Mastering the art of Kosher Cooking: The Swiss Girls

Did I ever tell the story about the Swiss Girls who we met at the Dead Sea in Israel? I don't think that I did, because I don't think that I told many stories at all about Israel. Our stolen luggage really soured the trip more than I wanted it to, and that tends to be what I focus on when recalling our time there. But we have some great stories, and this is one of them.

Okay, so here's the story:

Richard and I went to the Dead Sea after a long hike in Ein Gedi. We were on our way back to the hostel in Masada and saw two girls sitting in the bus shelter at the side of the road. Richard slowed the car down (he admitted afterward that it was because he was trying to figure out why they were sitting in a bus shelter in the middle of the desert) and they walked over to us. Realizing that we had just unintentionally offered to give them a lift, we asked where they were going and they told us that they were headed to the same hostel as us. So we picked them up and drove them to the hostel, and when we got there and the kitchen was closed we invited them to come into a nearby town with us to get some dinner.

Rebekka spoke better English than Miriam, so she did most of the talking. They were visiting her cousin who lives in Jerusalem and decided to go on a day trip on the bus, which was how they ended up at the Dead Sea. They were going to Jerusalem on the same day as us, so we offered to give them a lift. We told them about our stolen luggage and they said that they'd wake us up for our 4am hike up Masada because they had an alarm clock and we didn't.

So we hiked up Masada the next day with the Swiss Girls and then later that day we drove to Jerusalem with the Swiss Girls. Richard impressed them with his knowledge of German (which he learned from Baba Luba, who speaks Yiddish), and they taught us some funny words in Swiss German. The Pope was in Jerusalem that day and traffic was terrible. We finally pulled into the first parking lot we found and parked there. Miriam got so excited when she got out of the car: We were parked in front of the Swiss Embassy! She went over and talked to them and they promised to keep an eye on our car for us.

We parted ways with the girls shortly after that. They took a bus to Rebekka's cousin's place. Before they left they tried to give us money, which we refused because it didn't cost us anything to help them out and we enjoyed their company too much to feel that they were a burden in any way. Miriam told us "You saved us! We're going to send you SO MUCH Swiss chocolate!"

Today, Richard called me at work to say that he got a big package in the mail. When he opened it there was SO MUCH Swiss chocolate inside!