The Golan in Shavuot

Shavuot is the holiday marking the beginning of the harvest (among other things). For this reason, it is celebrated quite extensively in moshavim and kibutzim in Israel. Israel kept telling me that I MUST come to Eliad for Shavuot. So, I did...

In Eliad, every year, they have a rodeo in Shavuot. A real rodeo. OK, they don't actually send the cowboys to catch a raging steer but they do have some people from the moshav riding horses and competing against each other doing various things - like having the horses ride around cones as fast as possible, getting water from a jug on one side and bringing it back without spilling to the other side, and so on. Fun. Israel "donated" his three horses for the rodeo and he and his daughter both rode on two of the three horses in the rodeo. Israel had a lot of fun doing this as can be seen in the pictures below:


After the rodeo they held a grass mower competition. Yup, no mistake here. Did Israel win? Well, no... Someone brought a state-of-the-art grass mower and all the other competitors didn't have a chance really. But still, as you can see, they were not discouraged by this:


The next day, Sharon and Seva came to visit. You will have to take my word for it that they came because I'm not allowed to put their pictures on the blog. I can say that we had a chance to eat some nice olives made by Seva and to eat smoked cheese from Georgia, which was delicious. We went to Gamla together - on that day and on the next. Why twice? Well, Israel always likes to go to Gamla but this time Seva wanted to go down to the archaeological findings and we didn't have enough time the first day to do it, so we came again the next day.

Since I've already written about Gamla in a previous post I will focus not on the archaeological site but on the griffin vultures who were set free there on the second day we visited. Gamla has a large population of vultures. One of the birds set free was a bird hatched in captivity and now when it reached maturity was being released. The other one was caught and was being released. Both were being ringed and fitted with wing tags and radio transmitters before being set free.


Even though the process didn't seem to be particularly pleasant for the vultures we were told that the equipment attached to them doesn't bother them. On the left you can see one of the vultures being fitted with wing tags and a radio transmitter.




Then it was set free:

This fellow was a bit "shell shocked" at first and took a few seconds to get himself oriented and ready to fly. He was actually a bit scary - these birds are quite big - and he took some steps towards us....

Then he took flight (you can see its wing tag clearly in both pictures):


In the picture below you can see the transmitter (and the vulture, of course), enlarge the picture and look at its back...):


One of the next days we went to the Hermon. It was my first visit to there ever! How can that be?! I don't know, somehow never got there. It was a bit different than I imagined it somehow, a lot barer. I sort of thought there'd by alpine woods there, but then woods are not exactly our strong point in Israel so I'm not sure how I came up with this vision...


(notice how I keep finding myself on snow capped mountains when going places with Israel... even when elsewhere it's already spring or summer).

We didn't find many trees up there but we did find some pretty flowers


now, if it were up to my knowledge I'd say that the flower on the left is a pretty purple flower (one of my favorite colors, by the way) and the one on the right is a certain poppy. Israel, is more of an expert in what they call "flora and fauna" and so thanks to him I can also add the proper names of these flowers -

The one on the right is called a mountain horned poppy and the one on the left is a mountain ixiolirion but I like its German name: berglilie (lily of the mountains).

By the way, the Golan trail (thought of and created by Israel) starts from Mt. Hermon:


After coming down the mountain we went to have lunch at the Witch and Milkman restaurant in Nimrod. On this day we also went to Kibbutz Ein Zivan and visited Bustan ha-Golan where one can pick cherries. A very nice place to go to with kids.

Another day we went kayaking in the Jordan river with the dogs which was a lot of fun. Both dogs went swimming, were shaking their coats off, rubbing themselves in the ground and getting them and everything around them very wet and doggy smelling. We didn't take any photos on this trip (the camera would have gotten wet so you'll just have to imagine it in your mind...). One of the people running the kayak renting place was patting Tzachi (see his picture on the left from another trip). At some point Israel called Tzachi over. The guy looked up surprised - Is this Tzachi from Eliad?? it seemsTzachi is a celebrity dog... (the guy knows the dog through Israel's son...).

One of the days on the way back to Eliad we went to the Butmeya water reservoir. The place is very tranquil and pretty. Recently, a group of Israeli air force cadets went over there to clean a lot of garbage in a volunteer project following a hike they took in the Golan.


I will leave you with two final pictures from this great week in the Golan with Israel, one of me on top of the world (well, maybe just the top of our small country...) and the other of the sun setting over Tiberias and the Sea of Galilee taken by Israel from Mitzpe Hashalom near Kfar Haruv:



By the way, all the pictures were taken by Israel except the ones in the rodeo which were taken by his neighbor, Lucy.

Paris

What can be more romantic and lovely than Paris in the springtime with your partner?! I wouldn't know... Peleg called a while back to inform me that they will be leaving Paris this summer and if I want to come and visit while he and Yosi are still there, I better be quick about it. Israel agreed happily to come along and so - for the long weekend of the 1st of May we went to Paris....

We stayed at this lovely pensione type hotel called La Sanguine near La Madeleine which was recommended by Marie. It's very well situated, the rooms are small but comfortable and the breakfast is great.

What did we do in Paris? Mostly walked around this pretty city. We were lucky to have very nice weather. We started out with lunch and a cafe creme (the closest the French get to a cappuccino and generally a better bet than their cafe au lait) with Peleg and Yosi in their suits (it was just after the Independence Day reception):


From there we went on to have a tour of the area with them and stopped to have some nice cakes - a strawberry tart, a lemon tart and a napoleon or a millefeuille (thousand leaves). The French were definitely there when baking was being taught (or as Israel said - they were the teachers...). Then we took ourselves to the Tuileries Garden to sit a bit, soak up some sun and do people and duck watching:


The next day we set out from our hotel and walked all the way to the Marais which is a very "in" area of Paris and where Peleg and Yosi live. I'll let the pictures walk you through the streets of Paris (some of the pictures were taken in the next days - for those into continuity...):



This is me standing in front of La Madeleine named after Mary Magdalene (how this turned into Madeleine is anyone's guess). It says in Wikipedia that originally a synagogue stood there and was taken from the Jews in 1182.






My favorite picture from the trip to Paris is this one. and no, we're not risking our lives in the midddle of the Champs Elysees - there's a kind of island in the middle of the avenue...






A scuplture of Churchill by Jean Cardot on Winston Churchill Ave. with his immortal words "we shall never surrender". A very impressive statue erected in 1998. We found it interesting that the French put up his statue - he being British, but then after all, he did have everything to do with the victory over the Germans in WWII and it is appropriate that he is there not far from a statue of Charles de Gaulle.


and this is us in my favorite bookshop in Paris - Shakespeare and Co. a real bookshop like it should be with books everywhere and a nice cosy feeling...


After having a cup of coffee at Peleg and Yosi's -


We walked with them in the Marais where we saw the Jewish stores, the people sitting in the park, the street players, everything alive and bubbling...


and then we took the metro back to the hotel -


The next day we "did" the museums - Rodin and Orsay - Orsay being one of my favorite museums in the world. Here are some pictures Israel took there, first from the Rodin Museum


and then in Orsay which started out as a train station and was turned into a museum of mostly impressionist and post impressionist art

notice how the viewers of the Renoir on the right seem to practically blend into the picture....


on the left you can see us through a mirror in the applied arts part of the museum and on the right is Israel in the lovely coffee shop of the museum.

On Sunday, Peleg took us to a special gem - the museum of modern art - the Musee d'Art moderne de la Ville de Paris - which I had never been to before. It's what you'd call "off the beaten track" but has some lovely and "different" works of art. Peleg stressed that it is not contemporary art but modern art - thus making sure I wouldn't make a face and run away.... Peleg likes to go there to relax.

The first hall he took us to in the museum is a huge hall dedicated completely to one of the largest paintings ever done "La Fee Electricite" by Raoul Dufy. Israel took some lovely pictures of me and Peleg sitting and looking at the picture:



We then went to see a work by Christian Boltanski (who, surprisingly, considering his name, is half Jewish) - a room filled with telephone books from all over the world (including, for example, even Bhutan). Peleg found the details of his relatives in Argentina over there.... Here we are looking in one of the phone books:


The museum also shows works by Matisse, Braque and many others. I liked these two pictures that Israel took of Peleg, me and some pictures over there:


After visiting the museum we went with Peleg to a market in the Bastille to buy some bread and parsley for dinner. As we were strolling through the market we came across someone making and selling this deep fried sweet thing called chichi in French (did we resist?! of course not....):

we also saw some musicians playing on brass insturments having the time of their life playing in the square:


From there we took ourselves to Montmartre to see the Sacre Coeur. The area at the bottom of the hill is very sleazy but the hill itself is lovely and you can do people watching there to your heart's content while enjoying the view:






We more or less escaped from the area at the bottom of the hill taking a metro to the Latin Quarter, which is like a completely different world compared with the area around Montmartre. Here we got to see some Brazilians practicing Capoeira. My, did they have impressive bodies...


We then took the train back to our hotel and saw this lady who's picture one could easily put in the museum of modern art we had visited earlier in the day:


Well, this post has been long, but there was so much to write about and so many pictures to show. I'll leave you here with a few more pictures, offered without further explanations from the wonderful city of lights...


and one final thanks to Peleg and Yosi for their warm hospitalty, we had a great time with you....


bon soir, au revoir...