Saturday morning, we drove to the Mount of Olives and picked olives as Jerusalemites have been doing for thousands of years. The technique of harvesting olives is simple. Wait until the olives begin to ripen, then rake the lives out of a tree. In our case, at the Lutheran World Federation, the caretakers had spread thick black tarps under the tree to catch the olives as we raked them. After...
Old City Akko is a tiny fishing village slash crusader fort, about half an hour outside of Haifa. Over the past thousand years, there has understandably been a great deal of development outside of the ancient walls, but the tourist attractions are all in the Old City itself. I rose bright and early to walk the rampart walls before the city woke up. Like many cities in Israel, Old Akko...
Haifa’s a neat town. Traveling alone, I wasn’t looking for bars or a music scene—just beautiful scenery, the sea, and museums. Given that, it’s possible to see everything in a day, provided you’re traveling alone and don’t have to worry about potty breaks and naps and mealtimes like you do when traveling with children. I left Jerusalem before dawn in order to get to Haifa just as the Baha’i gardens...
Traveling alone is a surprisingly communal experience. After years of relying on Bertrand’s charm and ability to make instant friends, I found is startlingly easy to find good company and conversation while exploring Northern Israel on my own. When Bertrand abruptly left for Benin with the girls after his father passed away, I found myself with ample time on my hands. I would follow my family to Benin two weeks...
Saturday afternoon, we’d finished puttering around the house, and didn’t really want to waste a beautiful afternoon indoors. It was also late enough that we knew the kids wouldn’t last long, and we didn’t want to commit to a long expensive excursion if a breakdown were eminent. With small children, it’s easy to get caught up in MUST! BRING! EVERYTHING! because you never know what your kids are going to...
We finally had a spare moment to be tourists in Jerusalem, and we took advantage of the free afternoon by visiting the Mahane Yehuda market in downtown Jerusalem. We spent the afternoon shepherding our kids (the only kids at the market who weren’t in strollers) between vendors and trying to keep other shoppers from tripping over them. I’d been trying to figure out where Jerusalemites do their grocery shopping—certainly...
I got up early this morning and went for run with a fellow FS runner (she actually IS a runner, as opposed to my shuffling and whuffling) around Teddy Roosevelt Island this morning. I repeated last week’s mistake and dragged my toddler along, which was fun, but detrimental to our plan to get a good training run in before our 5k in two weeks. So it goes. My running buddy...
I am an expat, logistician, traveler, writer, paper crafter, lover of books and coffee, and occasionally doting mother. I am occasionally foul-mouthed, not nearly as diplomatic as my professional would imply, and fiercely feminist.
Disclaimers:
The opinions expressed here on SVO are my own and do not reflect the opinions of the Department of State or the USG.
While I frequently link to services and products I like, I receive no renumeration, financial or otherwise, for doing so.
