still a week of vacation

Last Sunday I arrived safely back from Berlin, Monday I went to Hevron, and Tuesday I had planned to head down to Tel Aviv, except rain was predicted, which never came. Oh, well. Instead I went to the Arab shuk in the Old City with a few of the girls, and then spent the evening down town with Hayley, Irena, and a certain yeshivabucher we know and love. This evening was in place of joining a lot of the Yeshiva girls to go down to Geula and Mea Shearim to watch (passively) the Haredim (Men only, of course) dance. I am not exactly the spectator-Jew sort.
Especially post-Hevron, I decided that it was time again to get away from Jerusalem, and so decided to go and visit my friend and his family's sukkah in Haifa. Haifa is pretty far from Jerusalem. And it is pretty pretty.

I arrived in Haifa and my friend picked me up at the bus station. For Sukkot, there was some sort of street fair going on, which we briefly purused before getting some burger ranch (kosher) and going back to eat it in the Sukkah.
Thursday morning, while my friend was in a meeting, I walked through the Bahai Garden in Akko, and only Gan Eden could possibly be more beautiful. Thursday afternoon, Hayley and her father were arriving into Haifa, so after spending a couple of hours on the beach, I met them and rode the cable car up the Carmel with them, before scurrying off to the train station to go to Tel Aviv, meeting Roi and Asaf to go hang out with Nadav at his work and eat some dinner (all cousins). Roi and I enjoyed watching some of the pretty men play soccor, occasionally with input from Asaf. Thursday night I stayed in Petach Tikvah at Roi's, meeting Mike (his adorably cuddly dog) and discovering just how amazingly talented an artist Roi really is. Before heading back into Tel Aviv the next morning, Roi and I enjoyed breakfast at Cafe Hillel.
Back in TA, I met Shai for a quick coffee before doing a bit of shopping and checking into the sky hostel for the weekend.