Weather here in Israel is getting hotter and this weekend is forecast to be around 27 degrees. Wednesday an Thursdays there was no school because of a holiday called Purim, similar to halloween all the children and everyone dress up. Thursday evening I was invited to a student/teacher party of the local college at the cinema in the mall, Avi invited me as he is head of the student union at the college and helped organize the event. Im not a fan of dressing up but I thought I would, yep you guessed it went quite simplay as a footballer. We started off having a buffet talking etc, I was with Avi's friends most the time as alot of people don't speak english, but we had a laugh between us and talked about the weeks football results and goals. After we went into the cinema where they had a raffle pulling out random seat numbers, there were quite a few prizes consisiting of sounds systems, microwaves to the main prize an LCD TV. The head of the college said a few words about Purim and the college and then mentioned that there were a small group of German people studying at the college on an exchange for a few weeks followed by mentioning me from England/Arsenal. I was also lucky enough to win a prize which was a sandwich toaster so we know what I'll be eating for the last 2 weeks... After the raffle we watched a new movie called This Means War with reece Witherspoon, a good movie for the family with action and comedy.
Friday I had a tour at 10:30 with tour guide Danny Arama. It was a very nice day with blue skies and sunshine. We went to a town called Qesaryya which I was told is one of the most expensive places to live in Israel. There was an old Roman town we visited there that got destroyed during an earthquake but you can still see the remains of the houses, bath house and palace etc. A very big an impressive place, what interested me most was the old Hippodrome where many games went on including chariot racing where they would do 7 laps around the track which is massive! The stadium held around 10,000 people and the starting blocks are still there today! There is also a theatre there which they still use today for concerts.
Where the old bath house once stood (was very fancy)
Mosaic floor in one of the houses (there were so many mosaic floors!)
Part of the old stand in the Hippodrome
One end of the Hippodrome
Now a concert venue
A view looking back on the old Roman city
It's been another great week coaching football, joining in local festivities and seeing yet another amazing historical place along with beautiful scenary and also finding out where I will be going next month.
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