Santorini

I'm probably starting to sound like a broken record here but I can't express just how thankful and lucky I feel to have the chance to explore so many new places.  One country that I always dreamed of visiting is Greece.  We realized a couple weeks ago that if we didn't start planning something soon, our chance to have a relatively inexpensive Greece vacation would never happen.  Israelis love going to Greece - it is the closest vacation destination outside of Israel, so there are a lot of great flights and deals from Tel Aviv.  Also, this is still the off season so many places are just trying to fill their rooms at any price (yay :) ).  So we had an impromptu weekend in Santorini!

Santorini was formed when a giant volcano (possibly the largest eruption in history) erupted about 3600 years ago (part of the legends of Atlantis and the fall of the Minoans in Crete).  The volcano left a large crater (caldera) that is surrounded by steep cliffs.  I have always had a strange fascination with volcanoes and Atlantis so... perfect place to visit!

We stayed in a traditional cave house on the side of the cliff - it is probably one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen.  One weekend was plenty of time to see Santorini because it is so little, but if we had been there during beach season I imagine we'd never want to leave!

 The place we were staying was owned by a woman who runs a restaurant - she sent fresh bread over in the mornings..yum!

 This wine is made in Santorini - fun nerdy wine fact: Greece is the only place in the world with prehistoric grape vines because the volcanic soil doesn't let any bugs grow to kill them.  All of the vines in Europe have been replaced at one point by vines from California after plagues killed them.

Here we are hiking from Fira to Oia - a 3 hour hike along the caldera - it was incredible! (and windy!)

Warming up with some tea on our balcony in the sun

Spring Flowers

This post is a little delayed since spring is basically behind us here in Tel Aviv.  I took most of these pictures a few weeks ago but forgot to post them.  This is my favourite time of year in Israel - the days are warm, the nights are cool, and there are flowers everywhere!

Dust Storm

I woke up thinking the day was rather overcast which is unusual for spring (by now it's mainly sunny all the time) so I got excited, hoping for one last thunderstorm.  A little later as I was working I noticed that the air tasted sandy...so I looked out the window and realized it wasn't overcast, it was a sandstorm :(  I still haven't got used to the amount of dust we have here.  I'm sure that its taken years off the life of our computers, and I pretty much gave up trying to keep everything dust free (there may or may not be dust tumbleweeds blowing through our apartment).  This storm was caused by a combination of wind and sandstorms in Egypt which made their way to Israel.  Luckily they usually blow over in a day - although this is probably the worst one I've seen yet (we've managed to be away during all the other bad ones over the past year and a bit).  Good thing I decided not to wash the windows yet :)

There is a smokestack in the center of the picture that is perfectly clear in normal conditions -here you can't even see it.  This is the airport runway which was mostly shutdown for obvious reasons!

This one is a bit harder to see, but the buildings in the background are usually very clear.

This is just for reference of nearly the same view (I didn't have one that showed the city in the background) to give an example of what it normally looks like on the beach, year round when the waves aren't high.

Happy Easter

This weekend we were lucky enough to spend a second Easter Sunday at a service in the Garden Tomb, Jerusalem.  It's hard to imagine a place more conducive to imagining what it was like on the first Easter - when you are listening to the message and looking at an empty tomb that is exactly like the one they would have found (or even the actual one...).

The empty grave

probably Jesus' exact view when he woke up... hey guy... (look closely)