Holiday to Antalya, Turkey

Our family recently went to Antalya for a short holiday. Here are some photos of the trip...

Taken inside the hotel:


































at the Village tour:

My trip to Peru

At the end of November, I was privileged to make a brief visit to the South American continent for work-related purposes. For the first time in my life, I flew accross the Atlantic ocean to the Americas. It has always been a dream to once visit that continent, and it has now come true. It started off with a well-over-30-hour journey from Haifa to Lima, passing by Newark and Houston. In Lima I met some wonderful old and new friends from various countries in South America. We all stayed in a hostel not far from the Bahá'í Centre, where we had our meetings. Below are some photographic impressions of the trip.

It was great to meet up with Joel again, whom I hadn't seen in a few years. On the table are the chicha (native Peruvian drink) and Cebiche (national fish dish).
During one of the meetings, with Joel, Farzam, Shiva, and Angela.
In a Chinese restaurant with Joel, Carolina, Natalia, and Carlos.
Fully assimilated after just three days...
A street in the neighborhood of the Bahá'í Centre in Lima
Group picture outside the Centre. From left to right: Joel (Colombia, Farzam (Ecuador), Natalia (Uruguay), Carolina (Chile), Juan Carlos (Argentina), Victoria (Paraguay), Shiva (Bolivia), Maarten (Israel), Carlos (Brazil), Dunya, Angela and a girl whose name I do not remember (Peru).

During one of the evenings, we visited the Circuito Mágico de Agua (a fountain park) in Lima. It has beautiful fountains that are illumined at night with classical music played. Among them the largest in the world in a public park (80 m high). The most fun were the tunnel fountain - where you can walk through without getting wet - and the "La Fuente de Los Ninos", or Kid's Fountain, which consists of 4 concentric circles on the ground from which water randomly shoots up (see picture and video below). I didn't try the last one myself, but enjoyed watching others get soaked! :)





On the way back from Peru, I stopped in Somerset, New Jersey for a day to stay with old friends Pieter-Bas and Nishat. They used to live in my community in Utrecht, but moved to the States ten years ago. They now have two beautiful children Bella and Alec. Before flying back to Tel Aviv, I also had an opportunity to briefly visit New York City. I met up with Monette, who now works at UNICEF, had lunch with her and then spent about two hours just walking through New York, enjoying the atmosphere and just being there.

At PB and Nish's home...
New York...
The United Nations building at 1st Avenue...
A quick peek at ground zero...

Few more pics with Sabina & family

We said goodbye to Sabina, Derek and Rohan at a dinner hosted by Shradha and Anne (thanks for all the delicious Indian dishes you prepared!). Below are few photos, one with the group to follow...

Rohan playing peek-a-boo



EM's new friend Alisha Butle

jumping play with Alisha

me with Sabina, hope you'll like the cds we gave you...

Maarten and Derek with the two cuties

Me and Lillian at the playground

While papa Maarten was away, mama and auntie Selvi brought me and Lillian at the playground in Hess street, just walking distance from where we live. It is a small area with a slide, elephant and a "merry-go-round" rides. Although at first it was not easy to share a ride on the elephant with Lillian (i still have to perfect this virtue), we both enjoyed the ride together, see our cute faces on the photos.

It is already getting cold in Haifa, but still we are enjoying a nice sunshine as well.

Papa is far, far away...

Two nights ago my papa Maarten left for his trip to Peru. After a nice, simple dinner we had, Oom Martijn came to pick him up and brought him to the train station. My parents already informed me about this work-related trip couple of weeks ago and they said it is too far from where we are. Anyway, this is just a short posting to let papa know that we are missing him a l..o..t (especially me as I kept on saying: "go...papa"--let's go to papa; "papa...work"--papa is at work), but we will see him soon...that is next week!