Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Day 14 - Tuesday, July 21st
Day 13 - Monday, July 14th
So a little lunch, a little sun, a little shopping and back to Haifa to pack. However, our work was not done. A big last minute trading bazaar opened up in our hotel lobby with guys from England, Mexico and South Africa showing their wares. Got some good last minute trades in before the deadline.
Day 12 - Sunday, July 19th
Day 11 - Saturday, July 18th
There is also a series of caves that are naturally built into the limestone cliffs.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Day 10 - Friday, July 17th
After the game we all just hung around the pool. We went out for dinner and then to the Bear Pub up the street for a while. A familiar scene.
Day 9 - Thursday, July 16th
prayers coming from the loudspeaker from the Mosque while we were standing there at the wall.
We also walked through the Jewish Quarter section of the
Day 8 - Wednesday, July 15th
After the game we just chilled by the pool for a while. Playing at 11am in that sun is just draining. There is absolutely no shade anywhere around the fields. We went to check out the Women's USA team play England later in the day. The US women were fantastic. They have a few players who are in the mix for the US National team. We went for dinner in this area of Haifa called the German Colony. Lots of open air restaurants down at the bottom of the mountain. Haifa is a lot like San Francisco. Our hotel is at the top of the mountain with all these windy roads that lead down to the water of the Mediterranean Sea. This is the view from my hotel room with the Mediterranean Sea in the background. After dinner I went back to the hotel and got to call Chelsea at camp for her birthday which was nice.
Day 7 - Tuesday, July 14th
Then we had a tour bus take us on a tour of the Northern part of the country by the
We also went to this hot mineral spring spa. Hot water comes up from under the ground and has all these minerals in it that are supposed to have these healing powers that make your muscles feel better and fix any cuts you have. It was like being in a huge giant hot tub. They have areas where you can lie down in the water, areas where the water pours over your head, areas where the water bubbles up from the floor or the wall. It was so relaxing. Just don't tell my wife about this because she'll get mad that I'm relaxing while she's working.
On our way back to Haifa we stopped at the the Jordan River at the place where it is believed that Jesus was baptised. Christians from all over the world come here to get baptised and bring back what is considered holy water.
Tomorrow we have our next game in the morning against
Day 6- Monday, July 13th - Part 2
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Day 6 - Monday, July 13th
Day 5 - Sunday, July 12th
A lot of downtime until our game at 4pm. Had some breakfast, team meeting to discuss strategy, do laundry, lunch and getting dressed pretty much summed up the day. We got on the bus and went to the field at 2:30pm. Much to our surprise, it was still extremely hot in the late afternoon. Had to be in the mid-to-high 90's. Warming up was not a problem. You couldn't drink enough water. It came out of you as soon as it went in. Here's the squad at the field before the game in our game Blues.
Unfortunately it was not a good day for us. Israel came prepared for us this time around. They were still pissed that they lost to us 4 years ago and really stacked their team. They had 3 former Israeli National Team players and a couple of guys who played professionally. They scored two goals in the first half. A header that just slipped in under our keeper and a follow up tap in after our keeper made a save. The heat was really a problem for many of us. It just took the legs right out of you. In the 2nd half we played a little better and actually had some really good scoring opportunities. Their keeper made two great saves which would have put us right back into the game. They scored one more towards the end of the game. It was a good effort but they were clearly the better team.
We came back after the game wet and dejected. Some dinner and beers at the Bear Pub closed out the night.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Day 3 & 4 - Friday, July 10th & Saturday, July 11th
We then headed over to our hotel, the Dan Carmel, to get settled in. After lunch, we then had a 2nd practice. As it was close to Shabbat, the Sabbath time, the field was closed. But that didn't stop us Yankees. We all climbed the metal fence surrounding the field and went about our business.
In the evening we had a Shabbat dinner at the hotel. The Maccabiah organization had some rabbi come and lead us in a little short service and say some prayers and sing some songs. I guess we have to do something Jewish on this trip.
On Saturday we planned another practice session at our favorite field. Since it was Shabbat, we pretty much figured it was going to be closed. So we used a little common sense and pulled the car up to the fence and hopped on over. Much easier than trying to climb this thing this way. Of course, the guy who rented the car will have to pay extra for all the dents we put on the trunk, but that's his problem. We got about 20 minutes into our practice when some Security Guard came over and threw us off the field. He walked through the fence but made us climb back over to leave.
So we went to Plan B and went sightseeing after lunch. As you can see, food plays a major part in this trip. We visited this area called Caesearea. It was an old Roman era harbor fort city. The first thing we stopped at was the old Roman aqueduct which carried water from the North down to the South. It runs right along the beach. We then headed over to the harbor area which has ruins dating back to the Roman times - hippodrome, amphitheatre, bath houses, etc... Real interesting how they built all this without any mechanical tools whatsoever. Amazes me how they can do all this and we can't get some decent roads to drive on. Hung out in the pool for a little bit when we got back and then had a team Shabbat dinner at the hotel. A post dinner jaunt to the Bear Pub up the street to celebrate the end of Shabbat was had.
As you can see I'm just starting to learn how use this blog thing so now I can add pictures as I go. Unfortunately I'm using a wi-fi connection outside the hotel (the hotel wanted to charge $100/week to use their hotel wireless connection so I'm forced to find a free signal outside to connect to. I'm not going to let "the Man" get me down.). So I'll be going back and adding pictures to my other pages to liven them up.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Day 2 - June 9th
We got in around 9:30am and cruised through Baggage Claim and Customs. I expected a bit more from Security heading into the country, but I guess a bunch of old farts wearing USA clothes aren't much of a risk. Did I mention that it's HOT at 9:30am? It was already into the 90's at that hour. I am not looking forward to our games that start at 11am. We're only going to be in Tel Aviv for one night. Our accomodations weren't ready yet in Haifa (which is up in the North part of the country), so the Maccabiah people put us up in the main USA hotel here in Tel Aviv. They gave each one of us our own suite. That was pretty nice. I ran into a lot of athletes from the past Games that I participated in. So it was a bit of a family reunion thing going on. Also met Bruce Pearl, the US Men's Basketball coach (and who happens to be the head coach of the University of Tennessee) and saw Jason Lezak. He's the Olympic Gold Medal swimmer who won one of the relays in the Beijing Games to help Michael Phelp's get his 7 medals. He chose to participate in these Maccabiah Games instead of the World Swimming Championships that are being held next week with the rest of the top swimmers in the world.
We had a light practice late this afternoon and then dinner. The schedule for tomorrow is to bus it up to Haifa at 8am so we can make our scheduled 10:15am practice time there. Check in to the hotel, lunch, and have another practice at 4pm. And that about wraps it up for Day 2.