LunaGal; Home to Israel’s hairiest men

In a rather desperate bid to keep everyone amused last Friday, we decided to take a tiyul to the LunaGal, Tiveria with kids and 12 year old niece in tow. It’s a beautiful drive – round the kinneret, magical glinting sunlight. Everything there except Jesus, really. Anyway we knew it would be expensive but chalked it up to being one of the few tiyulim that simply costs more in the holy land. Husband spent hours battling the queue with about 4 million of israels White Trash. Meanwhile one member of our arab “brothers” deliberately blocked our car in making it [almost] impossible for us to get out. I did try to say something but they basically laughed at me. [This would have probably been a good time for me to show off my arabic swearing skills but quite frankly there were more of them than us and I wasn’t taking any chances].

So in we go, which was no simple task. It was like trying to get into a rock concert only without crowd control. I didn’t cvare though as I was looking forward – I love a good water slide. So trying not to think about the fact that we had paid an entrance fee only slightly less than our weekly supermarket shop, we headed for the kiddy pool. The place was heaving and the water was absolutely FILTHY. God only knows what was floating around in there. They clearly couldn’t cope with the sheer volume of people. Whilst heading for the ladies changing rooms, I encountered a large group of arab teenage girls that positively reeked. I don’t get it – surely they are at that sensitive age where they want to be clean?? All I could think about was – I cannot believe these people are about to jump into a public swimming pool. With me. Husband complained that they over chlorinated the water. I decided not to tell him they had a bloody good reason.

Jojo absolutely loved the kiddy pool, happily climbing up big slides and paddling around fearlessly. Yarony seemed to have a good time. Kids get exhausted in water very quickly tho so whilst they took a break we had a chance to go on the adult slides. Horrifically long wait for a 5 second thrill, with swarms of Israelis who don’t understand the concept of how queue’s work shoving us out of the way but I did get chatting to a nice bloke from deir al assad [a “neighbour” as he said it] and his lovely children. He saw me get cross when a fat bloke jumped in front of me and decided to teach his 8 year old son, there and then, the art of patience. He was very smily and reminded me somewhat of Roberto Benigni. I was quite glad he let me in front of him because my bikini top decided to fall off on the steep water slide. Thrills for the lifeguard. I opted not to spoil his fun by telling him that I am, in fact, a nursing mother, and hence half of northern israel have already seen my jahoonas. I’m sure his is a poorly paid job after all.

I did find it faintly amusing seeing so many glamorous arab women in their poolside chic, obviously having scoured the magazines to help choose the latests fashion in bling, heels and beach wraps. What they didn’t seem to realise is that these fashion articles are geared at woman holidaying at luxury spas in Marjoca or the Marianas, not at LunaGal Tiveria. Poor things.

By far the biggest irritant, were the swarms of cavemen, arsim and generally revolting lardarsed men looking us up and down – what attracts groups of men in their twenties to these places? Don’t they have anywhere else to go? Do they come just to ogle at the women? and if so which ones? the ones covered from head to toe or the mothers like me, in bikinis from 5 years ago with bits of cracker stuck to our legs? And how on earth do they afford the entrance fee??? Makes no sense. Do they know people? Is there a LunaGal maffia? After Husband meeting a friend there we learned there was some Cellcom deal – 4 tickets for 100 shekel. Too bad Husband coudnt have asked anyone about the discount before he paid – definitely a no go seeing as he had basically argued with everyone in the ticket queue.

Oh well.