Beautiful, stunning Haifa.
Fulfilling an obligation to both provide a morale boost to the residents of northern Israel while simultaneously appreciating some frosty adult beverages, I headed to Haifa this past Thursday to partake in the annual Israel Beer Festival. The festival usually takes place in Tel Aviv, but Haifa was chosen to host this year's Carb-fest. Gave me a great excuse to visit my cousin Naama as well as to survey for myself what kind of damage those a$$holes from Hezbollah did to one of the great cities of the Middle East.
Haifa is a stunning city. Heading north on the highway, the sparkling Mediterranean sits on your left and much of the city is tucked into mountains on the right. By the time you get to the top of the city, you get some really sick views. Sunset in Haifa is a sight to be seen. The city is a beautiful example of coexistence between Jews, Arabs, Christians, and whoever else is around. There's a lot of religious and ethnic acceptance and appreciation. Very different from Jerusalem which, by comparison, is more a patchwork of peoples forced into the same quilt. In Haifa, Jews and Arabs live with each other. In Jeru, Jews and Arabs live next to each other.
All this utopia makes you wonder what, in fact, Hezbollah really wanted to destroy when it lobbed all those rockets into Haifa last month. Doesn't take a nuclear scientist to figure out that the kind of harmony that lives in Haifa is not on Hezbollah's agenda. I got to see a few of the areas that had been hit by the Katyushas when I walked around the city. Sad stuff. Honestly, it's surprising that more people didn't die. Anyways, if you think you can get away with seeing Israel without seeing Haifa, you're nuts. I'll definitely be heading back there real soon.
And the beer festival was a lot of fun. From what I remember.
That's me, in the corner, waving.
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