Hod HaSharon, Israel, Asia

I dozed for about an hour on the flight to Tel Aviv, but was a little too excited to actually sleep. Our flight went as planned (except for the worst airplane food I’ve had since about 1994). We arrived on time at Ben Gurion airport and immigration and customs could not have gone smoother. The three of us went to the immigration counter together and the guy did not ask us one question. I made sure to ask him to give me a separate card for my entry stamp rather than getting a stamp directly in my passport. Once you get a stamp from Israel in your passport, you are going to find it very difficult to get into a lot of other countries, including some I’m getting ready to visit, like Jordan and Turkey.

We all got our bags and walked straight through customs without being asked a question, and found Pnina’s sisters waiting for us, Marta and Dorita. We first went to Marta’s house where we got our first real taste of Israeli hospitality. Marta was making us sandwiches and giving us cake at 6am. It was excellent. We didn’t want to go over to the house that we are staying at until we knew the occupants would be awake, so we waited till 7am.

We arrived at Gillad’s house (Marta’s son) and Lee and I got settled in. Gillad is a contractor and built this house that we are staying in. Lee and I have the basement to ourselves which is nice that we can’t hear any of the four kids or the dog while we’re down here. It’s a bit bizarre though because our room is actually in a bomb shelter. Most houses have one built in, and this one is a good size for two people to stay. It had been a pretty long overnight trip so we wanted to get some sleep. We both passed out until about 11am for a good four hour nap.

We got up, showered, and felt a bit more human by 12pm when Pnina and Marta picked us up. We all went into the town center of Hod Hasharon for a wander around. We were starving and headed for the first real shwarma we could find. I’m not really sure what I had on mine because Pnina ordered it for me, but it was amazing! There was some doner kebab meat, fries, Turkish salad, humus and some other stuff on it. It really hit the spot.

Marta headed off and the three of us wandered around the town center for a bit and then walked back to Marta’s house. It was a beautiful day here, about 70 degrees and partly cloudy. It was a nice relaxing day to start out on before our hectic few days coming up. We hung out at Marta’s house for a while, met her daughter (Dikla), son in law (Mark) and granddaughter (Noam). Noam is 18 months old and took a shining to me. It was pretty funny considering Marta could never get Noam to give her a cuddle, yet she was just fine with me haha.

We had dinner at Marta’s and then headed back over to Gillad’s house. I was able to meet Gillad, Kinerit, and the four children. They are (from oldest to youngest) Ori, Eitan, Emitai, and Amir. They seem like a very nice family, and I appreciate their hospitality by putting Lee and I up for the next nine days. We have just packed our bags for the next two nights as we are heading off all day tomorrow up north, and then have a two day tour booked to go all over the place. We have an early rise, so we are calling it an early night.