I just got home from a very long weekend last night. Had the greatest time.

Eli invited me to come down to the Golden Tulip hotel at the Dead Sea and spend a few days with him and his friends courtesy of the Ministry of Defense. How could I refuse an offer for a free vacation at the Dead Sea.  Nir and Udi were away from the office anyway, so it was a good opportunity.

I woke up early Wednesday morning and caught the bus from the train station. By 12 noon I was already in the Jaccuzi...  Eli, Berko and Martin and all army veterans, injured during their army service and they have been spending these vacations together for over 15 years now.  I never laughed as hard as I did these two days.  Friday morning the guys went on a  jeep trip so I decided to go to Jerusalem to visit Orli. 

Getting to Jerusalem was an adventure in itself.  The guys dropped me off at the bus station at around 9am and there was supposed to be a direct bus at 9:30. A few minutes after they left me, what I believed to be a service cab came by and the driver told me there were no buses until 11:30 and that if I want he would take me to Beer Sheva and from there I could catch a bus...  I have no idea what posessed me to believe him and accept the offer.  I was in the car with him and he started asking me all sorts of intimate questions, and no matter how many times I told him I wasn't interested in having such a conversation, he persisted. I started feeling extremely uncomfortable, but here I was, in the middle of nowhere. If I had been smart I would have told him to stop the car and gotten off, instead I rode with him to Beer Sheva, only when we got to Beer Sheva, and I asked him what I owed him for the ride, he told me he wasn't actually a service cab but a driver for the hotel management company...  I'd like to think I was very lucky on this one, it could have ended differently. That will learn me to stick with the  bus schedule...

It was already getting late in Beer Sheva, and I was contemplating skipping Jerusalem and going straight home, but in the end I decided it could be fun to spend the weekend with Orli and it was.  I got to her place at around 2pm, was handed a water bottle, helmet and pair of gloves and told we were going for a ride.  We went with her friend Debbie, the two of them were on the tandem and I was on Debbie's bike. Both bikes had break problems so I decided not to take my chances with trying the tandem.  We had a very nice ride, we wanted to stop by one of the many water springs in the Jerusalem hills, but apparently Friday afternoon is when religious men come to cleanse, so were were rudely told to move on. We decided to be defiant and stay put.  It really bugs me when private people appropriate the public domain for whatever reasons, it even bugs me more when a public water spring becomes a private Mikveh... What bugged me most was the attitude of the "request" to move on, because if we had been asked nicely and politely I don't think we would have thought about it twice.  Anyway, we moved a few feet away, had our tea break and rode back to Orli's.  That evening we went to dinner and Crazy Land.  The next morning we went riding again, this time with Magdi, he's an Egyptian Copt, who's been living in Israel for ten years now and he is just the sweetest guy. We rode up to the Arthur Rubinstein forest and memorial, which are at the end of a very long climb.  We huffed and puffed our way up, had more tea and on the way back Magdi insisted I try the tandem, on the road. I was a bit hesitent because of the breaks, I was also a bit tired from riding Magdi's bike which wasn't a proper fit for me, so I only rode a short section of road. It was an odd feeling. I felt I was being pushed and pulled from behind and I had to keep the whole thing balanced.  If the breaks were working properly I think I would have gone further, but I didn't want to take my chances. I've been invited to a party they are having next Friday, and a ride on Saturday, so I'll try it again then.  I definitely felt after this very short ride, that I have to become stronger if I am going to do this.

After the ride we went to the old city for some Hummus and coffee, followed by an afternoon nap and a visit to the mall. I had planned to leave for home no later that the third star was out, in the end I stayed until close to 11pm, and truth be told I didn't really want to get home...

But here I am at work for yet another day... which hopefully will be very short...