Road Trips in Israel
We had a wedding to attend in Jerusalem last week, so thought we might as well carry on driving south. Petrol is dead expensive in this country so you kind of have to make the most of it. We spent one night in Jerusalem, one in the negev [kibbutz Alumin – just across the road from our friends in Gaza] and one night in Tel-aviv. Israel has one major highway to speak of, a very fast Toll Road known as “kvish shesh”. And it boasts just one motorway service station [one on each side of the road] conveniently placed just north of netanya. You would think the one motorway service station in the holy land would be kosher, but sadly not. They did have an impressive drinks menu though, including sahlab [arab equivalent of hot choc involving lots of frothy milk, rose water, nuts and spices – Jojo, a huge fan of all things milky, loves it], freshly squeezed stuff and all the usual caffeine suspects. There are plans to expand the highway both north and south, but I wonder how many more highways Israel will be building in the future. It’s a convenient road but it does make the country more modernised, [or should I say westernised?] and I suppose with that it loses some of its character. Not completely though, as despite the coffee stop being one of those chain-type places they did still have a personal touch – the bloke behind the counter decided I had waited too long for my carrot juice so he gave me a bigger size 🙂
We often dismiss little kids as forgetting many of their childhood experiences but it seems even 2 year olds have amazing memories. On entering the kibbutz Jojo started talking animatedly about the cows, despite it being close to a year since we last went there??? We have no idea how he remembers it. Of course when it came to being up closeto these enormous creatures he got a bit nervous and seemed to prefer the tractors and of course, jumping in puddles, an essential childhood experience. I have to say looking at cows here still puts me off drinking milk, they don’t seem to have the best life and I still maintain it affects the taste of the milk.
On another note, I have been trying to get hold of a new kiddy bookshelf from IKEA from a while, but havent been in netanya and figured it wasnt worth the trip. Not going to happen now as apparantly it burnt down last weekend. Bugger. Perhaps housing all that cheap wood in a hot country full of smokers was just asking for trouble.