הכרמל, חיפה, ועכו | Carmel, Haifa, and Akko

As I mentioned before, Oranim organized a hiking trip on Thursday in the Carmel. They advertised it to be a "light walk through a rich Mediterranean landscape." That was completely false. We were climbing up and down rocks half the time. I don't call that light or leisurely. When the hike started at 10:30, the guide said it would be about 90 minutes or two hours. We didn't end up finishing until after 2pm. They told us each to bring 1.5 liters of water, which wasn't nearly enough. Most people ran out of water around halfway through the hike. By the end, we were all dehydrated, fed up with the hike leader, drenched in sweat, and exhausted. Some people barely made it up the final hill because they were about to pass out. It was horrible. Nir apologized for the miscommunication today (even though it wasn't his fault), and hopefully something like that won't happen again. But for next time we know to bring at least two bottles (3 L) of water.

After the hike, we went to the Druze village, Daliyat el Karmel, for a very late lunch and some shopping, but most of us were too exhausted to appreciate the culture. After that, the bus dropped of seven of us from the Ramla groups in downtown Haifa, where we chose to stay for the weekend. We stayed in the Port Inn hostel, which was very nice (and, more importantly, had amazing water pressure in the showers). On Thursday evening, we walked around Haifa a bit and found a restaurant on Ben Gurion Street for dinner. Then we went to a hookah bar and had some drinks. Then some of us went to bed early while others went out to another bar near the hostel.

We woke up early on Friday to tour the famous Baha'i Gardens, from which there are excellent views of the city and port of Haifa, as well as the Mediterranean Sea beyond. To get to the top of the gardens, we took the Carmelit, which is Haifa's version of a subway. The entire thing is on an incline, which I thought was really cool. I took lots of pictures; see link at the bottom of this entry. After the gardens, we headed back to the hostel for a nap. On Friday evening, there was an outdoor concert called "Kalabat Shabbat" (not to be confused with Kabbalat Shabbat, the name for the Friday night service). It was really cool; there were tons of people who came for the live music and dancing. There were a lot of young parents there with their children, which I thought was interesting. We saw some people there who were also staying at the Port Inn. They were members of the Teach for America program, and one of them teaches in Bridgeport! Small world. Later that night, we went to a beachside club called Nirvana, but it definitely didn't compare to Clara (the beachside club in Tel-Aviv). There was a 40-shekel cover, and it totally wasn't worth it.

On Saturday, about half of the group went home to Ramla after breakfast, which left Ashley, Brittany, Natasha, and myself to explore Haifa and Akko. After breakfast, we walked up to the Arab area of Haifa (since all the Jewish-owned places were closed for Shabbat), where there was a nice shuq and some pretty cool murals. (Again, see below for pictures.) In the afternoon, we went to Akko (also known as Acre). The sherut driver charged us 100 shekels, which we're pretty sure was a rip-off, but whatever. We explored the Old City, which was really cool, with its narrow, winding streets. We bought tickets to see the Templar tunnel, which is a 300-meter tunnel under the Old City. I don't remember what it was used for, but it was pretty cool. Akko also has a beautiful waterfront with views of Haifa across the bay. We had dinner in the Old City, in a restaurant inside the ancient marketplace, which was really cool... the history, I mean. People sat in that same room over a thousand years ago. How awesome is that? After dinner, we went back to Haifa and took a sherut from there back to Tel-Aviv, and we were back in Ramla around 9pm.

All in all, it was a pretty fun weekend.

You can see pictures from my trip here.

By the way, we're going to Rehovot tonight to see HP6. (finally!)
I'm pumped! :)