Fulbright trip

On Monday and Tuesday of this week I joined a dozen Fulbright students, scholars and their families on a two-day tour of northern Israel. Our first stop was Zippori, a two-thousand-year old archaeological site featuring well-preserved tile mosaics. My attention span proved insufficiently enduring, but the mosaics were pretty impressive. I fail to comprehend, however, what would have possessed someone to create a depiction out of thousands and thousands of such tiny tiles!

We continued on to the Kinneret (a.k.a. the Sea of Galilee) where we enjoyed a lovely lunch at Desks, a restaurant situated on a pier that extends directly over the sea shore. Afterwards we endured a harrowing ride (harrowing, at least, for the acrophobes among us) to the top of Mount Arbel, from which we had fantastic views of the Kinneret and surrounding towns. We spent the night at the HaGoshrim Kibbutz hotel in Kiryat Shemona, within sight of the Lebanese border. The accommodations were surprisingly pleasant, and I couldn’t have asked for more interesting, eclectic company than my fellow Fulbrighters.

We spent the following morning at the Banias nature preserve at the foot of Mount Hermon, in the Golan Heights. The scenery visible from the trail was really spectacular.
On the way to lunch we took an unplanned detour…to the Naot factory! (Naot is an Israeli brand of shoes/sandals renowned for their comfort and considerably more expensive abroad than in Israel). I think nearly every Fulbrighter bought at least one pair of new shoes. And I finally got the hang of European shoe-sizes! Not that I need any more sandals…

We had a late lunch at an outdoor, stream-side restaurant called Dag al HaDan. I would highly recommend the place, so long as you don’t mind dining next to ducks, chickens, peacocks, and other forms of (live) poultry. Afterwards the van transported us back to our respective host-towns, to the mild chagrin of most of us onboard.

click on the link below to view my photos of the trip (you will need to log in. username: deborahhemel@yahoo.com, password: deborahhemel).
http://www.snapfish.com/photolibrary/pageindex=0/t_=34757088