Jana celebrated her birthday earlier this month. And given how according to her I blew it last year, I put some extra effort in this year's plans. Rather than simply hanging out at the apartment like last year, I wanted to take a weekend trip to get away from the city. I think Jana silently wished for a surprise trip to Paris, but I didnt want to simply trade Tel Avivan rudeness for Parisian rudeness. Plus, driving to a place in Israel was much cheaper than three plane tickets to Paris. After considering locals such as the Negev, Golan Heights,and even Eilat, I decided Ein Gedi and the Dead Sea was going to be the place. Jana hadn't been there before, and the mud baths were supposed to have special medicinal properties.
I booked us a room at the Ein Gedi Kibbutz hotel. The rooms were rather expensive, and I chose the Desert Room, supposedly designed by local artists. When we got there, the grounds of the hotel were beautiful. By the way, the entire area is beautiful, straddled by mountains on one side and the Dead Sea on the other. Anyways, our Desert room, however, was far from beautiful. Small and very dated, Jana said it was a cross between a bathhouse, dorm room, and prison cell. I was like, how do you know what a prison cell looks like. And the "local artist design" was simply a set of cartoonish pictures of desert animals on the walls. Jana being the smart one asked, can we upgrade? I called the front desk and rather than ask for a better room, I asked for a "bigger" room. And I'm so glad we did ask. We ended up getting a newly built room that was bigger and had a view of the Arugot Valley which I'm sure you saw photos of on Jana's fb page. Jana proceeded to tease me as a snob for liking the upgrade. And to be honest, I'm getting used to the snobby lifestyle being married to her for almost 5 years now.
Just a short tangent. The kibbutz is pretty amazing. It's like a little oasis in the desert. It's officially a botanical garden with plants from around the world and the only garden which is integrated into the living quarters of the 500 or so residents. The kibbutz first started out as one of those communal communities where no one owned anything and everybody owned everything. Even the kids lived in separate quarters from their parents since they were the community's kids. That practice lasted into the 70s I think, and slowly all the communal practices have been fazed out. There still is somewhat of a communal mentality though, and I sported my red USSR communist party tshirt I got for Christmas to try to fit in.
On to Jana's birthday. It started with a breakfast which was great for clearing our bowels, and this was followed by a tour of the Kibbutz and local zoo. They had two monkeys and a host of mean goats. Jana then went off for her spa treatment while Makai and I went on a hike to the waterfalls in the Arugot Valley. I think our 3 hour adventure was much more enjoyable than Jana's. I'll let her tell her own story. She did have nice, soft skin after her mud treatment though. That night we celebrated in style with a buffet dinner and a bottle of wine. And after opening her gifts (boogie board and wetsuit) and enjoying a tiramisu cake, I passed out along with Makai. Not sure what Jana did afterwards, but she did thank me for a wonderful birthday. :)
Here are some
photos from the weekend.
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| Our birthday buffet dinner, complete with a bottle of wine! |
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| Wetsuit and Boogie Board! |
