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)

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 :)