Tiyul: Beit Shmesh Stalactite Cave

Our first real tiyul with Bubbie was to the Beit Shemesh Stalactite Cave. After the drive up the hill we were all ready for a break, and found a nice picnic table for lunch (as an aside, one of the great things about this country, is you can go about every 100 meters and find another picnic area).

On to the caves!

We park the car, and go up to the booth to get a ticket, and we see we have to descend a mountain to get to the cave. Sarah said wow this is pretty nice, is this it? I had to sadly tell her no, this was just the beginning, oh, and don't forget, we still have to walk back up!

We were a little wary at first, as the last time we went on a tiyul in a cave, it was pitch black, and I had two little children who were practically petrified going through. B"H this one went alright. After going in, paying and getting ready to enter, they told us that the tour is only in Hebrew. So we're thinking fine, lets go with out a tour guide. What do we need one for anyway, there's a path right? there's some light? We'll be fine!

Unfortunately, they didn't see things the same way we did, and we were forced to go though with the guide.

On the plus side, the movie at the beginning had English subtitles! So Sarah read them to the kids (who I think really do understand now, but are just playing with us). Mind you, I did have to chase after RM as he thought it would be fun to run in front of the video (I mean why wouldn't it be fun to have your father chase you all over the tiny theater).

Then we start to go in, though with a small warning of "Don't touch the rocks". That's like telling my children "Don't breathe", or "Don't sneak into the nosh cabinet at 6 in the morning" I mean c'mon!

So pretty much the rest of the tour was the guide telling us how all the rocks look like snow white or Santa Clause, me running after RM wondering where he went. Telling the children not to touch the rocks, Sarah being bored b/c she didn't understand the guide (lay off of her, she just got here, she'll pick up the Hebrew soon enough, relax!).

So if you want to know, yes we did have a good time, it was fun and we'll probably go again, once we all work on our Hebrew a bit!