Trip to River Jordan & Jordan border

Friday I had another scheduled tour with Danny Arama our tour guide here in Israel, we went to the River Jordan, first of we stopped to get lunch as he picked me up at 12:30 so we were both a bit hungry, we tried a new restaurant in Akko which was very good and had generous portions so we were both full before setting off on the road. Once again along the drive I saw some great scenary including the drive up a mountain which we stopped half way up to look at the view, once again in the week there was alot of rain and snow in the north of Israel, Danny still couldn/t believe how much water we saw on the sides of the roads and how full of water everything was as its never usually like that, because there was more snow there were many mountains covered in snow which was another thing he said he had never seen before, so something thats so familiar to us in England is much needed and appreciated in Israel.

We stopped off at Yardenite which I had already been to but in the dark so it was nice to appreciate the place in the daytime. It's "close" to where Jesus was baptised along the Jordan River hoever Danny told me that it's nowhere near as he was baptised in the Jordan side of the river so the place is set up for tourists to visit rather than having to cross the border but nonetheless its a beautiful part of the river where it is.

We then took a drive to the Jordan border and actually drove along the actual border where the electric fence is that seperates Jordan from Israel, it's all set on the mountains but you can see some houses etc on the Jordan side plus some look out towers. From the mountain you could also see the Jordan River which originally used to be the border seperating Jordan from Israel and the bridge that was blew up that went over the river, this all changed and an electric fence was put up after the 6 day war. So I have now been to the Lebanon, Syria and Jordan borders in Israel.

Jordan border, river and bridge

Saturday I went with Danny into the old town of Acre to go to a shop and buy a couple of souvenirs, I was happy that I managed to get a silver and copper plate of Jerusalem as when I was in Jerusalem there wasnt any decent souvenirs, just the usual commercial type stuff.  After that I went back home to have some lunch before watching the Liverpool vs Arsenal game which kicked off 2:45pm here. Another great result for Arsenal with Van Persie scoring 2 goals to win the game 2-1, sitting in 4th with Chelsea and Spurs yet to play, the weekend ended up perfect for Arsenal with Chelsea loing to West Brom, Spurs getting thrashed by a not so good United side 3-1 and Newcastle drawing in their derby with Sunderland, only 4 points behind Spurs now and is all to play for.

Sunday I had Rambam school in the morning followed by Ben Gurion in the evening. It was another day of rain stop and start however the school has an indoor gym and an hour before the afternoon session the rain stopped, the session is on concrete and was a little bit slippery in places but everyone still wanted to play so it went ahead.

Monday I was at Eshkol school, one of my favourites, a few of the kids were talking about the recent Arsenal results and they of course love Van Persie. I decided to do a warm up with them where they are in groups of 4 in a square and tuck a bib into their shorts and the person who gets the other persons bib first wins while the other 2 people count to ten, if theres no winner then its a draw and the other 2 then go, alternating rounf every so often so everyone gets a go against the other, we then moved onto a game where they use the same squares and go 2 on 2 where one person runs out puts their foot on the cone and throws the ball to their partner for a header to try and score against the other teams goal, we did competaitions where there's a top grid and the winners move up, losers down and the winning team on the top grid at the end are the champions, they love when it moves into competition and there were some really good tactics and techniques used between boys and girls.

This week I also have 1 or 2 days off because of a holiday called Purim which I understand is similar to Hallowen with dressing up and everything. Today the school had a theme where the children go to school in pyjamas and a lot of them came with slippers and blankets also plus alot of the boys had multi coloured hair, unfortunatly my camera was dead so couldn't get any photos today.

After the school I went to get my hair cut before the evening session and that is where we are upto now. The weather is also back to being hot and sunny again, I think this is how its going to be for the remainder of my stay in Israel and its only going to keep getting hotter.

Once again if you have got this far then thank you for reading and I'll be back soon to update you again, only two weeks left in Israel this Friday - time has flown by!