Ultimate Peace 2 - Short Trip to Acco

Didn't sleep well at the Haryakon 48 hostel in Tel Aviv last night. This was partly cause of the street noise but mainly because I wasn't tired. I had only been up about 8 hours after a fairly restful flight -- before I tried to sleep the whole night through based on local time. Didn't work.

Visited with some hostel-stayers in the pool lounge/lobby area from roughly 3am to about 6am. Laid down until 7. Had some continental breakfast and was in a taxi towards the train station by 8. I'm tempted to say that I enjoyed the morning after that, hanging around the train station...cause I got to read a good bit of my book and cause it represents some personal time that I won't have the next week or two. And those are valuable things...having some time to kill, people-watching in a new city, country, and region, not worrying about what time I need to be somewhere.

But the truth is that my disc bags were heavy - about 75 pounds between the two, plus my personal bag. With the security turnstiles (the rail network here gives a lot more attention to security than amtrak or greyhound), stairs around the train platforms, and other people demanding space, I felt like a wide-load-tourist-imposer.

Still, I got to see quite a bit of the coastal towns/territory between Tel Aviv and Acco. A large part of it is developed, either as farm or other production, or as pretty dense urban stuff, like Haifa
(which looks absolutely stunning set into a hill with lots of Bahai buildings). But there's still plenty of rolling hill and grassland, rock fields and untouched beach. Plus I sat adjacent to a woman and her newborn...bound to take anybody's breath away because of his young age and size. The mother seemed so in control, so confident in what she was doing. She traded between rocking and patting her baby to listening to an ipod, to having a phone conversation (with the softest tone) and reading scripture in hebrew. Her behavior seemed to embody the juxtapositions in Israel of religion and techology, family and country, tourism and history, security and development...its all really striking.

Now I'm in Acco. At the site of camp. I put down my bags in a hurry to get to lunch. Helped unload ice that we'll use all week. Culture and language barriers are potent. All part of the fun.