Mary Virginia comes to town

Mary VA arrived in Jerusalem on Wednesday afternoon. After running around the Old City on Thursday afternoon (we visited the Western Wall, Church of the Holy Seplecur, and Temple Mount archeological museum/site), and my performance at the Monologues on Thursday evening, we jetted up to Tel Aviv for Friday morning. There we wandered around the Carmel Market, shmoozed in a café, walked around southern Tel Aviv, saw the Friday art fair, and made sandcastels at the beach on the Mediterranean. From there, we drove with Alon up to the Galilee, stopping by the Mount Tabor monastary (seen to the left) and the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) along the way. (There is a picture of the Kinneret, near Tiberias, to the right.)

We slept in Ramot Naftali, on the Lebanese border in northern Israel on Friday evening. (See picture to the left of me and Mary VA in front of the Lebanese border.) On Saturday morning, we drove further north, into the Golan. There, we wandered around a kibbutz in Kfar Giladi and went horseback riding there in the blooming flowers of the Golan (the north is green and filled with flowers this time of year). From there we went to Metula to check out wild tulips. (See some pictures of the flowers below and to the right.) We saw Nachal Saar, a series of waterfalls near Baniyas and the Nimrod fortress, on the southern border of the Hermon mountain range. We traveled through the Golan, through the Druze village of Masade, to the volcanic mountain of Ben Tal, where we wandered around an old Israeli fort. After that, we drove down the Syrian border on a very bumpy road to briefly see the Black Waterfalls of the El Al stream in the southern Golan Heights. We drove through the West Bank, stopping off there for lunch/dinner. We took a series of pictures with soldiers in the West Bank (ahh, to be tourists). From there, we sprinted back to Jerusalem for my final show for the Monologues.

Mary VA left very early on Sunday morning. It was really a blast to have her in town, and I am really happy that she visited. Safe trip home, Mary V :)