26. The Final Day… 39 Hours and Back in Oakland. 1/13 and 1/14/23…

Greetings from Oakland, CA- (sent on 1/17/23)

We landed at SFO on Saturday morning at 6:00 AM! By the time we gathered bags, went through customs, and found a taxi in the pouring rain… it was about 7:30 am when we arrived at our house. But we are now settled, and I just wanted to thank all of you for the many comments I got about the posts over the past 4 weeks. It was a good trip, with many highlights that forced us to think about the Middle East in different ways.

Anyway, to close off this series of posts… Following the usual, large, yummy, diverse Israeli breakfast, we strolled Akko one last time and left while it was drizzling… headed for a slow drive to the Tel Aviv Airport. Our flight would not leave until 1:00 AM (actually that would be January 14, sort of late night on the 13^th as we calculated it). We needed to return the car at about 6:30 pm, so we had quite a few hours to meander and get lost while driving.

So, we avoided the “freeway” and took small roads ––first to Haifa to see the Bahai Gardens, located way atop the northern slope of Mount Carmel. It’s a series of nineteen terraces with a golden-domed temple (?) that sits on the central terrace. We took a lot of wrong turns to get there so we managed to see a lot of daily life on the streets of Haifa which was interesting. Haifa is the third largest city in Israel with a population of about 400,000. If I should ever return to Israel (highly unlikely, as I think I’ve seen enough and don’t really want to help Israel’s economy; perhaps if there would be a drastic change in Israel’s administration, a recognition of Palestine, and a return of settlement lands—we can dream, can’t we?), Haifa would be a good place to visit for a few days.

It’s a large industrial port city on the Mediterranean with a web of streets that twist, turn, and climb. It doesn’t have a classical “center” and I think most people probably just stop off to see the gardens which are truly magnificent. We didn’t do the walk down through the terraces as you needed a reservation, but we did park near the Louis Promenade which provides spectacular views of the terraces and gardens. They call them the “hanging gardens.” 

As we drove through the streets, it felt pretty cosmopolitan. It’s described as a “diverse” city, although the demographics show that it is 82% Israeli Jewish and about 14% Christian and 4 % Muslim. Not sure how “diverse” is defined. 

From Haifa we continued to drive south and decided to head to a town called Atlit (purely picked it out on the map rather randomly). It’s a small seaside town that appears to now have some new (architecturally designed) houses that are probably used as weekend get-aways for Tel Aviv urbanites. It’s also home to artists and funky residents who have some very eclectic sculptures and found objects all over their yards. The latter group have obviously been residing in the area for decades, as witnessed by the age of the houses and the weathered sculptures. Wonder how those old-timers are taking to the new, hip, homeowners with much bigger and fancier homes!

We also made a pit stop at Zichron Yaakov, which is a pretty new city with what appears to be an upscale community. It’s close to Israel’s high-tech industry and also has wine growing enterprises. Our plan had been to have a late lunch in Zichron Yaakov, given that we wouldn’t be eating until well after midnight—on the plane. We arrived around 4:00 pm and most streets were deserted, and cafes and restaurants were mostly all closed. Given that our lifestyles don’t automatically trigger that Fridays and Saturdays (Shabat) mean most places are either shuttered or closing early, we missed out on eating in Zichron Yaakov. But we did sense a good vibe in the town. We kept driving and googling but every time we located a restaurant it was about to close. We eventually found ourselves at a mall… and dreaded what food we’d find. We settled for pizza, and it was a pretty good pie… or maybe we were just very very hungry so our taste discrimination was at an all time low.

Found our way to Tel Aviv Airport; returned the rental car which was simple compared to our return in Amman. Hung out at the airport lounge for about 5 hours and made our way back home.

Thanks for all the comments and encouragement to keep up the posts. Hope all is well with each of you.

Looking forward to catching up.

Fern