Blast from the Past

The weekend before last, I finally left Jerusalem and traveled via train to Binyamina to see my friend Khen.  Khen and I met in the summer of 1998 at Camp Tel Yehudah.  We spent 2 wonderful summers together at camp and then I, along with 7 other camp friends, stayed with Khen and her family in Timrat when we were here in the Summer of 2000.  Khen and I stayed in touch a bit afterwards but sadly lost touch right before she went into the army.  Sometime in the last couple of years, Khen found me on facebook and we reconnected!  Though this is my 3rd time back in Israel since 2000, we didn't have a chance to meet up during my previous trips.  So you can imagine how excited I was when we started talking on the phone this time around and trying to plan a time to see each other!

Khen picked me up from the train station and we stopped at her apartment to put my things down.  Then we went out to a delicious lunch with her boyfriend Ami, his mom, and his sister who were visiting.  They switched on and off between speaking Hebrew and English, but I got the gist of what was said in Hebrew.  Later, we looked at Khen's photo album from our 3 summers together and reminisced of the good old days.  Later, Khen's sisters Vered and Yael came over (I had met Vered 10 years ago, but Yael had been traveling abroad then).  We had dinner and watched some movies.   

The next morning, Khen took me to Ceasarea, where we walked around and enjoyed the amazing weather.  We had a delicious lunch of sushi (and even tried a strange roll of salmon, mozarella, and avocado).  Some of the rolls had tempura around them, and Khen referred them as schnitzel sushi.  Israelis just love to bread everything here!

Me and my new boyfriend

ancient ruins in Caesarea

more ancient ruins in Caesarea

headless statue

It was so great to see Khen after all these years, though it didn't seem like it had been 10 years.  We were able to pick up right where we left off!  It was so nice to just veg out and catch up.  Thank you to Khen and Ami for letting me stay at your lovely apartment.  Hopefully I'll take a few more weekend trips to visit them and Khen can be my tour guide to other exciting places.  Oh and I should probably take some pics of Khen and me together next time.