What I did on my vacation

Dropped off the hound at the Mother-in-law and headed up to Moshav Amirim on Sunday with Lynn Moshe and Natan (Daniel being in the army and Sara finishing off sherut leumi).



Booked in to one of "Dalia's Tzimmerim" and spent the rest of sunday by the pool, followed by dinner at "Stupps" (unfortunate name but good food), the only restaurant on the moshav with a kashrut certificate. Now this is a bit of a bugger, because the moshav is strictly vegetarian. Not even fish is allowed, and the only reason the other restaurants dont get certification is that they are open on shabbat and therefore issues like checking the veggies for worms and tithes become suspect. I did check with my Rabbi, who said that at the end of the day, even if one overcame the technical problems, there was still the educational aspect and totally sided with Moshe, who didnt want to go near the restaurants. Oh well, the Indian one looked really good too.



On Monday we did the Yehudiya hike and experienced one of those moments that really only happen in Israel. There is a section of the trail that involves climbing down a ladder, jumping into an icy pool then swimming to the next part of the trail. This usually causes a bottleneck but is a good opportunity to meet new people.

Anyway, there was this family group from Canada, one of who's kids had just had his bar mitzva at the Kotel. Another family next to them, these ones very ethnic Morrocans, heard this and started singing and ululating. Of course, everyone likes a good sing a long and before long, people down the line were singing as well, and they didnt even know what for....very cool!



That was the nice Israeli, because a few days later, we did the "Jillaboun" waterfall trail which ends at a beautiful pool fed from a waterfall in a really picturesque setting. We had just gotten used to the icy water and the few people who were there, when along came this family of low-lifes, (who stereotypically give all Sefardim a bad name) spread themselves out all over the place and basically trashed the whole area around the pool.
Of course, these days one has to be careful about making any comments as who knows when one of these people might pull out a knife.

Well, that raised the old blood-pressure a bit, but all in all, the week was brilliant. Missed anything interesting in Maale Adumim? Probably not.