Postcards from the Edge

I haven't been able to make anything new this week. I've been mostly out of town or out for dinner. Therefore, I decided to post some pictures of places I've been to recently.

Weizmann Institute Tour. 

As part of our program, we recently had a tour of the Weizmann Institute. The campus is rather spread and large, and the tour was long and exhausting. However, the history of the institute is very rich and interesting.

The first stop was the Seiff Laboratory, which was the first building devoted for research. This was done before the Weizmann Institute even existed. There, Chaim Weizmann himself conducted his experiments and research. They have turned his laboratory into a small museum.

Weizmann's Laboratories in the Seiff Building.

 We also had a nice view of the (old) particle accelerator in the Physics department. We did not go there.

Particle accelerator.

 And finally we went to the Garden of Science, which is an outdoors science museum open to the public (but not for free). It features a lot of fun and cool experiments that are easily explained by well-known scientific facts. Most of them related to either optics or physics in general. Nonetheless, it's worth a walk.

Entrance to the Garden of Science.

Paper Festival, Rehovot.

For some reason, Rehovot decided to host a paper festival this year. The festival took place on a big public park near the main shopping mall of the city. It featured many artists that presented their works on paper. Naturally, this exhibition was for them to showcase the products they sell. It also had some entertainment for little kids.

A big fish made out of paper. There were plenty of animals like this out there.

An Israeli Flag made of paper

Alice, from Alice in Wonderland

A giant paper flower embedded on an actual tree.

Mitzpe Ramon.
Mitzpe Ramon is a small city in the south of Israel.

What is so special about it? It has a unique natural crater. That is to say, a crater that was formed by the Earth's geological processes.

It is also in the middle of the desert and offers many hiking routes for those who are adventurous and fearless.

In addition, it has the largest alpaca farm in the world outside of South America. Basically, they exported alpacas from Peru and somehow got them to adapt to the different weather.

Finally, it also has a small museum dedicated to the memory of the first Israeli Astronaut, Ilan Ramon. Unfortunately, he passed away (along with six other American astronauts) during the landing of the Columbia expedition. Interestingly enough, he changed his last name to Ramon because he really loved the desert and the crater in Mitzpe Ramon. So that's part of the reason they have a museum there.

I will just finish the post with a collection of pictures from the landscapes in the desert. Here they are:

A view form the top of the crater.

A camel, kneeling down.

A view from the top of a small hill we climbed on our Friday hike.

A view  from this place called 'the carpentry' in the middle of the crater.

Until the next post (with pictures of food, hopefully)!