After Tel Aviv, I spent a couple of nights in Haifa, Israel's northern coastal town. It was beautiful and much more cultural than Tel Aviv, giving me a strong sense of real life in Israel BUT due to my blog laziness my thoughts about Haifa have been overshadowed by the time I spent in Jerusalem and the West Bank. So here are two pictures that some up Haifa for me...
( The Bahai Gardens - a beautiful, tranquil series of gardens with incredible views over Haifa. Especially pretty by night!)
(Interesting graffiti...I'll let you make your own judgements about this!)
I decided to leave Haifa on a Saturday, have a stopover in Jerusalem and then go on to Ramallah the next day.
Jerusalem dazzled me from the minute I stepped out of the taxi. I entered the old city at Jaffa Gate and found myself on the edge of a souq, surrounded by charismatic Arab salesmen. Before I'd had chance to check in I'd already got some free earrings and multiple cups of mint tea!
(Anton - possibly my favourite person living in Jerusalem! Sorted me out with a wealth of information and gave me free tea and coffee whenever thirst struck.)
The great plan was to get to the West Bank well rested and ready to explore but minutes after getting back from a wander around Jerusalem I met a group of guys preparing to go to a watermelon party. After a little confusion, they explained the watermelon parties were a series of events to boost friendly relationships between Jews and Arabs and with a little more research I've found they originated in the late 60's where watermelon stands were the place to be!
To prepare ourselves we had a big chicken dinner - no hummus for us! And bought a bottle of the local spirit - Arak. We got there just as things were livening up and within minutes had mountains of melon and a place to sit whilst the band began their tuning.
The tuning lasted no less than an hour! By this point we'd made a few friends, claimed a spot on a floor mat, and shared our Arak, which we discovered was made in Bethlehem - very fitting for the event! Finally the music began. It was traditional Middle Eastern music with horns and violins and all sorts of instruments. The crowd went wild, especially the Arabs who were wildly dancing in front of the stage only to be repeatedly shooed away by a man who looked like Professor Weeto! This didn't deter them though and in minutes they'd be back high kicking and running around!
As the musicians took a break we decided to move on and see the night life of Jerusalem. After a few shisha pipes, an Irish pub and a bar jam packed with tables we finally found our last stop for the night - Toy Bar. It pumped out chart music late into the night, the only other 2 who were still out - Ed the Brit and Hugo the French, seemed to have been infected with Jerusalem syndrome, considering themselves the Messiah and dancing barefoot on glass without even a single flinch!
After a couple of hours we had to give up and call it home time. We all had early mornings the next day and were determined to stick to them...
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