Mitzpe Ramon and the Best Birthday Ever!

When we travel, whether it be a short weekend trip or an extended getaway, the one thing we tend to always cheap out on is the hotel room.  (Oh, yeah, and the flight, too.  No economy seat is too good for us, no sir.)  Our philosophy is that the room is just for sleeping, so why spend unnecessary amounts of money on something you're barely going to look at?

My last birthday was the exception that has made us see the light.

When we lived in Guadalajara, we always spent TJ's birthday weekend in Puerto Vallarta, while my cumpleaños always seemed to be represented by a peaceful weekend at home.  TJ decided that, this time around, my birthday would receive the getaway treatment.  But where to go?

Several of our coworkers had already taken weekend trips to, and raved about, the Beresheet Hotel in Mitzpe Ramon.  And that's just where we spent the weekend of March 21st-23rd.

The Beresheet Hotel is part of the Isrotel Exclusive Collection, which basically means it's one of the chain's more exquisite offerings (and future weekend trips would sadly prove that hotels not in the Exclusive Colleciton were…not so exquisite…).  

The amazing accommodations featured a comfy queen bed and a full living room...

and a private infinity pool!!!

The hotel featured two delicious Kosher restaurants; The Lobby Bar offers a selection light dairy meals, while the Rosemary Restaurant offers a gourmet meat buffet. 

Beautiful, right?  Now, I'm not sure why I know anything about this town beyond what was to be found at the hotel, but we somehow managed to drag ourselves away for a bit of sightseeing and exploring.

The hotel is located on the edge of the towering cliffs that slope down into Makhtesh Ramon, a crater running 24 miles long, 5 miles wide, and 1600 feet deep. which was the next stop after Moa on the old Nabatean Spice Route.  The term "crater" is a bit of a misnomer, as such language would indicate that this land formation was the result of a meteor impact.  Instead, this makhtesh (the world's largest) was created by erosion.  A geological landform unique to Israel's Negev desert, a makhtesh has steep walls of resistant rock surrounding a deep closed valley.   

We awoke bright and early on Saturday morning and took in the breathtaking sight of sunrise over the makhtesh.  The world transformed before our eyes, rapidly changing from black, to purple, to blue, yellow, and orange.  

Following the sunrise and some serious caffeine infusion, we headed over ot the Mitzpe Ramon Desert Sculpture Park, located conveniently right beside the hotel.  Just like it sounds, this is basically a park, located in the desert, that has the occasional sculpture thrown about for good measure.  I don't believe we managed to navigate the entirety of the park, but we got the gist.  And now, so have you!

Making our way back toward the hotel, nature provide a perfect segue into our next activity.  Standing next to a sculpture was an Ibex mother and her kids.  

Now, being wild, aggressive animals with pointy horns, we opted not to pet them.  

But we DID pet the animals at the Mitzpe Ramon Alpaca Farm!  Would you just look at that segue!  BAM!  This seemed like a good use of time, as we love petting fluffy animals, and TJ had been a fan of alpacas since his trip to Ecuador.  I'm not sure what I expected, but it should have been a rundown family operated farm filled with filthy alpacas, llamas, and camels that wanted nothing more than to spit on me.  Don't take that as a criticism, as it was a lot of fun and an excellent use of time.  

I was happy to, after six months living in the Middle East, finally interact with a camel...

while TJ was overjoyed to have met Carol Channing.

  

We concluded our day with some exploration of the makhtesh itself before heading back to the hotel for more swimming, eating, and living in temporary luxury.  The crater and surrounding area forms Israel's largest national park, the Ramon Nature Reserve.

Ha-Minsara (The Caprentry Shop)

The next morning was filled with even more swimming, eating (I'm telling you, this hotel has the most amazing food), and living in temporary luxury.  I was treated to a birthday massage at the hotel's spa right before checkout.  Afterward, TJ met me in the lobby with a gift basket filled with massage oils, a tea light/aromatic oil burner, and enough oils to last until my next birthday.  

It was the best birthday of my entire life and is still my favorite weekend in Israel.  I could honestly gush about it enough to fill another post.  Maybe I will…if a certain someone would like to take me for a repeat visit next year...  

33, Part 3: Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey: Dragons

We capped off my birthday weekend with a trip to the circus.  Yes, the circus.  Cuz that's how we roll.  It was a fun day.  Better than either of us had expected, which was amazing since TJ, assuming I like all things juvenile, suggested that we go even though he didn't want to, and I, not really wanting to go either but thinking that his suggesting it meant that HE wanted to go, said yes.

The name of the show was Dragons, and the theme was that different warring tribes have come together for a competition in which they must demonstrate Strength, Courage, Wisdom, and Heart in order to release the power of the dragon within.  Sounds like a rejected premise for Captain Planet and the Planeteers, but it really was a good setup for the circus acts that followed.

We bought the nosebleed tickets because, frankly, $65 a head seemed a tad excessive for ringside seating at a "regular" circus.   Maybe if it had been Cirque du Soleil.  Maybe.

In a much appreciated move, the doors opened an hour early for ticket holders to go ringside and view the human and animal performers up close.

We got to see an elephant paint a masterpiece and then play the harmonica...

We saw some kids learning to be Kung Fu masters...

And we got these awesome clown noses.

When the show began, we grabbed our Kleenex (for the nosebleeds) and headed up top.  Picture quality diminished, but hey, what can ya do?

Spoiler Alert:  At the show's conclusion, The Planeteers succeeded in releasing the dragon. *gasp!*

All in all, it was a wonderful conclusion to a wonderful birthday weekend.  I'd do it all again in a heartbeat.  Only, can I skip the aging part next time?  No need to rush things.

33, Part 2: Madame Tussauds, Washington D.C.

I've become quite the Groupon window shopper as of late.  It happened by accident when I found myself bored at work and perusing the app store on my iPad mini early last week.  I had never gotten into the fad because TJ always likes to tell me that the only thing cheaper than buying something you don't really need because it's on sale...is just not buying it at all.  He's got a point.  Don't tell him I said that.

TJ freezes while crossing the Delaware with General George Washington, 

then gets down to brass tacks with President John Adams.

The trouble is that between his eight + hours of Arabic class and my eight hour job plus two hour commute Monday - Friday (Oh, yeah.  I quit Arabic.  Remind me to tell you about that sometime!), we find ourselves exhausted and not eager to remove our carcasses from the couch most weekends.  Finding myself in a bit of a funk, my eyes lit up when the Groupon app popped up as a recommended download.  I resolved then and there that we would make more of an effort to enjoy our weekends...and do it on the cheap! 

I go sass-for-sass with Teddy Roosevelt, then give John Quincy Adams a peep show

...he does not look amused. 

"Um.  I don't know how to tell you this, but...um..."

Using my birthday as the perfect excuse to make my first Groupon purchase, I selected two half-off admissions to Madame Tussauds for Saturday morning.  It's something I've always wanted to do here in D.C., but TJ has been reluctant.  I visited the New York location over Thanksgiving break during my (first) senior year in college and thoroughly enjoyed myself.  I was eager to see what this branch had to offer, but, when you live in a city with free museums galore, it's kind of hard to convince someone to pay for one.  Yay, Groupon!

The plan had been to spend the morning at Madame Tussauds followed by an afternoon walking amongst the Cherry Blossoms and capped off with dinner at our favorite restaurant, Texas de Brazil, which had sent me a buy one, get one free coupon in honor of my birthday.  Look at all of that BOGOing, folks!  We should be on Extreme Couponing!

Unfortunately, the cherry blossoms hadn't bloomed yet, despite multiple websites informing me that this was supposed to be the beginning of the peak time.  Whatevs.  We'll go next weekend.  Then I realized that the coupon for Texas de Brazil was only good Sun-Fri.  Now, we could have gone and paid full price, but it's the principle of the matter, folks.  I'm gonna save that puppy for another day. 

I entered a staring competition with J. Edgar Hoover;

Meanwhile, TJ helped Bob Woodward investigate the Watergate scandal.

"I'm king of the world!"

We're adaptable guys, so adjustments were quickly made.  In the end, our day consisted of  Madame Tussauds, lunchtime appetizers and mojitos at the Hard Rock Cafe (Which I effin' LOVE, by the way.  I think that anybody that says they don't like the HRC either hasn't tasted the food or simply doesn't like the concept of such a place.  Haters.), and a delicious home cooked Italian dinner accompanied by wine and Wreck-it-Ralph.  Yeah.  I can dig it.  I thought it was a pretty awesome day, all told.

Work it, girls!