Wednesday July 8th

Today marks the last day of our pre camp training. We woke up and grabbed some food for breakfast. We jumped on the bus and headed out to Kfar Maccabiah. This is where the mens and womens teams were staying. It was a nice facility but again the futsal court wasn''t the best. It was hard and an old tennis court. So we played a bit got a nice sweat going and then jumped in the pool.
The bus picked us up again and like every other day we headed back to the hotel for lunch.

So as soon as we got back, I went to see if my laundry was done. I went to pick it up and as it turned out all my clothes were cleaned, folded, and really smelling nice. The best part of it was I wasn't missing anything either. What a deal. It just costs 50 shekels which i think is about $12 maybe. Oh well.

So today was a bit different. We went to get lunch but they didn't have lunch set for us. We were told to get on the bus at 11:15am and we would have lunch on the bus. Everyone was hungry and very tired. We find out that we will be eating not on the bus but in a Druze village up north. The ride is about 2 hours or so and we spend most of that time talking to the softball team and listening to the tour guide.

Finally we show up at the Druze village. A young Druze women gets on our bus to show us the area. Her name is Hanan and no we did not hit on her. She was cute but she told us a story that she could not be involved with someone who is not part of the Druze culture because if she were to marry some out from the outside she would be thrown out of the village and perceived as being dead to her family. Yeah...thats a little heavy and she ended by telling us that you can not convert to be a Druze so we had no chance with her.

We walked from the bus threw the village to where we were going to have lunch. It was a nice little room that looked like a normal living room. One coffee table in the middle of the room and the walls were lined with couches. We sat down and talked about her culture and what its like being in Israel as a Druze Women. After about 20 minutes or so she had the food brought in for all of us. We were set into groups of 4 or 5 and we were given a large medal plate with humus, pita, nan bread with zatar, rice, salad, meat and beans. When we were finished they gave us some cookies and very sweet hot tea.

Our tour guide got us together and we were on our way to the bus again. As we are driving she told us more about the area and where we were heading. We were on our way to the Sea of Galilee also called the Kinneret. We were headed there for a delegation beach bbq. The Galilee is sitting right on the Golan Heights so we are surrounded by nice high mountains so the view of the area was amazing.

We get out of the bus and see the Kinneret. Even though it is called a Sea it is really a very nice size fresh water lake. This body of water, just like the Dead Sea is evaporating. We don't really think about it much. We pick a spot, drop our bags and walk to the waters edge. Thats when it hits us. We see the old docks and the old walkway to the water. They had to extend the walk way about 100 yards or so to reach the new lower water level. The beach is covered in shells and sand. The water is warm but very nice to sit in. They have boats running all over the lake and dragging all kinds of inflatable toys all for us to play with. This is a public area but the only people there are the USA Maccabi teams. We swim in the water and jump off the docks. We ride the banana boats and get thrown off when they turn sharply. There are also some water slides at the park which really makes us question things. Why, if there is a water shortage in Israel, are there so many water parks? Kind of strange right.

We hang out here for a very nice long time. We go in and out of the water, getting sun all day long. We are talking to our new friends wishing them luck in the games and wishing we could have been playing in the water more. This is what we all really wanted to do. Its great walking around Israel and seeing history, but we really enjoy spending time with all the players in the delegation and most of all spending time in the water and not on a bus.

We have dinner and not long after finishing we got back into our bus groups and recapped the week we have spent together. Everyone had a chance to say something about the trip that made an impression on them. It took about 45 minutes but it was nice that the overlying theme of the group was that spending time with Jewish athletes in Israel is an unbelievable experience that we are all very fortunate to be apart of.

We had a nice long day and the only problem is that we had a very long dive back to the hotel. We all fall asleep and as soon as we get back we get changed and head out to catch a cab and go out for the first time.

We hooked up with the girls soccer team at a place called Clara Fashion Club. I can honestly say that I have never been in a place like this before. Its a very large club on the beach of the Mediterranean Sea. We had to get chosen to enter the club in the old style of Studio 54....I only know because I sow the movie. So we get to the front of the group and tell them we are part of the USA delegation here for the Maccabiah Games. Thats all we needed to say to get in. I didn't think anything of it but it makes things really cool...at least for us.

We walk into the club and its packed with people everywhere. One of the guys works it out with the bar and we get a table with bottle service. I didn't really know what that meant until he told me thats the only way we can sit down and have our own table with couches...pimp LA style. So we did it up and had a blast dancing and hanging out with everyone. At 3 in the morning people in the club started to leave. Yes, 3 in the morning people started to go home. It was a Wednesday night and our team stayed at the club until 5:00am. We figured we would have some fun since we didn't have training in the morning. I'm telling you....we picked a great team to hang out with....all the boys on the futsal team get a long great and we all enjoy spending time together. I just hope we play that well too.

We are moving to our new hotel in Tel Aviv in the morning...see you then.