Day 6 – Let’s take a road trip…

Hey everybody… Today was the day we’ve all been working for. You all know we sold camels and cupcakes in Belgium to fund our trip of today. (Thanks everybody for buying our things, we couldn’t have done it without you!)
Our day started really early, Syreen and I had to get up at 6.45 and we were both really tired. Yesterday we went to a wedding from one of Syreens cousins. It was really impressive to see everybody. They all looked really beautiful and even the little girls were dressed like princesses.

First we had ‘Ores’, a traditional wedding meal which includes rice, lamb and a sauce made of milk (Leban). I have to say, Syreen warned me, it was D-E-L-I-C-I-O-U-S. Everybody sits down at different tables (there were around 800 guests) and eats as much as they want. Then you go on to the wedding party, but you can’t go without having a piece of desert. A table full of goodies and sweets, very hard to resist.

When you finally made your way to the party, you have to find an empty chair to sit and watch what happens. The groom is sitting on his best man’s shoulders and is carried on to the square where he is welcomed by all the people. Everybody claps his hands and celebrates with the family. The men all dance a traditional dance and the woman can join them after a while. We stayed until 11.30, because we had to get up really early.

At 8.10 the bus came and picked us up to go on our road trip. Our first stop was the house of Manar. We were invited into the house to drink coffee and tea and eat a lot of sweets. One tip, don’t be on a diet when you come here!

We had a wonderful time, the parents of Manar are so sweet, but we had to follow a schedule so we had to leave the sweets for what they were and go.

Djana and Huda had an exam in the morning, so we had to pick them up from school. Ashton, Mieke and Naïki were already waiting at the gates and we were all really happy to see each other. So we hugged, gave kisses and smiled the day away! And off we went.

It’s funny to see all of our faces when we look outside. The only thing you here is ‘Ooooh’ and ‘Aaaah’ and ‘Waaaauww’. We can’t tell it enough, Israel is a beautiful country. The mountains are crazy high, the fields are infinite and the nature is B-E-autiful. You can look outside for hours and hours. We drove through the Galilee and crossed Tiberias. We took in all the surroundings and we were shocked when we saw the lake of Galilee. Wow, what a view, what a lake, what a … There are no words to describe it. Ashton and Laura came to the same conclusion. You can never describe the feeling you get when see something as wonderful as this. You can pictures all you want, but you can’t match the words to the feelings.

We made a stop at Kafarnaum and enjoyed the amazing view, the church and the many stories. Strange thing is, how can a land that’s so unknown, hide so many great things.

We made our way through the Galilee-area and went to visit Golan-heights. You can stand on top of the mountain and see the borders of Syrië and Libanon. It’s almost like you can touch them. You can also see the leftovers of the war… There are some trenches you can walk in and you can feel the pain that hangs in the air. It’s hard to imagine that these countries are so close to each other. We always had a feeling every border was far away from where we stayed, but today we saw the opposite.

We continued our journey and we were invited into the house of Djana to drink coffee and eat sweets (yet again J ).
It was really nice to see how easy they invite people and how nice they are to strangers. After Djiana’s house we went on to see some more of Israel. We stopped at a small creek and took some fabulous pictures. The day was fabulous and we had a lot of fun. Hopefully we can go on like this, because we can’t imagine it any other way… See you later!

(The pictures have to wait, because they won't load... Sorry!

Ashton, Mieke, Lien, Naïki and Laura

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