Eilat - Day 3

Another day in paradise :) The Eilat aquarium is fantastic. It's very small -- you could walk end to end in under 5 minutes - but they pack a lot into that small space. Of course, they have excellent raw material to work with, given the setting. The jewel of the place is the underwater observatory. You walk down about 3 meters under the surface of the water into the midst of a coral reef. Windows on all sides look out on an even greater variety of sea life than we saw 

yesterday while snorkeling. All 5 of us hated to leave this amazing spot. We also loved watching the oyster opening (she found a pearl!), the shark feeding and the turtle feeding, the big kids liked the shark movie and Sylvia liked the playground. The regular aquarium exhibits (mostly focusing on Red Sea species) were quite good too. All in all a very impressive place. (And I have to mention the excellent customer service we got there, especially in the little cafe), easily the best we've had in Israel, where "service 

with a smile" is really not a widespread notion.  

Spotted on the way out of the aquarium

After the aquarium, we drove south a minute or two to "touch" the Egyptian border (we've driven to all of the countries that border Israel, except for Syria - whose border we saw from a reasonable distance) and then set out on a very important errand. We came to Israel with a good supply of pacifiers for Sylvia - or so we thought. At home, she really only used them to sleep, but since her schedule is so off, and a nap can come at any time, we've been letting her use them more and more. As we have traveled around Israel, she has dropped them in inaccessible places (construction zones, archeological sites, under boardwalks) and in a few cases, bitten holes in them. We apparently grossly underestimated how many we would need. We had looked around a bit for "her" brand, but they don't sell them here. So, we've been talking up how cool it would be to get a new paci, a pink paci, Sylvia decided. So, we set out today, fingers crossed that we would find a paci about the same shape as her old kind, and pink, in a city we don't know at all, other than the beach. We started driving up toward what we vaguely knew to be the commercial district. And, this land is truly blessed with miracles, because after driving for about two minutes, I looked up and saw on the hill, I kid you not, a store called "Pacifiers!" ("Motzaytzim" - a word I happened to have learned while we were staying with our pen pal family in Manot). It was an Israeli style Babies R Us, and they had a pink paci (and bonus, a purple one) that has led to one successful nap, and is in the process of bringing us a good night sleep!

Sylvia discovers that she can slide
down the little ramp in the pool

Mission completed, we dropped the car off at the hostel and walked over to the Hilton Hotel. We had called earlier, mentioned our Hilton Gold card and asked if we could use the pool, and somewhat to our surprise, they said sure. We stopped by the front desk, picked up some towel passes, and enjoyed several hours of swimming in the beautiful cool water, while the temperature on the big thermometer read 42 degrees C (about 108 - though it definitely felt cooler).

And learns how to go under water and
hold her breath! (she was obviously
getting tips from the fish at the
aquarium)

We came back to the hostel for a last picnic dinner with the amazing view of the Jordanian mountains (enhanced tonight by the almost full moon), and packed strategically in order to leave some things behind at the hostel when we leave for Jordan tomorrow morning.

And the big kids get in on the fun!