Happy days and Jew-bilation!

Man, August is a tough month. It's full of birthdays and anniversaries and drenched with heat and humidity. I feel like I need to take a vacation...
So we did – we went for a short trip to Jerusalem, to check out the so called Shrine of the Book (is that a fancy name for a place that chronicles what some crazy Jews did in the desert or what!).
Unfortunately the rest of the museum is closed for renovations so we could only explore the "Shrine" itself and the adjacent model of ancient Jerusalem and the Temple.


(Photo courtesy of Tessa. Actually, I did not ask her permission to put it up here. So I guess it's just theft, no courtesy was involved).

On the way back home we stopped over at Mini Israel which turned out to be quite boring, making Israel look like it's comprised mainly of big, ugly hotels and various industrial facilities which all seem to be related to big brand names. Hmmm...
We did however like their display of a giant lizard ambushing a bunch of innocent tourists in the ruins of Caesarea.


We had celebrated Tessa's birthday at home, seeing as she was still jetlagged, but that was not to be the end of it. After a couple of weeks during which she recuperated we set out for a weekend along Israel's northern shores. We went to Acre and explored its harbor, old city, markets, and promenade. We brought home a nice game of "spot the difference":

(Hint: the full name of the game is "spot the person impaled on a pole")
We also managed to catch a rare glimpse of the mysterious "flying man of Acre" (A.K.A. "Just some guy jumping off the city walls into the sea to show off"):


When I told Tessa we were going to spend the night sleeping in a cabin I think she was expecting something quite different than the wooden hut we finally got to. It seemed like the fact that the place had running water and electricity was a pleasant surprise. The hot tub and air conditioning were probably even more so.
The following day we went even further north to Rosh Hanikra and explored the various grottoes. Humidity still reigned supreme at somewhere around 70% so I guess we now know what it feels like to be living inside of a human body. In one word – disgusting.
Now August is finally over and today we're moving into our apartment – happy days and jew-bilation!