Israel

The trip to Israel and Palestine was one of the most interesting holidays ever.

We stayed with our friend Ruby, who went around Jerusalem with us and showed us the main sights. It was quite impressive to see so much history in one place. We visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchur,

the Western (wailing) Wall,

and the Dome of the Rock,

along with the various quarters in the old town.

The fact that there are important holy places for three of the world's major religions here meant that there were a lot of people experiencing what could be the greatest spiritual moments of their lives.  In any case it was sure crowded with Praying folks, and people selling religious souvenirs.

After Jerusalem Ruby took us out to the Dead Sea, where we slept (rather illegally probably) in a cave that he knew about in a national park.

We soaked by night in a hot spring and floated in the dead sea while enjoying the beauty of the desert under the clear starlight sky.  While the cave bed was hard and somewhat uncomfortable to sleep in, the sunrise over Jordan in the morning was worth all the tossing and turning.

After another night in Jerusalem, we spent a couple of days and a night in the West Bank at Bustan Qaraaqa, a permaculture farm run by a British woman in Beit Sahour, a Christian Arab village next to Bethlehem.

 Much of the farm is run by volunteer work, and luckily for us, they needed help carrying manure when we arrived at the farm, so we were able to earn our keep for the night AND smell like poo, which is always fun, especially in a place with water shortages due to Israel shutting off the water regularly. We also took a sunset trip through the desert to Mar Saba, one of the oldest inhabited monasteries in the world, founded in 439.  Apparently it is where misbehaving monks were sent so that they couldn't cause any trouble.

The town was next to Bethlehem, so we took a morning trip there to see the town and visit the Church of the Nativity.  It was surprisingly low-key for such a major holy site.

Upon leaving Beit Sahour we also stopped to take a picture of one of Banksy's West Bank murals.

To tell the truth we previously had a rather naive idea about Israeli settlements as simply encroaching on the borders of the Palestinian area. It was a shock to see how large and intrusive they are, being spread right through the west bank. Also the fact that there are Israeli-only roads connecting them while cutting off the Palestinians, and that the water to Palestinian villages is routinely cut off. It's is impossible not to be moved by the plight of the Palestinians, when you see first hand the situation.

As if that wasn't enough, the religious extremes in Israel are hard to take. Sally upset an Hasidic Jew by sitting too close to him on the bus, and was pushed aside by Christians trying to get close to the spot where Jesus was supposedly born.

After Palestine we went our separate ways for a couple of days, Sally exploring Jerusalem, Haifa, and Akko and Ihor going up North with Ruby to hang out and see where Ruby lived.

Ruby's house in the Kibbutz was great, a nice peaceful place surrounded by low forests full of walking trails. While Ruby had mentioned the forests before, it was still a pleasant surprise to see so much forest there.  It was really nice spending time with Ruby and playing with his dog Bones. The days went by quickly.

On her whole day by herself Sally went on an epic solo bus journey to Haifa and Akko. She took 9 buses and 1 cable train on the trip, which took about 13 hours. Being curious about Haifa, she stopped there on the way to Akko. Haifa is built on a large hill/small mountain, so has nice views (well, mainly of the urban sprawl). Haifa is a big industrial city, and the sprawl stretches at least as far as Akko.

One of the main attractions are the Baha'i Gardens from the Baha'i faith. Someone thought that Israel didn't already have enough religions, so started this one in the middle of the 19th century.

By the time she made it to Akko, after 5 buses and 1 cable train, it was only an hour or so until dark. The last bus sat in traffic for 90 mins as the police checked each car. The muslim Eid al-Adha celebration was happening, so there were people, animals and chaos everywhere. Sometimes all at once, as there were horses and carts brimming with people racing up and down the narrow streets of the walled city. Also jumping castles.

This did detract a little from the historical beauty of the place, but was fun to watch. The main attraction was the mosque (Al-Jazzar Mosque) and to be allowed into the grounds Sally had to be wrapped in a large strip of material by the doorman.

After watching the sun go down over the harbour, began the 4 hour journey back to Jerusalem.

We met up again in Tel Aviv where we stayed at Ruby's dad's house for our last night.  Together with Sara and Ruby's brother we went out for a delicious Ethiopian dinner and walked around Tel Aviv soaking up the atmosphere.

Tel Aviv was very different than Jerusalem - it felt much more laid back, and the sea air made me think of Sydney.

In the morning we had breakfast at the best falafel place in the world (according to Ruby - and the falafels were indeed special, with a hint of cinnamon and chili in them) and walked around old Jaffo enjoying our last day in Israel.

Our final experience was the airport security where we waited for almost an hour to be be questioned about all we did and who we knew in Israel before being allowed to check in and get on on our flight home.

Overall we found that the country was very beautiful in parts and the people generally nice, the history astounding and the food delicious... all in all an amazing experience.

Appenzeller

This weekend was a combination of relaxing at home, biking, and a walk in Appenzellerland.

On Saturday while Sally relaxed at home, I went exploring the Hongeberg woods near our house on my mountain bike.  I found a lot of nice singletrack trails in the woods, some even quite steep and one with a jump built on it.  I tracked it all on my GPS, so the next step is to find a route that combines all of the trails into a nice flowing whole.  Besides a good afternoon riding and exploring, the best thing I saw was two deer springing across the path right in front of me.  I love deer, so this was an amazing experience for me!

(the biking picture is actually from a ride on Tuesday on Zuriberg)

On Sunday we got up early and took the train to Urnäsch and then a postbus to Passhöhe/Schwägalp

to do a nice, relatively easy walk through some of the Appenzeller country.

We walked up through lovely European fairy tale woods, over very rooty ground,

and then up into pastures and to a restaurant at the top of the hike.  It was a somewhat cold day so we enjoyed a nice bowl of soup and bread in the restaurant, then continued back down the hill.

Both the ascent and descent were much milder than when we went on the Greine walk, so it was a lot more pleasant.

Sally also bought fresh Appenzeller cheese direct from a farmer near the top of the hike. The farmer took her into the barn where they had stacks of baby cheeses, and she got to choose one to get a slice of.

Baby cheeses

All throughout the day it threatened to rain, but never actually did, so the rain gear we brought along was just extra baggage.

The highlight of this trip was that we ran across 8 different animals (well, mammals): cows, goats, ponies, cats, sheep, dogs, a deer, and something else (can't remember what though).

Goat

Moo

OMG Ponies!

 

All in all a well spent weekend, followed up by a great dinner and well deserved rest before going back to work on Monday.

A map and details of the walk...

Titlis

My mom came to visit us in Switzerland this week.  We spent several days entertaining her in Zurich in the evenings (while she explored the city on her own during the day), and then on the weekend I took her up into the mountains to get a feel for the real Switzerland.  Initially I was planning to go to Zermatt to see the Matterhorn, or Interlaken to see Jungfrau, Moench, and Eiger, but the weather forecast said that it would be rainy and storming over the weekend, so I decided that it wasn't worth spending the money to get there if the views were going to be all cloudy.

Instead, we decided to go to a 'local' mountain - Mount Titlis (I still snicker everytime I say it). Titlis (hee hee) is about a 2.5 hour train ride, plus a .5 hour gondola ride away from Zurich, so perfect for a day trip.  I wasn't sure what to expect, but it was a beautiful sunny day, so there was little chance that we'd get disappointed.

We packed our bags, wearing light summer clothes and taking extra warm clothes for the cold mountain top (there's a glacier on mount Titlis, so you know it has to be cold up there).  We left early in the morning, and took an hour to look around Luzern while waiting for the next train to Engelberg. We walked over the covered bridge, and wondered why there were so many bridges in the town.

Then made sure we got a good seat on the train up the mountain.  After reaching Engelberg, a sleepy ski town known for its monastery and lots of statues of angels everywhere, we took a series of gondolas all the way to the top of the mountain (3238 meters above sea level).

The last gondola was the world's first rotating gondola.  Not quite as exciting as it sounds, but neat.

Up at the top there is a snackbar with a nice sundrenched terrace (complete with lounge chairs for suntanning and an amazing view), and a chairlift to the glacier park.  We even got to see the Titlis Buddah (giggle).

Apparently the Swiss mountains are used in many Bollywood films, and have since become very popular with tourists from India.  I got to take my picture with some stars - not sure who they are, but they must be popular.

Being the adventurous cheapskates that we are, we decided to walk down to the glacier park, rather than take the very expensive chairlift.  The walking was tough since the snow was very soft.  Also the fact that we were so high up and that there was snow everywhere didn't change the fact that it was still really hot!  Unfortunately halfway down the path was closed, so we could go no further.  We never made it to the glacier park and all its toys,

but we did get more superb views.

After walking back up the snow hill (not easy in the high altitude), we had lunch and then went back down the mountain as the storm clouds approached (the weather forecast was spot on).

We also ran across some Marmots - spot the Marmots.

Zurifascht

Yesterday was the start of züri fäscht: a 3 day festival I'm the city that happens every 3 years. We just happened to be lucky enough to be here on the year it happened.

For dutch people it's a bit like koninginnedag with stalls and parties on the streets (but not quite as extensive). With the added attraction of lots of activities on the water too. And fireworks!

The interesting thing about züri fäscht is that you see a lot of people out on the streets that you normally don't see. On regular days everyone seems so respectable, but today the kids were out in full force - and it was almost rowdy!

The other thing we noticed was that the ubiquitous food seems to be meat on a stick. Everyone seemed to be walking around with them. Luckily there were again plenty of opportunities to get vegetarian food, so we didn't get hungry (but did try to avoid the whole ox on a spit - that was a bit much).

On Friday we went out dinner with colleagues and then stayed up to watch the fireworks (the start of which was actually delayed because the football went into overtime). It was nice to be able to hear the music that they were synchronized to. Of course it's hard to compete with Sydney fireworks.

On Saturday we went back into town despite the hot weather and walked around the streets, taking in the attractions, shows and markets. We even watched the airshow - normally I'm not crazy about displays of military might, but they put on a pretty entertaining show - and the planes were painted like swiss flags. Who can't be impressed by swiss flags flying at the speed of sound!

Another cool thing they had was car boats. I remember as a kid being fascinated by these things, so seeing them actually sailing through the water was great (and they looked goofy doing it too).

On Sunday we actually skipped festival and went for a bike ride and swim instead. Much needed in this heat (though the brief rain on Sunday helped too).