Yalla!

Tr:  Let's go!  (from Arabic)

Another sababa weekend.  After seeing Don Jon (definitely see it if you want, but don't bring kids) on Thursday night, we decided to head to a new beach on Friday. Sadly, the day started kind of badly as I diagnosed (with help from FunFriend Dr. R)  a ganglion cyst on the top of my foot.  One cure for ganglion cyst is thumping the cyst with a heavy book.  I watched some videos about cyst thumping and then we decided to just ignore the cyst and head to the beach. I could go with the thumping, but what if my original diagnosis, Saddle Bone Deformity, is the correct one and then I've whacked the heck out of an already deformed bone?   Anyway, come to find out, Achziv Beach is the most beautiful beach I've ever seen with my own eyes.  I posted some pix on facebook, but here's an extra just for good measure.  On Sunday we had a beautiful day with Koby and Judy and some of their kinfolk.  So nice to be around littles, 2 grandkids who put the grand into the word grandkids.  I wish I could have spoken Hebrew to the littles, but I couldn't.  The 7 month old will undoubtedly be speaking better Hebrew than me by the time I leave here.  Still, all is sababa.  We are doing swell.

We swam here.  The water was so clear and there were some little fish hanging around. 

Rose Ringed Parakeets So beautiful.

Here I am with an olive tree that's 1,000 years old.  1,000. Years. Old. 

This place is hard to explain.  It was used as a cistern and then later as a dovecote for pigeons.  And maybe a columbarium, a place where ashes are kept.  I was trying to soak it all in.  There were 2,000 niches for pigeon coops.  The pigeons may have been raised for "cultic purposes" (?), or for food, or maybe their dung was used for fertilizer.  That's straight from the Ben Guvrin pamphlet.  But get this.
This columbarium went out of use around the 3rd century BC.  It's still standing strong.

Bell Caves.  There are about 800 Bell Caves here.  They were used as quarries. 

I just loved these caves.  I took a lot of pix, which you'll see this week.  We've been having internet problems, but someone is coming soon to fix these problems, so I'm hurrying through this fascinating post.  I didn't even get to write about the fabulous restaurant where we had lunch, hosted by Koby.  Thanks, KOBY!  What a weekend.  So glorious.