although we would have then planned our trip differently, what i wish i could have done is extended my ticket for free after seeing how cool his family is and how awesome the Mediterranean sea is.
i think the drive down to massada through the 'west bank' sunset approaching was one of the most gorgeous drives ive done and massada was the most gorgeous place he and i have been together-not necessarily my most gorgeous place ever, but up there. i feel like a little bit of a wimp for taking the cable car down, but the memories of how much it sucked for my knees when i was 16 are pretty strong and the sun would have been beating down straight on me.
i think habonim was the most beautiful beach we were at, although not necessarily the most fun, as the rocks made it gorgeous, but also a navigation issue. being in the water in acco/acre listening to the moazeen (?) overlooking the old city during the end of the day light was the coolest beach experience of the trip. israeli life guards are super stingy about the amount of beach you can use to swim, nyc gives you much more and no one on paddleboards/stand ups...best meals of the trip and only good restaurant was tartine in binyamina. if you find yourself in binyamina, cessaeria, zhkron yaakov areas and need a good meal, head there. definitely by far the best breakfast of the trip.
if you get paid in dollars, israel is a decently priced country (seems more expensive if you get paid in shekels)
sholomo artzi concert was fun, but we only knew a couple of the songs and he did a couple things that i thought were pretty schmuckish. but he played for over 2 hours without even taking a sip of water and definitely puts on a good show.
had a serious heart to heart with mr civic's aunt, but i only understood about 50% of it since it was all in hebrew.
would have loved to spend more time and money in old jaffo's shopping district. ran afoul of and also successfully used the tel aviv bike share. i get why all bikes need to be the same size, but also they were a little big and clunky for me, good thing the city is basically flat.
was attacked by his cousin's cat. she sucks.
have you read haroun and the sea of stories (if you haven't do so now) but a hoopoe is a real bird and in fact is the national bird of israel--its cool looking but nothing like what i pictured.
rosh hanikra was also amazingly gorgeous. and hot. and full of datim. saccne on the other hand is best left to families, kids and teens and bring a floating device. was a bit of a bust, but then we stopped at a beach near mikmoret, north of tel aviv and that made up for it. and tip for the traveler, if you are going to avoid paying for parking there, then best approached with a 4x4 or at least all wheel drive.
pubic transport we took just to try out, not because we needed to: carmelit (subwayesque thing) in haifa, tel aviv bike share, jerusalem light rail. sadly no trains for us, although if mr civic returns the car early he might get a chance to.
