Sun. Feb 27 – Make our way to Ein Gedi conference center

Summary:  Gorgeous day, see where Uri lives, long drive to Dead Sea

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Today starts four luxurious days with no Playback visits and no purpose other than to enjoy ourselves and to connect with our friend Uri Alon.  He’s really the reason we’re here in Israel.  He contributed so much talent and spirit to our Playback company during his two years in Boston, and Christopher and I built an unusually strong connection (for us) to him, his wife Galia and their two little girls.  We just hit it off in so many ways-- intellectually, emotionally, playfully. (Read more -- see photos and videos)

Rare for us to feel that with another couple!  When they returned to seven months ago we vowed to come visit so the friendship could continue.  So important to enter their world, as they had entered ours.  We knew it would be a crazy time to visit, with Galia still overwhelmed by the baby and move and her new teaching job – and yet waiting another year for their life to calm down seemed like kissing the friendship goodbye.

We’re so lucky Uri has to attend a conference by the Dead Sea and could invite us to come along.  (He’s a famous biologist and a keynote speaker for this event.)  It’s the perfect set-up!   He’s got a legitimate reason travel without the family.  We get to visit a beautiful place we wanted to see anyway, plus have focused time with him when he’s not conferencing.  (His speech is the first night and after that he’s free!)

(Boring notes for my own memory:  Christopher spend morning with Aviva.  Pack up.  Lunch with Uri while he decompresses from intense Kartoshkes rehearsal.  Drive to Weitzman, see gorgeous campus, his house, Galia, Gefen, Tamar.  Long, slightly nauseating drive through Jerusalem and West Bank, great to have Uri tell us history and answer questions, long drive along Dead Sea shore, striking cliffs of Jordan on far side, date palm plantations… finally to Ein-Gedi.)

Ein-Gedi is an amazing place.  A streak of green in the absolute middle of no where.  Started as a kibbutz in the 1950’s (with Galia’s uncle as one of the founders!) its now home to 500 kibbutzim plus this thriving conference center and resort that hosts people from around the world.  And the whole site is a botanical garden with hundreds of species of tropical trees and plants and succulents and palms from all over the world.  I was in Hawaii-nostalgia heaven.  Plus at 400 ft. below sea level, the air is oxygen-rich.  Warm sun.  Cool air.   Surrounded by striking arid cliffs.  Darting black starlings with red and white wings.  Grazing ibis, like large goats with dramatic curved horns.  Loping mammels about the size of cats, a bit like prairie dogs but with a different name.  View across the Dead Sea to the mystical cliffs of Jordan 20 miles away.  What a place!

We catch the very end of Uri’s scientific talk.  Challenged to eat the right amount at another enormous buffet.  Watch Uri present his “nurturing scientist” talk with adorable songs on his guitar.  And crawl gratefully to bed.

Amazing tree:

Ibex munching on the lawn (sorry no zoom):

Hills: