Tiberius

For reasons unknown, I really love Tiberius. It's a lot like Milwaukee maybe - a little town on a lake. Ok, the lake here is more like a pond, and it's very hilly, but otherwise, maybe they are similar. What I don't love (which my faithful readers have read before), is that there is no internet access here. I have to drive out to the southern end of the Kinneret to the Aroma cafe in order to get any work done. I could also be working at the gas station next door (the Yellow), but the cafe is a bit nicer and the music isn't quite as loud.

Plus, if I stay long enough, I might order a haloumi sandwich for lunch, which would make me very happy.

On a different note, I am NOT on my fourth rental car, but I am on my third and while I thought I was going to get another one this morning, they just cleaned out the third. Somewhere along the Bika road yesterday, a light went on. Now, I basically grew up with the idea of just putting a piece of tape over the light and assuming it was no longer a problem. But... I was on a desert road with very few places to stop and while it wasn't the engine light, I also didn't want to get stuck with no where to go, no cell phone reception, a barbed wire fence on once side and a really, really big hill that tops out who knows where on the other.

So I stopped at a gas station where thankfully someone spoke English (I do not know car-related words in Hebrew). We checked the oil (fine), brake fluid (fine), wiper fluid (low, but I didn't care), radiator fluid (fine, I think), and finally they said I needed more distilled water in the battery. I asked if it was dangerous and was told that it wasn't. So I kept driving. I had about another hour before I could get to Tiberius and change the car.

When I walked into Hertz, the woman started laughing, since I had been there a week ago to change the first car to the second. The car guy there confirmed for me that while the light didn't indicate anything dangerous, it was very, very good that I'd brought it back. So I got another car, but it was filthy. I couldn't exactly understand when they told me to come back this morning if I was getting a new, clean car, or if they were just going to clean the third car. It turns out they cleaned it, sort of. Whatever....

A lot to write...

A lot has happened in the first several days....

I spent Shabbat Kibbutz Ginosar. It’s beautiful but it's shocking to see how low the level of the Kinneret is. The boat docks have had to add one lower extension after another so that they have access to the shores. I’m told that you can see the tops of the water pumps – if the water goes much lower, they won’t be able to pump the water at all.

It’s still Chanukah, and what I’ve learned is that latkes are not a particularly Israeli food. On the other hand, there are sufganiot everywhere.

My rental car is one of the worst I’ve ever had the pleasure of driving. It actually drives fine, but that’s about all that’s ok. It’s fairly dented up (duly noted on the rental sheet) and when I closed the door yesterday, the antenna fell off. Then, I was driving two people up North with me and we realized the floor of the back seat (left side) was soaking wet as was the seat on the right side. What we didn’t know until much later, was that the trunk was also soaked along with the things that had been sitting in the trunk. Lovely.

On the other hand, I’ve had great shakshouka, which could make up for having a crappy car.

UPDATE:
I traded in my car today, which looked even worse than when I got it. I think whatever glue they were using to hold some of the parts together was finally coming loose. But now I have a Subaru of some kind rather than the Mazda. And this car doesn't smell.