A-Team day!

I should have known the day would be interesting when we got on our elongated bus thing, and as we drove from Tel- Aviv to Jerusaleum, over the radio was playing the theme song from the old show that my kids may or may not know, called the A-Team.  Yes, that started an overlying strangeness to our day.  We arrived at our hotel, that we couldn't check into until latter, and left our luggage there.  We were going on a tour of a hill called Masada.  We got back on our bus van, (it held about 10 people in what looked like bucket seats) and traveled along our way, all the while listening to our guide who seemed to sound like 'Teviah' from Fiddler On The Roof.  I kept on imagining him saying something vigouriously, like 'tradition' or something.  He gave us so much information that between that and my jet lag, I had only been on the van bus for about 15 minutes, when my head started bobbing.  Suddenly, there was a loud thudding and I jerked awake to hear them speaking very fast, something like vekrjoa;lksejroiajdflklwkejro;iu,  then in English, 'we seemt to ave pop-ed a tire'.  Sure enough, we had blown a tire on our bus van.  We had to wait while  they changed the tire, in a little gas station near the tire shop. There were so many cool candies, that we had to take some back to the shelves because we couldn't buy them all.

The candy didn't dissapoint!  we found our beloved Kinder Eggs!  They were a little different from the ones my brother brought home from Australia back in 98'.  Those had a plastic capsel inside a chocolate egg,  with a small toy in the capsele, that you assembled, after eating the chocolate outside.  The eggs we found were divided in half and wrapped together .  One side has the toy in it and the other has a creamy chocolate you eat with a small spoon.  I bought five and ate one before I left the store.

We had to wait awhile longer, apparently other countries have tire repair men lie to them as well as we do.  We went across the street to a Mall.  After we went through the metal detector, yes we had to go through a metal detector to go into a Mall, we found all kinds of oddities.  They had foods out in the hallway of the Mall, uncovered.  Oh, you may say, whats the big deal? but really  these were wet foods, like olives and more olives! Well anyway,  I did buy some apricot fruit leather and decided it was good but not as good as my mom's.  All the fruit and vegetables here are so fresh, they could label everything they make or sell you as organic and they would be telling the truth. 

These were in what our guide called a Mall!?!

Also just out in the open, waiting for a small child to put their fingers into!  I was told that Turkey will have amazing spices, so I'm waiting to get mine there!

After we ate at the mall we started on our way to a huge mesa/bluff thing called Mesada.  Supposedly King Herod, (remember baby Jesus had an order put out to kill him when Jesus was little?  the King that sent out that order was King Herod)  Apparently, as our guide told us King Herod was a brilliant, paronoid Architect and ruler.  He murdered 12 of his own sons who he thought would steal the throne from him and killed his own wife as well.    This plateau called Mesada is next to the dead sea.  Now the dead sea is called the dead sea because it is so full of salt that there is no living life in it except bacteria.  Yuck.  But even back in King Herod times that was a big resource to have because you could preserve so many things with it.  So we drove to Masada and took a tram ride to the top and saw lots of ruins and hear lots of things about history and things like that. I'm not going to elaborate too much because, if all that info made me fall asleep, I'm thinking it would do the same to you.  I really didn't mean to fall asleep,  I was just so tired!  Imagine walking around in heat that you usually just pass through in Arizona.  We were all over the place on that plateau in the blazing sun!  Our guide was so knowledgeable, but didn't seem to notice people in his group seemed to be falling down a lot and I finially let the group go in front of me and snuck away to the bathroom.  When I came out I saw our group from afar and Todd saw me and waved me over, but I shook my head no, and headed back to the main gate were we came in.  I'm a rebel.  But with good reason.  Jerusalem is at some elevation of around 2,500 feet and the Dead sea is at a -1,300 feet below sea level.  We found out that we were walking around in 109 degree heat!  I don't do that on a normal day in Arizona!  I think our guide, who was a instructor at some university, had a 'man crush' on King Herond because he was such a popular figure in history and our guide couldn't stop talking about him.  Well, I apologized for leaving, but I really felt ill!  One lady in our group from Utah said that she loved that tour, with the heat and all.  I've decided I'm a pansy.  And obviously because I left our group even after Todd was waving me over, I must be ok with it.  Here are some pics

Tram ride, Dead sea in the back ground

This is what King Herod built on the mesa/bluff thing, which has now fallen apart, but this is what it did look like, and here is a now picture.

This is looking down from above.  So the round roof you see in the silver sculpture picture is represented here.

It was all good, except for the heat!  We decided that a dip in the dead sea would be the right thing tod do on such a hot day.  That was weird though too!  That water had so much salt in it, that it moved like jello does as you are putting it in the fridge to set.  And salt near your eyes, is really not good.  I had shaved my legs that morning so they were stinging like crazy and I only lasted a few minutes.  Some guy was there floating along while reading a book!  I think he did that just to show off, but it really did keep you floating around like a cork!  I hadn't felt that skinny for a long time!

That's me waving in the red top thing.  That white stuff you see near the rocks is SALT!  In the end we were glad we took a dip, because who can say that they went from A-team in the morning to dead sea that  night?  Nobody, but me I guess! ahahahah. 

Ok, I had a diet coke at dinner and I'm not really sleepy, but I gotta go to bed because It's 2 a.m. here.  I will try and post again tommorrow

LOVEYOUMORETHANHERODSSALT  maw