More Spring Blossoms and the Pride Parade!

Wow, so much to catch up on! Here are some beautiful pictures of the trees blooming in Ramat haSharon, where my voice teacher lives. Walking to her house every week is always enjoyable...

Jacaranda and Bougainvillea blossoms

Lovely cascading blossoms

Once again, Pride Week descended during one of the hottest weeks this year. Tomer, Heidi, and I headed out to find the parade, but we had been misinformed about where the parade would start. This year, they started the parade from the beach, so it took us nearly an hour to find it! Then when we arrived, we had to wait another half an hour before it started. The three of us hid from the sun, but then Heidi and I "came out"...of the shadows once the parade started :)

I must say that the floats were a bit disappointing this year, but the energy of the crowd was great and it was a beautiful day for freedom of expression.

This was one of the better floats, but I can't tell you why they were dressed as bellboys...

Swedish Pride

It's too bad those cans weren't filled with sunblock - we could have used it!

I'm not really sure what this costume was about.

Little Brother was watching us from above.

The flag says peace and belongs to the guys in camo :)

American Pride :)

I liked her bag.

This float was pretty great.

I don't know if this was meant to be an egalitarian statement or an ironic grammatical error.

 Each float had this sort of set-up in front. I guess it was to keep people from getting hit by the trucks, but it made it look as though these guys were pulling the float...

Crowd of people walking to the beach to meet the floats

There were some very, let's say, creative outfits

The fan says "Love is something which must be waved"

Post-Everything Picnic!

Pictures from my Post-Everything Picnic in Park haYarkon

Human friends and their countries of origin :)

l-r Gilad (Israel), Duncan (UK), Dana (USA, now Israel), Peter is hiding (Russia, now Israel), Peter's mom visiting from Moscow, Marina (Russia, now Israel), Tomer (Israel), Heidi (Denmark)

Same as above except now Tomer is hiding...

(The rest of these pictures are from Marina and Peter - they have an amazing camera!)

I love this picture of Eleonora (Italy, now Israel)

Beautiful Russian women :)

Me and Chubby, the horse disguised as a dog :)

Debbie (Germany, now Israel) and Chubby, Duncan, me, and Heidi
Seated are Ran and Jeffri, Ran's dog - both from Israel

A rare moment of stillness for Chubby.

Springtime adventures...in Park haYarkon

Here are more pictures from the past few months. 

First, some of my friends at the little zoo in Park haYarkon...

A happy little dinosaur descendant

Heidi made a new friend (sadly, the friendship was short-lived)

I swear that these deer never move...they were in the same position when I visited a few weeks later.

Baby Bambi! :)

Some kind of otter-y creature that lives in the lake.

I don't know why these are here...

Springtime adventures...in the Negev

Hi, all! I have many pictures from the last few months, so I am splitting them into geographical regions :)

In April, I visited the Small Makhtesh - one of my favorite places in Israel
(a makhtesh is a special type of crater formed from erosion rather than impact)

We had a remarkably clear day for the trek

Dry riverbed

 

I don't know what kind of flower this is, but isn't it pretty?

This rock friend seemed out of place amongst all of the sedimentary rocks - 

just a reminder that Israel has a turbulent history geologically as well as politically...

Close-up of the rock friend with my hand for scale.
Amanda and Marcia, do you think these are chunks of malachite? 

As you can see, the desert really was blooming, thanks to all of the rains we had this year!

The Dead Sea and the mountains of Jordan on the horizon :)

I'm fairly certain that we went to this same place on my Birthright trip - 

Could this be Noisy Bastard's cousin?

Stay tuned for more pictures...