Serenity (not the valley or the ship)

After the constant verbal male harrassment and pollution of the otherwise lovely Cairo, staying with my cousin Tami and her family on Moshava Kinneret in the Galilee is such a nice wind down.  Cairo was great, but I was so dirty and sweaty and always lost.  I stayed with a great guy in CSing that Courtney Robinson connected me to.  I saw Sufi dancing and pyramids and the synagogue Rabbi Ben Ezra rebuilt.

I then weathered a terrible 19 hours of travel.  A 10 pm night bus out of Cairo was not a treat.  I was the only single female traveler on it.  And while people left me alone, I got a lot of looks.  Deciding to actually sleep on it, I took a sleeping pill, which helped, but left me disoriented at all stops.  It was only once I was safely in Tami's car in Haifa and I told her did I realize that taking a sleeping pill in that situation was probably not a real smart thing to do, safety wise.  I arrived in Taba at 5:30 am and walked to the border and crossed into Israel by 615.  Took a cab to the bus station in Eilat (that ride was more expensive by 5 shekels each time I took it) and sat until 8 am for the bus to Tel Aviv.  That bus got in at 1 pm.  I sat until the 1:30 bus to Haifa.  Arrived at 2:45 pm and waited until 3:30 for Tami to pick me up near some tech center.  Then we drove to her house on the Moshava.  At 5:30 I finally sat down in her house and ate some homemade food.  

Then we went to a ceremony run by the moshava's children for Rabin rememberence day.  Didn't understand a word.  Then a lovely dinner and bed.  Today I woke at 10 am, tried to make breakfast and get online.  Neither worked.  Very confused went back to bed.  Apparently the power went out around 9 am.  Slept until 2 pm when I was woken for lunch then read a bit and went to the lake to swim.  Then dinner and a nice talk with Tami and Amit. 

Tomorrow, however, Lior's father is leaving Tiberias at 930 am from his sisters, which saves me a ride but ruins my sleeping in plans.  So I'm getting up at 7 am and going for a morning kayak and swim in the lake with Amit, then catching a bus to Tiberias, where Lior's dad will pick me up.  I'll be in Tel Aviv by 11:30 am.  On Friday midday I switch to Uri and Ella's, where I will stay until I leave Israel on Monday.

Honestly, my family is so wonderful and so are my friends.  I miss Adel, his cat, and Christina, who made Cairo so wonderful.  But I also love being with family.  I know that some day I will go to Egypt again and see other parts (especially Sinai), and of course I will come back to Israel.  So for the first time since getting to Israel, I'm okay with the idea of leaving.  Something to do with the Kinneret...and overwhelming sense of peace and, yes, serenity.