Nearly our weekend..

So Thursday is our new Friday having Friday and Saturday as our weekend so another week is nearly completed. Yesterday we were back at the first school we went to called Hertzog. We only have boys classes here in a large indoor gym which is usually used for basketball games as it has a seating area and an electronic scoreboard which always displays the wrong time, in fact we don't know why but since we've been here every schoolk we have been to and alot of places never have the right time on the clocks and most of them have stopped especially in the school staff rooms which you would think would be important to have the right time if not put a little forward, Hertzog even has 2 clocks next to each other with the wrong time in their staff room! The session we did went well, the classes only last around 30mins which is the shortest we have here most are 45 minutes to an hour at the schools and dont include another 15 minutes to get changed as they dont have to change into P.E kit or anything, they play in what they are wearing on the day. We played domes and dishes where you work in teams turning the cones over and the first team to complete it and are back in a straight line shouting Arsenal win. We did it without a football for them to get used to it then introduced a football into it with coaching points which were keeping your head up to avoid collisions and close ball control, we then got into some short games. Between short breaks I decided to try and kick the football into the basketball hope which after a few minutes I did, another breaktime goal achieved haha. During the break some of the children came into the gym and started singing a Michel Telo song which is very popular here, its Yossi's ringtone and I heard the song a couple weeks before coming here otherwise I would of had no clue. He's Brazilian and I think because he has blonde hair and so do I I've been told a few times that I look like him (I don't). We've also had a few children asking if me and Denys are brothers.

Michel Telo

For lunch we went with Yossi to the old town of Akko which is part of the tourist area and right by the sea. It was a really nice warm and sunny day so we went to a Hummus restaurant, wasn't my favourite as there was no meat either so after I got some small kind of sweet things as I wasn't too hungry and we sat by the sea for a while and relaxed on the rocks. Walking back through the market area we saw stalls selling things from Barcelona beanie hats to fish stalls with small sharks. We also saw a bit of an argument breaking out where the police were called in and there was a small gathering of people, it seemed to be something out of nothing because one guy put some of his stock on the pavement which didn't belong to him. Afterwards we went home to relax for a short while before the evning session at Mig Dalor. Because it was a nice days I decided to go outside with an ice lolly and do some kick ups, just out the back of the house I found a square lawn area which was perfect. After about 30 minutes in the sun it was time to go to Mig Dalor to coach until its dark as theres no lights at the facility. Once again we decided to start out with domes and dishes with progressions and then used 2 pitches for some games. Sameh and Yakov were there to help out, they are both friends so know each other well and Sameh has also been working at Mig Dalor so knows everyone there. We do the warm ups a few times so they can see and even join in then we get both of them to take one of the warm ups one time. Even they love the games and get competitive against each other. We were greeted by the manager of the house who stayed and watched for a short while and told us that he was happy with the work we were doing, we usually stay behind and play table tennis with him and the others, he's the champion there at table tennis but me and Denys are going to start playing properly soon and show him how its done...

Hold your horses Yakov I never said go.

Thumbs up Sameh

Later in the evening we were invited to go to one of Yossi's friends house to watch the Real Madrid vs Barcelona game. Because everywhere I go people tell me they support Barcelona and Arsenal I now tell them I support Arsenal and Real Madrid. We thought we would go and watch game as after all Barcelona is Israels national team (wink wink) and we could support Real Madrid whilst everyone else was supporting Barcelona. Madrid went 1-0 up through Ronaldo but then in the second half ended up losing 2-1 so Yossi was very happy sitting there in his Barcelona scarf and slippers. Me and Denys both agreed we would show them a proper football game when Arsenal play Manchester United this weekend, come on you Gunners!!

Thurdays our last day of the week we were at Weitzman school, it was nice and sunny when we left but as soon as we got there it started raining and the wind picked up so we were inside again with Nissim the P.E teacher at the school. We did some warm ups and games in lessons plus also joined in playing some of the games whilst the kids at the side kept chanting ARS-E-NAL ARS-E-NAL! We finished a bit earlier than scheduled because there was no way we would be able to go out and coach outside because of the rain. We also always found the gym quite cold and realised its because on one side the windows near the top of the roof are always open, because of this today the wind was blowing all the rain and hail stones were coming inside causing 1 half of the gym to be very wet and slippery making it dangerous so we got the benches to use as a barrier, so we only had half of the gym to use and did some passing, heading etc in pairs followed by a 1 on 1 game with 2 small goals as it was a very small class of only 8 people, it's small because this is a class that has not so well behaved children who need more attention but they are always fine with us and enjoy their football.

On the way home we decided to get some food and decided to try a bakery which Zippee told us about because we had already had some birthday cake at the school. The smell of the bakery was too tempting and they had lot of different cakes and breads inside. We each filled a bag with different things and paid at the counter before heating up what we had bought in the microwave. It was mainly pastry, doughnuts and croissants etc filled with cheese or chocolate and was very tasty.

Denys waiting for his food to heat up

Inside the bakery

Because it was raining again our Thursday sessions were cancelled and me, Denys and Yossi took a drive to the Jordan River as it was The Epiphany which is celebrated on January 19th by the Orthodox Church, it marks the baptism of Jesus. Believing that on this day water becomes holy and is imbued with special powers, some brave Russians cut holes in the ice of lakes and rivers - including the Moscow River - to bathe in the freezing water. The drive there was around an hour and on the way we saw amazing scenary of the mountains with houses up on top of them and then a drive alongside the lake, there was alot more greenery than we expected. One more thing to mention is Yossi's driving at times, I think the picture says it all.

We arrived at Yardenit which is the Baptismal site on the Jordan River all set up for walking into the river with steps and rails etc plus a tourist hotspot with a big gift shop, restaurant and various other shops. We arrived at 5:30 and the baptism's stopped at 5 but that didnt stop us from walking down to the river and washing our faces in the river washing away our sins and Denys filled a bottle with the Holy Water.

The river

Washing away our sins



After we had visited Yardenit we drove back to a nearby town that had many hotels, restaurants, shops and bars. We took a walk around before finally deciding to go to a steak house called El Rancho's. Me and Denys shared a mixed grill which was excellent, all the food we had was great.

In the town

Had to get a photo by the Cannon (Gunners)

Tomorrow (Saturday) we have our first scheduled tour with our tour guide Danny so I'll update tomorrow as we don't know what the tour is yet but are both looking forward to it., we have scheduled tours on a Friday or Saturday mostly every other week. Once again thank you for reading and I'll be writing very soon with the next update.