Greece ---> Dead Sea ---> Tel Aviv ---> J'lem

Finally, the last leg of my ridiculously busy break.
After my beautiful vacation, I knew I needed some time to relax and fortunately for me, my parents had decided to surprise me with a two day vacation at a Dead Sea spa. So at after having 4 hours of sleep from arriving home from the airport my parents picked me up in their rental car and we headed down south. The drive was pretty and my parents told me all about their week trip in the north of Israel and I told them about Greece, we stopped at a Ahava outlet and I bought some stuff, and then we arrived at our hotel. Because they are so wonderful, my parents had booked reservation at a really really nice hotel. But when we got there they could not find our reservation and we eventually found out that the reservation line had made us wrong reservation at a different hotel. Then I had to go around from hotel to hotel with my mom trying to find us a hotel room, eventually the first really nice place gave us a room for the price my parents had originally reserved and all was well. The funniest thing about this hotel was the nice bell boy, named Roni, who outwardly flirted and hit on me in front of my parents, it was ridiculous. My parents mocked me about it the rest of the vacation. Also, because the airport had lost my bags, I needed to buy some clothes (mostly a bathing suit and underwear) in order to enjoy this vacation, so we went to the little strip mall and i bought a bathing suit with then proceed to completely fall apart within the two days we were there. Finally, we made it out to the pool but the sun was already setting so we got dressed and went out for dinner. After dinner, I got the most delicious ice cream and we walked along the beach, there were tons of people in tents all along the beach, setting up to camp out for the pesach holiday. The next morning, the number of tents had tripled and the beach was stuffed full of people. We spent the entire next day sitting by the pool, we also ventured into the actual dead sea, which surprisingly enough did not burn at all, also my parents got a massage while i was treated to both a manicure and pedicure, my parents are so nice to me sometimes. Then we had shabbat dinner at the hotel, which had already switched over to kosher for passover but the food wasn't half bad. That night I taught my parents how to play Dutch Blitz and they weren't even too bad at it. The next day, Saturday, we laid by the pool so more before pile into the car again to head up north to Tel Aviv for the Passover Seder that night at the Shenkers. The seder was very secular and we skipped around sang a few songs and then started dinner. After we had desert I was so exhausted that I fell asleep in my clothes. The next day the Shenkers took us on a driving tour of the area where they grew up. They are both sabras, born in Israel, and I learned a lot about life in Israel before its independence. and finally, we drove back home to Jerusalem. I put my 3 loads of laundry in and settled down for a quiet and uneventful night at home. However, I had no food and furthermore, any of the food I did have was not kosher for passover. So around dinner time I headed over to my parents apartment to have dinner with them and their 4 next door neighbors. The neighbors are 4 widowed women from Florida who were also renting for a month. They were very funny. After dinner, my parents and I got a kosher for passover cheesecake and it was yummy. I slept over at their apartment and the next day we went to return their rental car and to see the old city. The Jewish quarter was hopping, with music and performances going on everywhere. That afternoon I headed to the shuk with my friend emily, the shuk was great, half the shops were closed and there was almost no one there shopping so we got what we needed quickly. Today, I went to Yad Vshem with my parents, it was actually a nice experience to do that with them.

Now you have it all caught up to date,

Love love,
A