Oh hey, giant grapefruit

Pink grapefruits in the spring are glorious here :)

Scuba Diving in Eilat

My wetsuit was a bit short...

I finally took the plunge (hah) and got my Scuba certification!  We went down to Eilat for a week for me to complete the course.  In Israel, diving regulations are pretty strict - they require you to complete 6 open water dives as opposed to the 4 required almost everywhere else.  This means that I got to do 6 real dives, with 2 of them purely fun dives (the other 4 had some tests in them).  I found the most amazing scuba club - run by a woman out of her home that she has converted to a dive school.  If you are ever in Eilat and want to go diving, look up Shulamit's Eilat Diving Adventures. She was so friendly and made the whole experience amazing.  There were only 3 of us at first, and after 3 days (out of 5) one of the people left (they were doing a short intro course).  So the course felt like a private one.  This also let us spend a lot more time diving because during the dives you have to practice the skills that you learn.  This can take quite a while if you are part of a large group, and for our tank sizes and depth we only have about 45 minutes to dive before the air runs out.

The Red Sea is the perfect place to learn to dive.  The water is super calm and not too cold (since it is winter here it was about 22C but the air temp was about 30C so it was nice).  In the summer the water gets much warmer.  The visibility was ok (spring means algae) but usually it is ridiculously good.  Also, the area is a coral reserve and protected so there are tons of fish and coral, and the fish are used to divers so you can swim right with them.  These pictures were taken by Shulamit (our dive master) on our last day:

 

A Moray Eel!

Lion Fish - these guys were all over the place.  They poison/sting you if you touch their fins.

Zach swimming with a little fish friend

Finished our last dive - we are certified! (I'm on the right)

OCTOPUS!  This guy was big enough that he didn't feel the need to camouflage into the coral.

Jerusalem Half Marathon

This weekend was our much anticipated half marathon!  A first for Zach and a second for me - although a first in terms of hills!  The reputation that this new marathon has (this is its 3rd year) is certainly true.  Jerusalem is a city on many hills and it seems like this race runs all of them!  Although we hill trained in Tel Aviv, there are no hills there that can quite compare to the steepness and shear length of the ones we encountered along our route.  But despite the hills, this was an amazingly beautiful race.  Even the weather was perfect: overcast and slightly chilly 13C or so.  It started at the Israeli parliament (the Knesset) and ran through the Old City - in Jaffa Gate and out Zion Gate.  When we left the old city, the views were breathtaking - which was unfortunate since I already couldn't breathe... buhdum ching!  From there we ran into East Jerusalem briefly and then through some fun looking neighborhoods, before finishing back near the Knesset in the large Sacher park.  The finish area had music, zumba groups and lots of delicious fresh fruit.  About 20,000 people took part in the marathon so there was a great atmosphere.

Getting our race kits.

Excited to start running!  

The best parts to me were the places where bands or DJs were blaring music and people were cheering.  There were lots of little kids giving out high fives along the route which made me smile. Lucky for me, my wonderful husband decided to run it with me (even though he is much faster than me) and was a major encouragement along the way.  After about the half-way point the hills started to do me in mentally (another one!  I can't even see the top!  My legs feel like lead! and so on..) but he kept encouraging me and keeping a good pace.  It was a really fun thing to do together, and will be a great memory of our time here.

Excited to finish :) !

I remember after the Toronto half ("fast and flat!" is its slogan) I thought - man, these are fun!  During this one I thought why am I doing this?? But once we finished (at the top of another long hill) I couldn't help but feel how fun the whole experience was.  Right after we crossed the line Zach said something along the lines of "This is awesome - it would be fun to do a full marathon!" ahhhhh.  I don't think I'm there yet!  I like the half because to me it still feels like a challenge and I don't really race for a specific time - I like the fun of running through a new place in a big crowd with music; and having a race gives me a good goal to keep me motivated to run and stay fit.

pre-race pasta dinner with obligatory Israeli cover band :)