Wow so the last few days were full on! I had so much fun though – I think one of the biggest reasons I love being in Israel is having so much family around – if you are brought up with them all around its just there and you can get used to it. When you haven’t coming back to it is intense at the beginning but so natural and real and comforting.

Yesterday we all drove down to Nahalal (where my grandma’s other sister lives – Chava) and to a nearby restaurant where many people were converging for my grandma’s 80th. Slowly more and more people arrived and it was so amazing to meet them! People came who have such interesting stories of how they are connected to my family. A friend who studied at the same hospital as my grandma in Israel 60 years ago!! And also this awesome family who are the children of two brothers who my grandma and her sisters grew up with because they’re mother fell in love with the two brothers father and they became like step-brothers. Fast forward 60 years and the two brothers have had 5 children between them – and they are so awesome! And they love us so much and two of them used to babysit me when I was really little and I couldn’t speak properly so I used to add a “P” before their names and the nicknames stuck and they still use it today!!

Anyway after a huge meal including many en tree’s and a main and dessert and lots to drink and a speech from my uncle chuck and lots of talking heaps of us went back to Nahalal for coffee. Nahalal is really interesting it was the first Moshav in Israel. To explain what a Moshav is I have to explain the notion of settlements briefly. The entire country of Israel today except for the few big cities is comprised of hundreds of settlements all fairly close to each other – which is weird because except for in the desert you can’t drive for more than like 5 minutes in any direction anywhere without being in a settlement or an Arabic village. There are different kinds of settlements some of them are just villages some of them are Kibbutizim and some of them are Moshav which is basically a circular village of houses where everyone owns a plot of land that extends outwards (see photo).

That evening we went over to the village where Tamar lives. On a spiritual village called Harduf. We sat and played music and drank tea for a few hours then we headed home with my delirious second cousin in the back seat. She’s learning English and I’m learning Hebrew so we’re helping each other out a bit.

This morning after a walk around Nahalal we went up to visit my mums cousin Yuval at his home in Avtalyon, such a beautiful place that has an exquisite view or the north. They want to get out of Israel so mum and him are talking about doing a house swap for a year! After eating and talking for a few hours I dropped the girls off back at Nahalal and then I drove back to Kaddarim where I’m gonna stay for then next two nights.

(Click for big photo + caption)