Happy new year!!

Well, I am in israel now, and typing this from my iPhone which is not that easy.. But I couldn't resist posting an update for the new year, particularly while I'm able to connect to some random wi-fi for free (hardly anyone protects their account here so you can almost log on from anywhere)!

We arrived just 1 week ago but it feels like a lot longer than that. We spent the first day here sorting out my passport issue (as my Israeli passport had expired - and clever me, forgot to check before leaving sydney). Being an Israeli citizen, I'm allowed to enter the country on a "foreign" passport but I must leave on my Israeli passport. Not knowing how I would go about renewing my passport in the short time I was to be here, or how easy it was going to be, I was quite stressed out and scared, but it turned out to be super easy and fast. I literally stood in line for 5 minutes at the office of the interior, and at the counter, I explained that my passport had expired.. They took the expired one, typed some data into the computer and printed out a sticker to put into the existing passport with a new expiry date, and that's it, didn't even have to pay! Considering this happened in israel, that is pretty amazing.

I spent some time with my grandmother the same day, and the following morning, we met up with our friends from Sydney and embarked on a 5 day road trip around the north of israel, which included 2 nights in zfat (also spelt safed, tsfat, sefat, and various other ways) then 2 nights in zichron yakov. During these 5 days we also went to Haifa to see the Baha'i gardens, to Nazareth, which I didn't really want to go to at first, but it turned out to be awesome) , bet she'an where we saw amazing ancient roman ruins, caesarea to see more ruins, but this time by the sea (looooved Caesarea) and also did some wine tasting in zichron (very little).

Back in tel aviv, we said goodbye to our friends, and met up with my cousins and aunt for new years (actually, it was Shabbat) dinner, and then into tel aviv city for new yrs celebrations with friends.

Today we had a huge sleep in, then met up with friends again for breakfast, and then to visit my grandma again, before heading to Jerusalem for some nighttime sight-seeing and more of hanging with friends. It's so much fun seeing friends overseas. It's weird and wonderful at the same time ;)

It's about 1 am here on Sunday morning. I'm at stan's dad's place, waiting for stan to finish whatever he is doing on the computer - I've just eaten some delicious cake and I am so ready for bed. We'll hopefully be leaving soon and heading back to my mums place. Til next time ... Xxxx