Friday we woke up to brilliant sunshine and blue skies! We decided to stay at home for a short while before going to the shop to stock up on some food and drink for the week. After this we took a walk down to the old town of Akko which is about a 10-15minute walk where we went to a fish restaurant called Uri Buri, we get a free meal here once a week which has been arranged by Alan Sefton, head of Arsenal in the community, a massive thank you for this deal and we are looking forward to spending more time at the restaurant. We had a tasting session which involved many plates of all different kinds of dishes, the plates just kept on coming out and we were wondering when it would stop until the waitress asked us if we wanted more or dessert, as we were pretty full by then we of course opted for dessert which was a mixture of handmade desserts. The food was excellent and we can see why its known as the best restaurant in Akko by all the locals, we also agreed on our favourite dish which we cant remember which type of fish it was but it was caramelised, we look forward to our next visit to try some of the different dishes and keep up the standard of every dish being superb. We then took a walk around the town and the market taking various photos of around the area ( Might want to skip some photos if you are a vegetarian). After that we went home to relax and Yossi and his girlfriend came to pick us up later on, we then drove to Hen's house (Yossi's girlfriend) and I played soem fifa on the xbox against her brother, Arsenal vs Manchester United, me being Arsenal of course, it was 1-1 before Denys and Yossi took over at half time and it all went downhill for both sides. Eventually we left the house and went to a bar called Escobar which everyone is Israel calls a dance bar. When we got inside everyone was sitting around 2 large bar areas so me and Denys joked how it was more of a sit down bar. But we met some more of Yossi and Hen's friends and enjoyed some food etc, we also celebrated my birthday which was on the Wednesday, All in all another great night with equally great people.
Denys at Uri Buri (Our favourite dish on the left)
We found another Cannon (COYG)
A walk through the market
Saturday we went on our first scheduled tour with our guide Danny. He picked us up at 10am on what was another excellent sunny day and we headed down to Old Akko for our tour. We had already walked around the town but not done any tours or anything. We had our own private tour with Danny who is a key figure in the town and knows everything and everyone. We found out so much information including Akko is older than Jerusalem! We went underground through the Templars tunnel and other various locations, amazing to find out about the crusaders, the Ottomans and the Muslims who have been in the town over the years and also when Napoleon was trying to invade the city. Just seeing the buildings and being in the tunnels that have so much history it makes you think/wonder what it would have been like back then, walking in the footsteps.
Me and Danny
In the bath house
Templars Tunnel
Sunday we were at the start of another week and started at the closest school to our house which is Rambam, when we arrived at the school we noticed something we didnt see the previous week which is that right next to the playground on the same premises there is a police station which is unusual to see. We met Reut the P.E teacher who brought our first class, through the day we worked on dribbling. Afterwards we went to Zippee's house to watch Super Sunday, Manchester City vs Tottenham which had a great 10 minutes of goals but eventually City won with a last minute penalty followed by Arsenal vs Manchester United, after this and the Swansea result I'm beginning to think it may be an unlucky place to watch Arsenal as we also heard her son celebrating the Manchester United goal from his bedroom. After the match we Zippee had planned a dinner for us with some other people who are staying here which includes 3 Italians who are working at a palace restoring the roof and an American woman who is here at university studying Hebrew. It was nice to meet the other people and talk about all different things from each others countries plus find out more things from Zippee and her husband about Israel, we left to go to bed around 9:45pm as Denys was feeling a bit ill.
Police station next to the playground at Rambam school
Monday morning and Denys was still feeling sick so I left to go to Eshkol school with Yossi. We did traffic lights for the warm up where a green cone is go, red stop and we add another colour which could be any kind of command for example jogging on the spot, another favourite with the children then we moved on to dribbling once again followed by matches. The classes are mixed between boys and girls, once again all the children are happy to see us at the school and we are greeted by big smiles and screaming kids shaking our hands and high fiving us. Another thing is in England when making teams nobody wants to wear bibs/vests whereas as soon as I get ready to create teams for games people are begging you to put them on the team wearing bibs!
Me and Yossi then went to check back on Denys before going to his house to make some lunch and then after Yossi told me how he has an English test tomorrow so I helped him with some English work and revision. Later on we went to our evening session but when we got there we found out they had an organised game against another youth centre so we stayed and watch. It was a very close match and in the end went to extra time, our team won in extra time 5-4 so a good result.
Tuesday we had our only Arabic school we teach at called El Manara. We coach here from 8am-2pm, the P.E teacher speaks no English but luckily Denys can talk Russian with him, we found out that the classes we have aren't set P.E lessons, they are just taken out of random lessons to come and play football so the numbers can range from 12-30+ children. After the session we got lunch and had about an hours rest at home before taking a taxi to Bustan Hagalil which is a Disability centre that we coach at. We spoke to the manager who is American but grew up in Israel and found out more about the centre, we found out that all pupils are aged between 18-22 and have all been to school so are intelligent etc. We had a great session here and really enjoy it because they love their football and enjoy the warm up games. We also join in with them aswell as some of the helpers their. Most of the pupils speak decent english aswell as the workers who range from local people, American and German. Most of the workers don't play football so its fun for everyone to join in. Becuse of us joining in we didnt get to take any pictures but hopefully we'll remember to next week.
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