But, in mid-December, our SabbaticalHomes website distracted us from our home improvement fantasies with an inquiry about a home exchange in Haifa, Israel. So…here we go again!
We are trading with a couple who are both social workers – he has his doctorate, teaches in the MSW at University of Haifa, overseeing the graduate school field placements (see, it was meant to be…) with a special focus on juvenile delinquency prevention (the similarities just go on…) and she has an administrative position at Technion. They have a flat in the hills with a view of the Mediterranean. In addition to trading houses, we are also trading cars this time.
In an interesting coincidence, I was talking to my cousin Robbie (in addition to being cousins, we grew up 2 blocks from each other in San Carlos) about the trip and she mentioned she was having lunch with a family friend, Laurie Kaplan, who grew up in San Mateo but was now living in Haifa, and asked if I wanted her to mention our trip. I recognized the name as her family was close with my friend Dana’s family, so I often saw her at Dana’s birthday parties. I gave Robbie the address of where we will be staying – turns out it is across the street from where Laurie lives. So we have been emailing and plan to “meet” (don’t imagine we will recognize each other from Dana’s 8 year old birthday party…) for coffee when we arrive and she will help us plan our day trips.
We will be in Haifa (photo above) from July 10 to July 27, then will spend the remainder of the time (until August 8) in Jerusalem where we are able to use my Uncle Herb and Aunt Marianne’s vacation home there (Thanks SO much!!). We promised them that they can come and stay in Pleasanton ANY time they would like (they live only 25 minutes away from us but they are still welcome!).
For those of you who are familiar with our blog, you can either view via the old format at www.gioiatravels.blogspot.com
or one of these easier viewing formats by going to
www.gioiatravels.blogspot.com/view/flipcard
or www.gioiatravels.blogspot.com/view/sidebar
Also, any time you want to get a better view of one of the photos, just click on it and the photo will enlarge.
And we have added this feature (which shows only on the old version of the blog) where you can sign up so that you will get an email when we add a new posting. Scroll back up to the top of this post, and you will see where you can put in your email address (right above the date of the post) and then click on "submit" (This will take you to a "Feedburner" Email subscription request window- just fill in your email and the verification message, and then click on complete subscription request; you will then receive an email confirming that you want to subscribe). The one catch on this is that it can take up to 24 hours for the notification to be emailed out that we've added a new post, and it also may randomly notify you of a post from May of 2009 - so you can decide how you want to proceed. When you do get the notification email that there is a new post, then you will be able to click from the email and it and it will take you directly to the "old" version of the blog (if you want the new version, you can go back up to the internet search window and just add the /view/flipcard or /view/sidebar to the end of the URL/web address).
We will try to keep you up to date on our adventures with the requisite photos, travel logs, and who knows - maybe even another “loo” story!
Shalom!
Lisa and Jim
(** for new visitors to our blog their are Loo stories from our past two trips - you can find them here in previous posts: first one is May 28th, 2009 and the 2nd one is "Another Loo Story" on 8/12/2010 - Enjoy a good laugh - be sure to read in chronological order!)
