Trips around in the holy land part 2

Trip to the north
This weekend we decided to let our destination be Rosh Hanikra. On the way we would pass by both Tel Aviv and Haifa. Rosh Hanikra is on the very top of Israel, north west to be more precise, on the border of Lebanon. It is an interesting area with its cliffs, caves and BEAUTIFUL coastline.
Our first stop along the way was Tel Aviv. We got there quite early, around 12, and we spent many hours on the beach seeing as the weather was nice and warm.

We were not the only ones enjoying the beach that day






In Tel Aviv we got to know 3 officers from the army. We introduced ourselves and said we were working and living in Bethlehem and working together with palestinians. "Aha, we are officers in the army"....SILENCE.....Birgitte Blushing.....Silence....."Oh"....
When we came to terms with the facts that we were working in two different worlds we started a loud and long discussion about checkpoints, occupation, humilation of people, the war in gaza and what not(Nelly). And it was actually good. It released the tension, and after that we were talking about a lot of things, and we enjoyed the coversations. Although I disagreed with many things of what they said we could agree on certain things as well. And I personally think (And I am sure there are a lot of people here who agree with me) that the true conflict is not between individuals on the ground. It is something much bigger.

We stayed one night in Tel Aviv, and this was the perfect chance to go clubbing.

The north european alliance


The day after we hit the road again, and our next stop was at an area away from the highway.
Sytske's grandparents (Holland) helped jews under the 2nd world war, and in this place they have planted trees in honour of these people. We did not find the specific trees in memory of her grandparents, but we found the area.




When we arrived Haifa we sat down at a local cafe to have something to eat...


tabolah and hummus :)


And then to the beach to see the sunset...










We stayed one night in Haifa, and then moved on further to the north.


We are so happy cause we finally reached Rosh Hanikra


Yours truly


And here we couldn't go further.DAMN!Lesh lesh?


We took the cable car down to the area of the caves. I wonder why they had this major system of cable cars seeing as it took us 30 seconds to go down. CMON people use your legs, think outside the box(cable cars)!

Down there it was white white white!!!


next to turquoise water....aaahhh!!!


The caves

Posing

Salamander...

On monday I went to an exhibition at the Museum of Science in Haifa. It is called Body Worlds and you can read all about it here....

http://www.bodyworlds.com/en.html

Unfortunately it was prohibited to take photos...But the exhibition was very interesting, I got a lot out of it.

And for those of you wondering; yes I DO get some work done here. I kind of figured that it is not so much fun to read about my work as it is to read about my adventures along the highway.
However, I am currently working with organizing an exchange between the youth group here in Bet sahour and the internationally committed youth group in Bergen. So far we have the dates, and we have more or less an idea of what we want to achieve through this exchange. I will also have to write an article to the Y Global office in Oslo about the norwegian Oil Fund's investment in israeli companies building settlements on the West Bank and also the construction of the separation wall. This is not something Norway should have on its diplomatic record seeing as this makes us indirectly involved in building new illegal settlements and an illegal wall. From what I read lately Norway is trying to stop constructions of both.

Concerning more fun activities we will also have a BBQ with the office to celebrate Easter and to have some social time outside of the office. Least, but not last, we do have another reason to celebrate as we have received some new volunteers in the last couple of weeks; two germans and one polish.