Haifa

Day 3- Haifa

Took the 16 bus to the train station at around 11 AM to catch the train to Haifa. While I was waiting on the platform I met a nice French woman who asked me if this was the train to Haifa (see. everyone keeps thinking I'm Israeli). When I asked her were she was from she said "Haifa" and had lived here for a year but hadn't figured her way around much yet. Until then I highly encourage all the international women of the world to ask me for directions-I'm good with maps.
Anyhow I got off one station to early in Haifa and took a cab to the Bahai Gardens. The cab driver brought me to this really great lookout point first that was build with money donated from San Francisco- Haifa's Sister city b/c they are both built on crazy mountains with ridiculous hills etc..
The cab driver ripped me off on the cab ride (I found out later how much it should have cost) but what can you do.
The Bahai Gardens were beautiful although I got there too late for the English tour and you couldn't walk through the middle section because of a Bahai pilgrimage that was taking place and visitors had traveled from all over to be there on that day.
No matter it was still very nice and I had a chance to take some great pictures. coming out of the Bahai Gardens lookout point I walked through this random park that was behind it and by accident came across the Haifa Japanese Art Museum. As I had never been to a Japanese Art Museum and the cost was only 20 shekels to get in - it made sense. It was small but still very cool and most of the museum was from this German Jewish art collector/curator in the 30s who hid the whole collection in Holland during WW II and retrieved it after the war.
Then I caught a bus and walked around Haifa's Hadar neighborhood which was cute. As I went up to a restaurant to look at their menu for lunch the hostess from the restaurant next to it came over to show me their menu. People really want to do business with you I suppose. I picked the restaurant that had the Pasta with Mushroom cream sauce. It didn't disappoint.
Later on I was trying to find the German Colony and had to walk up this long windy street Sderot Hatisyanut in Haifa that goes up Mt. Carmel. It was similar to walking Lombard street in SF but this was much worse. and way harder.
However I did wind up meeting this incredibly nice sweet young couple from Tel Aviv who were just hanging out in Haifa being touristy for the day. Aviv is an Israeli Indian whose family is Jewish and from Mumbai and Oksana is a Russian immigrant (Gorka!) She used to intern in Haifa and pointed out a few things and we talked for a while as we walked to the German Colony and they asked if I wanted to sit and have a beer which sounded perfect so I did. Sometimes the best thing about traveling is all the great people you meet along the way.
We talked for a while and then Oksana suggested we take a taxi to the Carmel beach and watch the sunset while having a fruit smoothie. I had never heard of a better plan than that and off we went. I can't think of a better ending to a better day.