hello, here we are about to jump on the boat to Mljet. Soaking up the breakfast sun on our terrace, some last minute shopping; organic home dried figs, fresh goat fetta, a borek and a play in the park. A quick espresso and it is time to go.

Here we are scaling the walls of Dubrovnik. It has been a relaxing break from the fast paced Israel experience, where the main decision here is to order pizza or pasta.
Tomorrow we are off to Mljet, a small island in the Adriatic, featured in Homer's Oddysey.
After receiving 30 presents for his last birthday, Ricky decided that the only way to top it is to take Zoe to Italy for her birthday. Zar is planning the party and says that we must have baloons, a picnic rug and a coconut cake and will do a show on the ferry going over there.
Meanwhile, we met a lovely Sweedish lady. We asked her if she knew Alex. She didn't but she did have an urban buggy that recently sustained a similar puncture. She introduced us to a mechanic named Cicak who fixed our 7 punctures for free.
Zar says that he is missing his 'people' and insisted that we take a photo of him with an oversized ice cream so that we could post it on the blog for Luca to see.

Congratulations Bec on the arrival of little baby Suki, we can't wait to meet her.

We have arrived in Croatia. It is beautiful here, Dubrovnik, blue Adriatic sky, crisp water, soft pebbles, grape vines, walled city, pomegranate and figs. We are staying in an old house divided into apartments, our terrace is covered in kiwi and grape vine and we sit eating breakfast looking out at the water. We have had a slight disaster with our trusty urban which has sustained two punctured wheels. We spent all of yesterday attempting to get it fixed to no avail. Lots of scootters here but apparently no bikes. We have heard that there is a bit of a cycling culture in Italy so here we come!

As we left Israel we encountered a slight security problem. We were stopped and had to unpack one bag because we had a suspicious object. It was the bag with our electricals, and we were thinking that it was the ipod speakers, maybe all the leads for charging, the panda alamclock we got for zar in china....But no the culprits was a jar of vegemite!

We attended our second wedding in Israel. Sunset overlooking the sea, warm breeze, sharp crunch of broken glass, malzel tov yulia & dotan. Latin dancing, joyful tears, ricky sings a song the crowd cheers and zar says dada is a really good singer.
And day in Telaviv, catch up with far flung friends and family, beaches and gelati.

Jerusalem security, drive by archaeology in pishpishim, an impromptu concert in a roman amphitheater, dishing out pomegranate and apple dessert with orily, sunkissed shoulders... nearly time to go.

Happy New Year from Israel.

We are preparing to leave for Croatia but before we do here is our last entry from the Israel.
Zar has picked up advanced Hebrew language skills. As you can see he performs the "toda" (Hebrew for Thank You) executed like a professional gymnast, while Zoe gleans a date palm and keeps us all well fed for the trip to the Galilee. On top of the hill fortress at Masada, Zar bathes in Herod's palace complex.

Today we are off to our second wedding and we have still not mentioned the first! Congratulations Ilana & Erez. The photos do no justice to the evening, it was a spectacular bollywood fairytale, complete with a symphony orchestra, dancing on the beach, guests jetting in from the corners of the globe. Everyone was happy, feasting, celebrating and dancing. We felt very privileged to be there.

Jerusalem was full of spirit and antiquity. We delivered a couple of prayers from Australia. Wandered through all four quarters of the Old City, the Via Dolorosa, walked the tunnels below the Western Wall and ended up making a swift exit in a taxi as we heard the call to prayer in all four directions.

happy birthday pop!
we are missing lots of birthdays it seems. Today we had a truely Israeli day. We woke up on a kibbutz, went to see some ruins, Bet Shan, gleaned some organic dates and then swam in a mineral spring. The light here is so saturated it looks like super 8, and the sun is fierce. Yesterday we went to the sea of Galilee, we waded in the water, watching little fish but could't manage to walk on it!

happy birthday E!
This is us at the dead sea covered in mud. You put it on leave for half an hour till it is dry like a cracked river bed and then wash off. It was so hot, r that kept sweating and the mud failed to dry.

Well here we are in Israel!
Firstly let me just say a big thankyou to Claire & Casey for letting us crash in London. It was lovely to walk the leafy streets of Hammersmith and catch up with you guys if only briefly.

And onward with our journey...