Let’s step back a bit. Arriving at the airport and finding our way to our flat, amazingly easy. Only one wrong turn. Our directions for taking public transport say we will need to purchase bus tickets, a quick inguiry at a newstand illicits “but of course”. Tickets purchased, we find our bus, get on, validate our ticket (apparently very important but I haven’t figured out why yet) and we are off. Over to the Metro station, transfer, on the Metro. First two stages complete. It’s wonderful on the Metro, underground, nothing to see, relaxing. Hoping that it will resurface and because we have some extra time, we decide to stay on until the end of the line. Nope, no surfacing, but at the end of the line, when we do finally emerge into the late spring sun, we find this wonderful Farmer’s Market! Yea, our first unintentional gem of a find. We are even stopped by a nice young women who offers us a view of the lunar eclipse through a series of special lenses. Yea, recipients of an act of random kindness. The eclipse looked pretty cool as well.

However, we are not getting anywhere in finding our flat. So back into the Metro, get off at the right spot, catch the tram, get off at another right spot, oops take a wrong turn, correct mistake, find flat, get keys, directions for how things work, poke around in the flat … nap. After all, we have been up since 1:30 in the morning and it is now 2:00 in the afternoon.

Naps are good, I like naps!

We get up around 4:00 and head out. Just a wander around. We find the big Jewish synagogue, I suppose saying Jewish is bit redundant isn’t it? Make our way to the River Danube. Stroll along the promenade, end up at the Szecheny Lanchid (lion gate?), espy Buda Castle Hill, the Parliment buildings and just the tip of Margaret Island. All places we want to visit over the course of our week here.

By now the sun is down and the fast is over so we spend a few moments looking for a place to break our Fast and celebrate Naw Ruz. We settle upon Spinoza restaurant. Nicely old world, charmingly appointed, not too classy but plenty stylish with live piano classical music included. Settle upon their tradional Hungarian special three course meal. Soup clear goose or goulash, Main course tradional goulash with spaetzle or roast goose leg and Desserts strudel and ice cream or hazelnut pudding balls and whipped cream. I’m thinking this is a $75 – $80 meal as the price was only listed in Euro’s and am pleasantly surprised with a total bill, tip included, of $55CDN dollars! A great meal as well by the way.

Wander home, takes a bit of figuring out, turns out we were only about four blocks away and lights out at 10:00 or so. We think we are going to like Buda and Pest!

Tel Hazor is located in the Hula Valley, at the foot of the Galilee mountains. It is situated along the ancient road that turned northeast and linked the land of Israel through Lebanon’s Beka’a Valley to Babylon. Another road, to the northwest, led to Phoenicia. Hazor’s location, its fertile land and the springs in the nearby Hazor Stream, gave it the natural conditions to develop into the oft described greatest city in the land of Israel and one of the most important cities of the Canaanite period.

And then we move further North and West to a great Fortress in the sky. Nimrod Fortress named after the mythical hunter Nimrod. What a spectacular view, what effort required to build it, what a great place for ice cream!

And wrapping up this visit to the past, dropping back down South and East of Haifa, the great city of Bet She’an. Situated between two rivers, well one river and one stream, blessed with unlimited water in a desert country. Little wonder this was an important city. The beauty and opulence we can only imagine. At one time this was the greatest city in what we now know as Israel. This 400 acre site has had archaeological work ongoing since 1920. Only a small portion has been uncovered. What it must have looked like is presented in a substantial bronze model. Very impressive! And heck, for all of Lynn’s spinning friends out there, this was the linen capital of the Roman Empire.

A historic hub of activity spanning a millennium or two into the past. If I wasn’t paying attention in history class I might be given a second opportunity to hear some of what happened! Lawrie seemed to have kept what he learned and is thoroughly enjoying our explorations. I’m just enjoying the photography opportunities. If you want more information about these historic sites, just Google them. Not only will you find the official Israel National Park site, but many other travellers have posted photographs and observations.

And when you are finished poking around in the Wadi, you can make your way over to the Hadar, the main Jewish shopping area in Haifa. One long street, block after block of men & women’s fashion shops, shoe stores, Dollarama type stores, restaurants, fabric stores, oh well you get the idea. Don’t come down here on Saturday though, that is Shabbat, the Jewish “Sunday”, unless you want to just window shop. You won’t find much open, just Russian owned stores like this crazy supermarket in this office building.

But for real flavor, one must visit the Akka market in, where else, but Akka. Ancient is not an exaggeration. Butcher shops and fish mongers, juice vendors, and candy shops… hmmmm nougat!

But the “piece de resistance” is IKEA at 9:00 p.m. on a Saturday evening. We heard that the IKEA store opens on Saturday (Shabbat) from 9:00-11:00 p.m. and we were in the neighborhood around 8:25 p.m. so thought what the heck, who will be out at that time of day. A little leisurely shopping to finish off the day. 1,500 people by the time the doors opened, parking lot a mass of vehicles and not just “recreational shopping” but down and dirty, serious, tape measure out, calling the attendants over, shopping. Once again as I have been finding myself repeating lately, “only in Israel”.

Caesarea is an Israeli national park and is situated right on the Mediterranean coast, about half way between Haifa and Tel Aviv. It first started out as a Phoenician settlement named Straton’s Tower. From there the Romans wrestled control from the Hasmonean kingdom in 30 BC and awarded it to Herod, of Biblical fame. Herod had big plans for this tiny little port. Over a 12 year period he turned it into a large port city, complete with a man made harbor big enough to hold 100 ships, built up the town, built baths, water was provided via a huge aquaduct, sanitation facilities, palaces, temples, amphitheatre (still used to this day) and a hippodrome. And he changed the name to Caesarea in honour of his patron Octavian Augustas Caesar. It was a rather spiffy place to live, if you were Roman or had connections. Caesarea flourished during the Byzantine period, but during the Arab conquest of 640 fell into disrepair and settled back into a small rather insignificant village. A revival of sea trade in the 9th century breathed new life into this little port. So much so that when the crusaders arrived they rebuilt and fortified the town. It was re-taken by Mamelukes (Arabs again) in 1265 and destroyed! What we see today can only provide a glimpse of what this city must have looked like!

Next up will be Yahi’am Fortress!

Since March 23, 2014 we have called Haifa home. We will be calling Haifa home for the next five years as we are serving at the Baha’i World Centre. We got here by following our hearts. Lynn is in the library doing what she loves best there, cataloguing books. Lawrie is happy providing guidance to many young people, in the security department.

A bit about Haifa, for those of you who don’t know, Haifa is in northern Israel, a Mediterranean port city with a blend of old and new.

We would like to share with you some of the photos we have taken while out and about during the last four months. Comments are welcome, if you want to see more of something in particular, say so!

Then just to add insult to injury, Amtrak was late, but to make up for it we had a time change and managed to catch our Metra train, but then it had a totally unexpected slow-down because another train on the track had engine trouble. Off load and reload to a different train and we missed being able to pick up our rental car. But whatever, 1st world problem, as son Chris would say!

The Westin North Shore is lovely, we picked up the car the next morning and all is well in our world again. Now we are able to drive to the Baha’i House of Worship in Wilmette, Illinois.

This hearty main is one of the most requested recipes from Whitewater Cooks (Whitecap, 2008) by B.C. chef Shelley Adams. Named after a favourite ski bowl at Whitewater Ski Resort in Nelson, B.C., it embodies healthy, fun West Kootenay living. This recipe makes more dressing than you need, but leftovers are excellent on chicken, rice, noodles or salad.

Ingredients
2 tbsp (30 mL) vegetable oil
2 cups (500 mL) cubed extra-firm tofu
8 cups (2 L) hot cooked brown rice
2 cups (500 mL) grated carrots
2 cups (500 mL) grated beets
2 cups (500 mL) packed baby spinach leaves
2 cups (500 mL) slivered almonds, toasted

Glory Bowl Dressing:
1/2 cup (125 mL) nutritional yeast flakes
1/3 cup (75 mL) Tamari or soy sauce
1/3 cup (75 mL) apple cider vinegar
1/3 cup (75 mL) water
2 tbsp (30 mL) tahini
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 cup (250 mL) olive oil

Preparation
In large skillet, heat oil over medium-high heat; fry tofu, stirring often, until brown and crispy, 10 minutes. Drain on paper towel–lined plate. [I like to marinate my tofu and then don’t worry about the ‘brown and crispy’ so much]

Glory Bowl Dressing: In blender, purée together nutritional yeast flakes, tamari, vinegar, water, tahini and garlic. With motor running, add oil in slow, steady stream. Blend until smooth. (Make-ahead: Cover and refrigerate for up to 1 week [good on many different salad ingredients too])

To serve, divide rice among 8 bowls; drizzle each with 1 tbsp of the dressing. Top each with tofu, carrots, beets, spinach and almonds. Drizzle each with 3 tbsp of the dressing. [I prefer to chop up the spinach and put a good handful in the bottom of the bowl, then top with hot rice, grated veggies next (side by side, not on top of each other), then tofu and nuts and go easy on the dressing as you want to taste the ingredients too].

Automobile horns we don’t much use in Canada, but they do in Turkey. It sounds, to start with, as though there are many angry drivers, but if you watch and listen while near the streets, you can tell there is a lot more communication happening than anger. The streets are so narrow often vehicles would just honk to warn a pedestrian. Other times it was a request to move over or get out of the way, or even a warning that backing up was required. And of course there were the horns blaring when drivers were just plain annoyed at having to wait!

The feral cats yowling at night I could probably not be unhappy to lose. Sometimes they sounded hungry, and their sound was much more like a baby crying then, or so I guess! Other times it was ‘singing at the moon’ time and that was more funny than annoying.

People talking in at least five languages, vendors calling out their wares, the chatter of tires on cobblestone streets, “excuse me sir where are you from? Interested in a carpet?”, the deep fog horn, and a myriad of other sounds of a city of 13 million are all sounds we will remember, even without the recording. Istanbul is truly a megacity! And with that we will show you photos of our last wander around on the most glorious, and only blue sky day here.