 I rented a car this morning, picked up my neices Rikki and Shauna from school and then we drove to Jerusalem to pick up my other neice Tzion. The car is was Citroen with a diesel motor and could really not make the hills getting to Jerusalem. So we called Hertz and told them we wanted another one and voila! one that worked.
We drove from Jerusalem through the bypass tunnel towards Jericho, down the road that goes to the Dead Sea. If you go the other way, you need to go twice as far to get to the main visitor center and the path/cable cars. You can see Jericho in the distance and drive down the road along the Sea. Very stark and pretty. Jordan is off to the left and the sea is a pretty pale blue. Lots of date orchards and then out through the checkpoint back into Israel proper.
We passed the Ahava cosmetics factory on the way. It's in the middle of nowhere. Passed Ein Gedi and then the mountain kind of appears from the background. We stopped a couple of times to take some pictures and got to Masada about 3:30 pm. The place was empty. Parked in the indoor parking, and went into the little theatre for the show. They held the cable car for us, and we took it to the top. They told us it was too late to walk up, it closes at 5. We were on top for about an hour and a half and saw just about everything. Really amazing place. It must have been over 100 up there, and we stayed safe using SPF 50.
My brother Avrohom, Rikki and Shauna took the cable car down and Tzion and I walked down. The guides told us that was the harder way to do - after we had done it. Took about 30 minutes. I tried calling my wife at work, but got a message. I was half way down the path and had a great view of Jordan, the Dead Sea and the shore.
We made it back to the car and zoomed over to the beach at Ein Gedi. Did the Dead Sea float, enjoyed the coolness of the water - temperature and floatability, for about 1/2 an hour - until the skin started to sting all over and got back into the car, back to Jerusalem. Picked up Shimon at Hebrew U, then went for falafel near his place at Machene Yehuda. Shimon's girlfriend Dina came by for a second - she's very pretty, very nice, and very much not a Lubi.
Took the kids for ice cream then drove out through the Jerusalem forest.
Eric Goldberg found this for me in the Ha'aretz April 30 online edition
Israel removes Toronto from SARS blacklist
By Haim Shadmi
Passengers arriving from infected areas examined at Ben-Gurion Airport
The Health Ministry last night removed Toronto from the list of SARS hot
spots, in keeping with a directive from the World Health Organization.
Hong Kong and Singapore, as well as Beijing, Guangdong and Shansei in China,
remain on the list. The WHO and the Health Ministry advise refraining from
unessential trips to these areas.
Meanwhile, a woman in her 40s suffering from a fever and cough was admitted
as a suspected SARS case to Assaf Harofeh Hospital near Tel Aviv yesterday.
The woman returned to Israel from Toronto some 10 days ago and has been
placed in confinement.
Also yesterday, two previously suspected SARS patients were discharged -
from Assaf Harofeh and Rebecca Sieff Hospital in Safed. The one patient was
diagnosed with flu, while the other was found to be suffering from regular
pneumonia.
Health officials decided yesterday that four hospitals in the country will
be prepared for treating SARS patients and individuals suspected of having
the disease. The hospitals will be equipped accordingly and will set aside
confined wards and rooms to treat all cases.
As part of the effort to prevent a SARS outbreak in Israel, the Airports
Authority yesterday began giving medical examinations to passengers arriving
on direct flights from the Far East and Canada. The first passengers to be
checked landed at Ben-Gurion International Airport yesterday afternoon on El
Al's flight 106 from Toronto.
Terminal 4 at Ben-Gurion has been prepared for the task. Aside from a neat
row of examination points manned by public health nurses, the building is
empty.
''We are prepared,'' said Dr. Ofra Havkin, the Health Ministry's district
physician, prior to the arrival of the flight.
''Listen well,'' commented Miri, one of the nurses. ''We got through smallpox;
we got through anthrax; we got through polio. Should we be scared of SARS?
The public health nurses are always up for the task.''
Following some 20 minutes of examinations, the passengers, who had filled
out questionnaires on the airplane, were given the all clear.
''You are a little hysterical here,'' said Rivki Rosenberg, who lives in
Toronto.''
Stan Greenspan, who came to Israel to attend the wedding of a friend in
Rehovot, agreed. ''There are a number of patients in Toronto, and hospitals
have been specially shut off to treat only them. More people die of flu.
Perhaps people are transferring their fears from the war in Iraq to SARS.
After all, people have to worry about something, right?''
The next flight whose passengers will be examined is due to land before dawn
on Friday from Hong Kong.
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