be the home of one more major religion just to make sure the bickering never ends.
On Friday evening, I gave into my favorite food vice. I discovered that the ice cream at McDonalds is only three shekels. So for the low price of one loonie, I supported an international conglomerate and had a very blissful 10 minute respite from the heat of the sun. And then a few hours later, I bought another for desert.
Friday was spent visiting the gardens and walking the three kilometers up to the cave of Elija where I discovered that I can no longer speak French. I only speak Fre-brew now. I asked the french speaking caretaker to refill my water bottle with this classic phase of Fre-brew: "Je voudrais mayim shell robinet."
Visiting Haifa was a lot of walking let me tell you and the next day seemed like even more.
Saturday was spent exploring the old city of nearby arab Acco which is not just old, it is old old. Unlike the old city of J-town which in places is a pit of tourist despair, the old city Acco city is pregnant with he comings and goings of real life. No selling tacky pictures of the Virgin Mary here; instead they are selling tacky flip-flops from cardboard boxes, clothing, food and giant chest high water pipes in the market. The tourist sites were the best organized of any place I have seen in Israel and there was much to see. This was once the seat of crusader power so there is a giant crusader fortress and tunnel. There is the old arab bath house with a hilarious movie to go with it. We saw the spot where 250 Jewish resistance prisoners escaped from jail, and the sites were Napoleon unsuccessfully sieged the place for two months. This little fortified city busted Napoleon's dream of conquering all the way to India. I took my shoes off and visited my first mosque and watched kids jumping off the ancient sea wall into the Mediterranean to the delight of the music-pumping tour boats and jerks on sea-doos (yep, Israel too has jerks on Sea-doos).
When we finally got home late Saturday evening, I barely managed to make it though the door and grunt a few times. My feet happily relinquished contact with the floor for the next eight hours until The Chicken had the hazardous job of waking me up for work.
1 comment:
Really pretty pic of you by the sea!!
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