The Laughlins

We headed out on Saturday morning for the first leg of our trip. I had a topographical map (in Hebrew) for the trip, but the scale was still not such that we could tell how steep some of the mountains were (that will come into play later). We got some tea and coffee at a stand near the beach, and then started out to look for the trailhead. Unfortunately for us, Israel does not seem to mark things very clearly (or in this case - at all). We ended up asking a number of locals and traveling back and forth along the highway looking for the trailhead. After 2.5 hours of "hiking" (absolutely nowhere), we went into a memorial park of some kind and at the backside of the park, we finally found a rudimentary map showing that we had reached the trailhead.

Our first many kilometers were through banana fields. Many bunches of bananas had fallen off the trees and were laying on the ground. We figured that most of them were probably rotten (they were all brown - it is hard to tell), but we tried a few, adn they were pretty good. Ryan stole a whole bunch that he carried for the day - just kidding. He just held them for the a picture.





After the banana fields, we crossed a highway and ended up on a rough road that lead into the hills. We pulled off the trail in some shade and ate lunch - it was pretty warm out. Somewhere along the way, we saw a chameleon crossing the road. We even got to watch him change from light to dark green. Ryan let him crawl on his arm for a while.





After a few more kilometers, we entered the weed-covered territory (which we would see more of later), and a small stream formed to the left of the trail. Although the water was filled with algae and rather sparse at that point in the trip, there were many families playing in the small pools - stirring them into mud pools. Shortly after that, we got our first glimpse of Montfort's Castle. When we reached the base of the mountain (with the castle on it), we decided to split up a bit. Mark, Ryan, and Hayley climbed up the mountain (it was pretty steep), while Alana, Amanda, and I guarded our bags at the bottom, made tea, and (Amanda) played the penny whistle - which sounded quite beautiful. She is a master penny whistler :)





















After the other three came down, we continued along the trail that took us higher into the moutains. Soon we had lost sight of humans (for the most-part) and had a great view of the thick tree-covered hillsides. It was quite beautiful. Much of this hike reminded me of the mountains of Northern California. In fact, much of the flora and fauna were very similar. We came to a cliff-edge of sorts where we took our group picture, and then the trail began to descend a bit. We went under the tree canopy a bit, and the shade felt nice. It was evening by this point, and from what we could tell on our map, we weren't really going to come to any kind of civilization by the end of the day. We just wanted to be close so that we could re-stock on water and food first thing in the morning.















We found a beautiful campsite right near Nahal Kziv (the stream), which was now a fully-flowing stream. We camped right near a pool of water, and Hayley and I took the plunge after we set the tents up. We washed off, and Mark decided to follow suit a while later; the water was too cold for our other hikers. We collected firewood and started a fire for our evening and heated water for dinner. Ryan had a can of beans that he plopped right into the coals. It worked pretty well.





Partway into our dinner, I heard noise in the bushes behind us (near the stream), and swung my headlamp around, catching two glowing eyes. I informed our party that we had a guest, so everyone directed their flashlights toward the animal, and to our surprise it started coming towards us. We are pretty sure that it was a lynx - it looked about the size of a big bobcat, and Hayley and I saw one in the daylight the next day. Mark threw a rock towards it to scare it off, but it didn't scare very easily. We were camped fairly close to a garbage bin, so before we headed to bed, we saw a number of other lynxes wandering around the perimeter of our camp. Before we went to sleep, Ryan fashioned this great weapon out of a bamboo stick and his opened pocket knife duct-taped to the end of it like a spear. We all laughed in the morning. Mark and I didn't sleep much at all the first night, because it was hard to tell if the noises outside were lynxes or humans sometimes; sometime past midnight, some people did wander through our camp. At one other point, Mark and I got out to take a look around camp, but all was well.

Believe it or not, I am going to try to complete our Yam L Yam (Sea to Sea) Backpacking Trip posts! Yippee! First, I will introduce our band of fearless hikers: Hayley (South African with the great accent - we make her perform African chants for us), Alana (you'll recognize Alana as our Egypt trip buddy - see Egypt photos), Amanda (South Carolina stud - leaving for the army this summer: she's the one with the great white turban thing going on), Ryan (our Hebrew-speaking male who served as translator and protector), and crazy Mark and Aubrey, of course.

We all met at the central bus station in Jerusalem in the early afternoon of Friday, April 20th. We wanted to make sure that we could catch buses all the way to Ackziv Beach before Shabbat started. We took a bus to Haifa, then transferred to another bus that took us to the main station in Haifa (short ride), and then took a bus to Naharriya, where we ate lunch together. Naharriya is a really cute "beach town" that Mark and I would like to visit again. After lunch, we transferred to our final bus, which dropped us off at Achziv beach somewhere around 3 or 4 in the afternoon.

Achziv was BEAUTIFUL! Wow! We ended up camping right next to a lagoon on the Mediterranean, and the water there was various shades of blue and green. It was a gorgeous day, and we spent many hours just enjoying our time on the beach. None of us wanted to go swimming - only because (practically-speaking), we were about to be showerless for three days and we didn't want to start by getting salt-covered and sticky the night before. Otherwise, I would have been the first to jump in! After we set up camp, we cooked food with the Laughlin Pocket Rocket (such a great backpacking asset) and went to bed so that we could get an early start.

Well, the night didn't go as nicely as the evening because all of the Israeli party animals showed up and camped on all sides of us, with vehicles on the beach blaring music into the wee hours of the morning. Apparently we were camped right where people liked to walk as well, because they loudly marched past our tents most of the night. We slept a little, and in the morning, we broke camp, pretended to throw rocks at all of their tents, and headed out :)

Remember that you can click on any picture to enlarge it!!

I am going to do a post that I can tackle right now...because, as you've probably noticed, I've gotten behind again. Mark and I had our 3rd anniversary last week. We still like each other. Can you believe it? Anyways, we took some fun pictures in our apartment in our cowboy shirts. Here are a few of them. We went out to breakfast on June 12th and then to falafel that evening :) Mark has finals this coming week, but not very many tests - half tests, half papers. He will be starting his Advanced Biblical Hebrew class next week as well - this class runs every day through the end of July. That is our very basic, immediate news. I'll update you more later though.










As a special little note, I wanted to say "bye" (perhaps a bit prematurely - but soon) to two very good friends, Amanda and Alana, who are done with school here and will be moving on to other things in life. I love you, girls and will miss you very much!

If you didn't get/read the email update I sent to my "Israel email group," it is posted here. If you want to be added to my Israel email group, just email me at markandaubrey@gmail.com and let me know!

"Hello Again,
I have realized that in the past few months in general, I have gotten much more infrequent in my communication (by email, website, and phone).  However, summer is around the corner, and this will free up some time for us, so I hope to be on top of these things again soon!!
In the meantime, Mark and I have both been staying very busy.  I have been adding new students to my tutoring schedule and have "capped" my numbers, so that I won't be taking on new students for a while.  I will briefly introduce my students to you.  I am tutoring Hun Kwang from South Korea who is a 31-year-old student at Hebrew University.  He speaks English well enough to communicate in most every-day conversations, but wanted to use this "free" semester in his schedule to study English more intensively.  We meet 8 hours a week, and he is hoping to finish the program here in one year and apply to PhD programs in the U.S..  I am tutoring Springstone (this is the English translation of his Korea name), a father of two, who is around 40 years old(?).  He is also from South Korea and is a student at Hebrew University.  His level of English is about the same as Hun Kwang's, and I have been helping both him and Hun Kwang edit their academic papers in English for the university.  I tutor him 3 hours a week; I will soon be tutoring his two children also, as soon as their summer break begins (in about two weeks).  This next scenario will make some of you laugh...Mark and I have become such good friends with our fafafel guys that we see every week, that I recently started tutoring three of their girls!  Samir is the father (grandfather) who owns the falafel shop, Allam and one other brother (can't remember his name) are Samir's 30-40-year-old sons who also work in the falafel shop, and I tutor three of Samir's granddaughters, ages 3,3, & 6 who, besides the 6-year-old, don't speak English at all, and I don't really speak Arabic at all.  I wasn't sure how this situation would work out (this was my first week teaching them), but I think that it will be good, and I really like the families.  They are from Israel, and I tutor them about 3+ hours a week.  I have also been teaching Jew Heon and Yenah for a little more than a month now; they are 13 and 8 (from South Korea), and their father is a student at Hebrew University.  Yenah was born in Israel, and Jew Heon has lived here since he was 4, so they both speak Hebrew and Korean perfectly.  Jew Heon can use very basic English to communicate verbally, and Yenah - not much at all yet, but she is getting there.  I tutor them about 3+ hours a week as well.  Ppohey (pronounced Boohey), who was my first original student from many months ago is returning from South Korea in one week!  She went home for the last few months to have her baby in South Korea, but she is back (for good) in about a week, so I will be tutoring her 1+ hours a week.

So, as you can see, my tutoring has kept me busy (which is great), and this doesn't even include the travel time by bus, walking, or car (Allam's) required to get to each of these meetings, which makes the schedule even more crowded.  In addition, I am still doing Modern Hebrew, and just had my final test on Wednesday.  I am very happy for the work though (I am a "do-er"), and I like all of my students (and I'm learning so much culturally from them as well).

Mark has been busy finishing up his semester (done in two weeks).  I went with his archeology class to Tel Hazor yesterday, where his teacher, who is the lead archeologist for the dig there, walked us around and gave us detailed explanations of everything.  Mark and I have been there before (in February), but he was very excited to have her there and to be able to ask questions and get detailed information.  He has established a rather fun, bantering relationship with his Biblical Hebrew teacher, Dr. Ford.  They both have the same sarcastic, dry humor and write each other emails in terms like Master Ford, and Your Humble Servant (H.S. for short)...dripping with sarcasm, of course.  It is nice to see that he has made that connection.  Mark also turned in (and received back) his first seminar paper for his Book of Jeremiah class, which he got a 98% on.  He has to write three seminar papers (20-30 pages) in the two years he is here, and this is the area that he excels.  He already arranged his second paper with his Hazor archeology teacher, so he will be writing that over the course of the summer (due in Sept).  He also set-up his first individual tutorial.  These are highly encourgaed for his degree and a time in which a student can choose his/her own area of interest, ask a professor to be his/her advisor, and then meet one-on-one (weekly or bi-monthly) to engage in detailed research and study in this area, which will lead to a final paper.  Mark asked his Book of Jeremiah teacher, Taria Philips, to advise him on the topic of parallels in Ancient Near East Literature to the story of creation.  He will meet with her during the Fall 07 semester, while engaging in research, and will spend the Spring 08 semester writing his final seminar paper for this class.

As for this summer, Mark and I both changed our summer plans and are very happy with our prospective summer.  Instead of doing Modern Hebrew (in a formal classroom), Mark will be taking his third year of Biblical Hebrew for the month of July.  I will be keeping up with the tutoring schedule that I listed above, and then for the months of August and September, Mark will be studying Modern Hebrew on his own (as will I), and he will be writing papers, studying for his GRE exam, and applying to PhD programs.  We have been choosing potential PhD programs to apply to, and Mark is requesting letters of recommendation from his professors right now.  Most applications are due by Nov/Dec 2007, so he needs to take his GRE exam (required for PhD and most MA programs) by October at the latest.  Instead of registering for a full-time summer Hebrew class (as I was originally planning), I decided that I would much rather see Europe before we leave, so that is what we are doing for part of Sept.  I am going to (hopefully) complete a level of Modern Hebrew study on my own (and tutor Mark in his Modern Hebrew, because he loathes this class and has a big weakness in the "learning spoken languages" area - mostly vocabulary), and then we will do a spontaneous trip to anywhere we can get to on a very limited budget.  That's right - I am buying tickets in Sept., two weeks out (or less), because that is when they are cheapest from Israel ($150-$175 round-trip to somewhere in Europe...usually Germany or Greece).  Wherever we land, we'll hop cheap flights from Ryan Air between countries, and see what we can see within a budget.  We currently have good friends living in England (London), Germany (Bavaria), the Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, Austria, Norway, and more.  It may work out to stay with an number of them if we end up in their countries.  I'll let you know :)

So that is the very long update.  This will probably change and shift (as most things seem to do here in Israel), but I will let you know how things go as our summer progresses.  In the meantime, Mark and I are celebrating our 3rd anniversary on Tuesday, we still like each other a lot, and we are enjoying all that we are getting to learn and experience while we are here!
Love you all,
Aubrey and Mark"

Happy Mother's and Father's Day to our wonderful parents, grandparents, family and friends!