Special Israel Edition

Today’s plans were scrapped in favor of a more relaxed schedule and some time to have some time. It was a simple day actually, Dave and Mary Jo went with Rena to visit areas of Tel Aviv and Jaffa, and Ahna, Ezra, and I went to have lunch with my Grandmother….but it wasn’t that ‘normal.’

We used the opportunity to meet up with one of my Mom’s long-time friends, and fellow tennis player, Paulina. You may remember Paulina’s husband, Eli, from previous postings about this trip. Paulina and my Mom went from Israel together to the US to play tennis, and the person who helped arrange the first trip to a camp in Pennsylvaia was someone named Marcy. Marcy happened to be in Israel for a family event, and we happened to have the opportunity to have her join us for lunch today. It was a special thing to meet the person responsible for brining my Mom to the US, and therefore everything else that has happened since then. Marcy and Paulina are both wonderful people, and it was a pleasure to share a meal with them today.

Special Israel Edition

Tuesday morning was a moment of sleeping-in…we didn’t get back from Jerusalem until after midnight, so we postponed our scheduled departure time a few hours. We left the house at 1030am, and headed towards the south…2.5 hours worth of heading towards the south, and smack into the middle of the Negev Desert. We were headed for my cousin’s – Gil – house at a military base. He and his family have lived there for 5 years, so it was Ahna and my second visit to the area. There is a certain beauty and mysticism that the desert holds, and more importantly a certain weather pattern that keeps the temperature much nicer than in the big cities.

Along the way, we stopped at a place called Mitspe Ramon, a city located at the northern edge of a gigantic crater. We walked along the edge of the crater, then went to the visitor center for some lunch. As we were enjoying our meal, another family sat at the table next to us and something caught my eye – a tshirt that one of them was wearing. As it turns out, the family was from Colorado, and the guy wearing the shirt (which was for the Littleton Dive/Rescue Team) is a firefighter in Littleton. Wow. We chatted for a while, shared some stories of our current trips around the country, and wished each other safe travels.

We got to Gil and Dafna’s house at about 3pm, and enjoyed a nice afternoon, a tour of the base, and a wonderful cookout dinner in their backyard. Some of us also enjoyed a little ping-pong and tried to keep the competitive spirits at bay. It was great to spend the evening with them, we just wish that it was for a lot longer than it was. We made the drive back to Ramat Hasharon safetly, and again arrived late. Tomorrow should be a little more reasonably scheduled….

Special Israel Edition

Today was a little more laid back and allowed for the ability to catch up on some sleep. We started the day with a nice breakfast on the beach, followed by Ahna and I escaping everything for about 15 minutes and strolling down the seaside for a ways. After a couple of Ezra-sized naps, we hit the road for a very unique experience: to see Jerusalem lit up at night. This was the first time ever, and it has lasted for a week, with tomorrow night being the last night. We stopped at an Arab village just outside of Jerusalem for dinner – which was great – and enjoyed some dishes from Lebanon, Iraq, and Israel.

When we approached Jerusalem, there was a very quick realization that there were going to be a few more people than expected joining us in the Old City….it took us 40 minutes to go through a stretch of space that should take about 5. The flocks of people were unbelievable, and my amateur estimation put the number of people in the 75,000+ range. Of course that makes for difficult passage in streets and alleyways that were never designed to hold that number of people. There was even one point where so many people were trying to get through such a small space that it took nearly 15 minutes of pushing, being pushed, and loads of patients to walk through something that soccer crowds in England would boast about. Overall it was neat to be able to see the Old City at nighttime, and to be part of something that has never happened before in a place where everything has happened before.

Special Israel Edition

The second day that we had with Eli took us to the northern part of the country. We met him this morning at the ancient ruins of Ceasaria, which was built by Herrod The Great a few years ago. At one point the city was a huge port that funneled spices and silk from the Far East to Europe, and it became even larger than Alexandria in Egypt. It was a beautiful site on the seashore that gave us hope of a day of cooler temperatures and nice breezes.

The next stops were in the area of Israel known as the Lower Galilee, and our first of these took us to Nazareth and the Church of the Annunciation. Following that, we went to the supposed site of Jesus’ baptism, then to Capernaum (the ‘Town of Jesus’), and finally to the Church of the Beatitudes – where Jesus delivered the Sermon On The Mount. Ah, back to the hope that we experienced in Ceasaria….it lasted until our first stop, then faded quickly. You see, the Sea of the Galilee is 700+ feet below sea level…which results in really hot temperatures, especially compared to the gentle morning air of the seashore. Just like yesterday, pants were the required attire…if it’s 90 tomorrow, shorts will make it feel flat out chilly. Or not.

Today was the last day that we will see Eli on this trip as he returns to work with some new clients this week. As mentioned yesterday, there is no way that we could ever thank him enough for the sacrifice that he made to spend some time with us…it really was a remarkable, educational, and energizing experience. Thanks Eli!

Special Israel Edition

It was a nice day today…nice because the weather was good, nice because there was much resting going on, nice because we went to lunch at the best falafel stand in the world, and nice because we had a great dinner tonight. I suppose that the majority of the day is fairly self explanitory, so I’ll skip straight to the dinner.

Rena arranged for a dinner celebration that was three parts: 1 – Ezra’s 1st birthday. 2 – Guy’s 7th birthday. and 3 – Savta’s 90th birthday. They all happen within just a few days of each other, so it was really nice to get together with family and have a great dinner by the seashore.

SPECIAL ISRAEL EDITION

Well, Israel precisely. And that travel time was mostly by design…4 hour plane flight from Denver to New York City, then almost 24 hours in New York City, then 12 hours to Tel Aviv. Actually my math was wrong – that’s more than 40 hours.

We have made plane flights similar in length to the Den-Nyc trip before, so nothing major to report there. We planed a layover in NYC to break up the long trip for Ezra (really for ourselves), and booked a hotel at the airport – by the way, the Fairfield Inn JFK is a really nice place to stay if you ever need a hotel there.

The morning of the 10th, we had planned on going into Manhattan for a while, but after doing some math, realized that we would only get to spend about 45 minutes down there – no worries, we went anyway. We took the subway from the airport all of the way to lower Manhattan and walked to Ground Zero. The subway ride was entertaining, since we started in Queens, went all of the way through Brooklyn, and ended in Manhattan…and the riders of the train seemed to change with each borough.

We were able to walk to the “10 House,” which is the FDNY station that sits literally at the base of the former WTC buildings. While there, we spent some time at the bronze memorial to the fallen FDNY members that lines the side of their firehouse. It was the first time for either of us to be at Ground Zero, and the emotion of the moment was as real as I imagined. I think that it’s almost cliche to say that we were most struck by the size of the emptiness.

After a subway ride back, a short nap for Ezra, and a short trip back to the airport, we met up with Dave and Mary Jo – our travel partners for the trip to Israel. They have not previously had the opportunity to go, and we thought that it would be really cool to experience it with them sometime…so it worked out that this was the trip.

We boarded the plane with little difficulty from security (which is a story from the previous trips on El Al that we will be glad to share with you in person sometime), but with some confusion over Ezra’s seat…which we though had been booked as a separate seat, but turns out that he was listed as a lap child….a lap child for 12 hours overnight….oh boy. We did manage to block out a seat between Ahna and I and we kept our fingers crossed that they didn’t assign someone else to it – it worked, we were able to get on the plane with Ezra’s car seat and were able to keep the seat between us for him.

Ezra fell asleep for the first 45 mintues of the flight, but then awoke for the next three to four hours, during which he absolutely refused to sleep…mostly because there was way too much to look at. He finally fell alseep after the dinner service, and when they turned out the lights, and he stayed asleep for pretty much the rest of the flight (except for the last hour to so).

I got to thinking that airplanes and casinos must have hired the same person for some consultation on the overnight periods….because they both do a great job of setting the environment to be such that you have no concept of time: from the lighting, to the movies, to the services at any hour, it really is hard to know if you should be going to sleep or eating breakfast.

We got into Israel in the middle of the afternoon and were met at the airport by Yuval and Rena. We went back to Rena’s apartment for some rest, then to my grandmother’s  – Savta in Hebrew – apartment for some light dinner. We all retired for the night, and slept for a good 10 hours…we might have beat the jet lag in one night….yea, right….