Catch-up post #4

Oh goodness, so much has happened. \i feel like i might be in confession. Forgive me ... for \i have not blogged in so many days.
First off, let me say that \i am on a foreign keyboard and \i keep ;making mistakes, so \i am not going to attempt to correct everyone one. \i f you notice, all of my \i's have this\ before them becuase the shift is smaller and the \ is where my pinky would normally hit it. All other mistakes are attributed to fatigue or strange keyboards. At this moment, \i don't care.#

We stayed in Efrat with the Bogner#s. David and his family were consumate hosts, making us feel like we were family. They fed us a lot of food and \i may have actually gained a few pounds that \i lost while \i was sick. We all actually went out on Saturday night like it was a double date without the kides! David has a sense of humor \i appreciate, so that was refreshing. \i played a little guitar with his son, who is an aspiring player/songwriter himself.
Without getting too much into politics, Efrat is a lovely \\jewish town that is like others in the area nestled between Arab villages. While there isn't much violence between them, there isn't a whole lot of love crossing lines. \this tension seems par for the course for the residents, but for me, it is an unfamiliar stress that weighs on my comfort level. Especially when travelling through. \it was, as \i was told, safe. And it probably was safer, than say, taking a leisurely stroll through Camden at 2 am. Still, \i would go back to visit.
From there, we went to visit our next hosts in Rehovot\; Jose. We first stopped by a clandestine bullet factory that was set up before/during the War of \independance. A kibbutz was set up where underneath the laundry about 30 feet below the ground was a bullet factory that operated for a few years with no one finding out. The folks who didn't know it was there were called "giraffes" because they can#t see what happens under their feet. After that, we stopped by a community center where \\jose worked. \he took us to his apartment and hung out for a while until his wife, Elizabeth, came home. We had pizza and then she made a pasta dinner for us.
The next day \i was leaving, s0 we spent the first part in Tel Aviv and \yaffo. The flight out of Ben Gurion to \heathrow was good and \i got to my |\hotel in \london fairly late. \it was a nice hotel\; The Thistle.
\i'm almost caught up, but \i'm a bit tired. \i just got back from a comedy club in \newcastle with my friend \michael. \the show was mostly funny as there were a bunch of different acts. The best was an ensemble group who where polishing up their act for the upcoming Fringe Festival in Edinburgh.
Tomorrow, \i am off early to walk along \hadrian's wall and end at a B&B in Gisland before coming back to South Shields, where \michael lives and where \i am now.
Cheers!