Tel Aviv

Shalom y'all!

After our Sabbath excursion to Bethlehem we decided we'd had enough religion for one holiday, so we left Jerusalem and headed west. To Tel Aviv of course.

As you can see from the pictures Tel Aviv has some pretty nice beaches. Unfortunately they really don't want you to go in the water in the winter.

All the beaches had signs like the one above. They also seemed to be really worried about tsunamis, as you can see below. I didn't even know tsunamis were a thing in the Mediterranean...

Anyway, here's a picture of me about to throw Julius in the water. He came back shivering and murmuring something about really dangerous currents.

New Year's Eve came around while we were in Tel Aviv. Obviously New Year's Eve isn't really a thing in Israel so Julius and I went shopping in preparation for our own little party.

We found some nice Soviet champagne in one of the local shops but Julius kept nagging me until I bought a bottle for him too. Can you guess which one is his? The gold one of course. He really likes shiny things the little critter.

Finally I'm going to leave you with one more picture of me and the Tel Aviv skyline.

Bethlehem

Salam alaykum!

The day after out trip to Masada was a Saturday. When we woke up we saw that the streets were empty and everything was closed. At first we thought it was a nuclear apocalypse, but of course it was just the Sabbath. We hadn't planned for that though so we didn't have anything to eat for breakfast. While Julius was getting more and more cranky I came up with a solution. Let's go to Palestine! Palestinians don't celebrate Sabbath, and they make awesome food. Perfect! We hopped on a bus and soon we were in Bethlehem.

Bethlehem is a typical Arab town in the sense that there are shops and food stalls everywhere so finding breakfast wasn't hard. We settled for some fried chicken.

After breakfast we explored the town of Bethlehem. The locals were very nice. They'd even decorated their Christmas tree with reindeer! Just to make us feel at home.

We even met Santa Claus! Though I think he might have had one mulled wine too many...

Julius also insisted on taking a selfie with some random baby he found in a manger. Silly kid...

That's enough for today I think, but come back soon I still have more to tell you about our trip to the holy land.

Masada

Welcome back!

From Jerusalem we went on an excursion to Masada, an ancient hill fortress by the Dead Sea.

To get to the top you have two options. You can take the cable car or you can walk up. Julius the lazy bugger took the cable car of course.

But I walked up on the so called "Snake Path" like a real man.

The path gains about 300 metres in altitude, and the steps are quite a challenge for a little monkey like me.

I'm starting to regret this, but at least I'll get rewarded with a magnificent view when I get to the top...

Oh, for fuck's sake, the Dead Sea is right there and you can't even see it. Stupid desert haze.

Well, at least there's decent a view on the other side towards the Judaean Desert.

The plateau itself is full of ancient ruins (and some not-so-ancient gazebos).

I got inspired to try and build my own structure.

Here's the result. Quite a palace right?

Well, that's enough for today.
Come back soon, next stop Bethlehem!

Ho ho holy Land

Shalom friends!

Sorry for not bringing you any updates about my life in a long time. I've mainly been at home taking care of Julius and uncle Jevgeni. That's a full-time job, you know...

As a reward for being so good this year Julius decided to go to the Holy Land to see Santa Claus Jesus and also to get some much needed sun. We spent a few days in Jerusalem before continuing to Tel Aviv.

Jerusalem was a very interesting place. We walked around the old town and touched all the holy stuff.

Holy Jewish stuff...

Holy Christian stuff...

Holy Muslim stuff...

And eh... miscellaneous holy stuff...

In fact Julius got so affected by all the holiness that he developed a halo. As if he wasn't annoying enough to look at already...

Come back soon and I'll tell you more about our trip to the Holy Land.