the old harbour

 

the other day, noa and i wanted to visit the old harbour, and the farmers market they have there.  apparently the market is there every day, but its run by local villages that use it to sell their produce.  We heard rumors that we might even be able to find kale there, so we were intrigued.

 

this is a cat

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as an aside, this was our breakfeast the other day at noa’s sisters house.  sitting on the balcony.  it was wonderful.

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i love all the greenery on the streets

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the harbour.  it was a windy day.  that is our favorite beach there by the way.

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then we got there, i took a few pictures

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all this walking and shopping made us hungry.  there was a pasta shop there, and we decided to sit and relax a bit and have a bite to eat.

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appetizer of fennel with some spices.  so yummy!

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a mix of pastas, with a tomato sauce and sliced cherry tomatoes.

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another great outing.  and we got kale.  perfect.

bike riding to jaffa

Yesterday noa and i were going to go running, but we got a late start.  so instead, we decided to go on a bike ride to jaffa instead.  part of the reason was i wanted to go to dr shakshouka, and the other was i wanted to try out our new tel aviv bike rentals.

let me explain.  tel aviv has this new ((to me)its been around for a few years) bike rental system.  they are public bikes you can rent for half an hour at a time for free.  if you use them for longer you pay a little bit.  its pretty good.  we signed up for a year, and were eager to give it a try.  the stations where you can rent the bikes from are spread about 500m apart throughout the city.

as for shakshouka, if youve never had it, its a wonderful mix of tomatoes and egg.  you eat it with a whole loaf of bread.  well, i do.  its awesome.    anyways, last time i came to visit, i wanted to go, but we didint have a chance.  so now that im here, i thought it was prime time to seize the day.

So,  to get there, we walked to the nearest bike rental station, and then rode a few minutes to the beach, and then all the way down the boardwalk to the old town of jaffa.

 

this is us walking towards the bike rental.  this is what a typical street in tel aviv looks like

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and i love these aloe’s.  look how happy they are.

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riding bikes again was a lot of fun.  here we stopped along the way

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not bad for mid january.

 

and we got to jaffa, and returned our bikes.

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then we arrived there.  here are a few of the things we ate

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shakshouka

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a veggie salad

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a veggie soup for the couscous

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couscous

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lechem  (bread)

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it all was just as tasty as i remembered. so tasty.

 

then we went out and took a few more photos of Tel aviv waterfront this time.

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and here is what the bike rental stations look like

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lastly, we walked along the beach a little as we wanted to relax and sit and enjoy the beach.  we found the this lovley spot along the boardwalk, with a laid back bench.  i ordered a tea, and we sat there and relaxed to the sounds of the crashing waves.  i didnt get a photo with my camera, but noa and i took some self photos with the iphone.

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we saw many interesting things passing

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but look at this view.  this beats sitting around in the cold.

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Glider flying in the Negev

For my birthday this year, Noa arranged for my first glider flight in israel.  i haven’t flown in 3 years, and haven’t really flown in about 6.  i would go on one flight ever christmas with my dad or an instructor, but that would be it.  Since i graduated university i have not been very serious about flying.

Anyways, we left early on friday morning to drive to Be’er Sheva in the south, where one of israel’s glider clubs is.

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It was about an hour and a half drive from tel aviv.  when we got there there was a little confusion about where we should go, so we walked around the airport some.  apparently this airfield is a large centre for sky diving, and just as we were walking by, this big thing passed us by.

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eventually we figured out we were supposed to go the one end of the runway, and we found the gliders.

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everyone was really nice, asking how long i have been flying, and what we are doing here.  there was only one instructor, and he had some check flights to do.  so we sat around in the sun with a nice breeze for about an hour and a half after we got there at 11.  we were hoping that the sun would warm the ground more, so that we would get some thermals.  we would know around 1 if this was likely at all.  so i took pictures

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luckily there was a glider field puppy to play with too.

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and there were a ton of hawks flying around.  they were catching some small thermals, but were not getting very high either.

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all kinds of interesting things happening

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eventually we decided it was never going to be great gliding weather today, and so we would take one of the more high performance gliders up.  thanks to Noa for all the following photographs while i was flying.

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it was a pretty rough take off.  i am really rusty.  but once i got in the air things settled down a bit and i got a handle on flying again.  we ended up flying for about 20 min or so towards be’er sheva, and then back around and landing.  the landing was a little sketchy, because as we were coming around to go on downwind, we hit sink and lost 3oom.  the instructor took over and radioed in that he was taking emergency actions, which means instead of landing on the end were they usually land, he was landing on the closer part of the runway to us.

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Noa got a picture as we were just turning from base to final.

Overall, it was a wonderful experience, and it made me really want to get my butt in gear again once we are a little more settled to start flying again.  the instructor was confident that i could solo again in about 10 flights, which was encouraging.

so im hoping for more glider flying adventures in the future.