With TFran and Miguel
We were so excited to have our good friends and neighbors from Juarez, TFran and Miguel come to visit for the Thanksgiving holidays! They arrived Thursday morning, and we spent the day exploring old Jaffa, including lunch at Dr. Shakshuka. That evening we went to Ben and Jen’s for Thanksgiving dinner – they had almost 20 people – lots of fun and really good food. So nice of them to include us in the festivities again this year.
Friday morning, we set off for Jerusalem. While TFran and Miguel explored the Old City, John and I walked around downtown Jerusalem, just enjoying the sites and sitting at a sidewalk cafe. That night back in Tel Aviv, we had a great dinner down the beach at Manta Ray with Petit – we had a great time together.
With Miguel, Petit and TFran at Manta Ray
Saturday the four of us drove to the Dead Sea (stopping outside of Jerusalem for camel photos, of course). The Dead Sea is really pretty. It was blue blue blue, that beautiful aquamarine shade. It’s even more breathtaking because of the huge desert mountains that come so close to the shoreline. We made a stop at a funky beach where Miguel was the only one of us brave enough to get in the water and load up on mud.
We spent the rest of the afternoon at Masada – wow! It was really incredible and the view is out of this world. The cable car ride up was fun, too. It’s hard to imagine a whole city of people living up on top of this mountain.
At Masada with Dead Sea in background
Back in Tel Aviv, we grabbed take out schwarma for dinner, then went over to the beach to stick our toes in the Mediterranean, the last chance we had to do it, since TFran and Miguel headed out before sunrise this morning. We sure had a great visit with them. Click for more photos.
Earlier in the week, we saw another of our A100 classmates, Rubani, who was in the country visiting our friends in Jerusalem. He took the train over Monday night, and we stayed up late drinking wine and yakking with him.
Beach cat waiting for his dinner, on the way to Jaffa
Backgammon on the beach