We were both awake before the alarm this morning. So even though we had time for an extra half hour of sleep, we were up. We had Shabbat breakfast which meant that there was only mostly cold food and no omelet station. The rule is no work, which primarily seems to mean you can't push a button. Like the Shabbat elevator, which is set to just run up and down opening and closing at every floor for the entire 24+ hour period. So, there were people working but supposedly not observant Jews. It was fine. Hopefully they charge less for Shabbat breakfast than regular, but who knows.
The bus left at 9:30am for Masada. On the way we went through West Bank territory, which was just a check point and past Jericho and Qumran.We also passed a lot of Bedouin "encampments". We've seen these in other Mideast countries and they were large tents that looked like they moved around. These looked like shacks and sheds and plastic covered huts. It didn't look like they moved them around, but they hardly looked permanent either. Jericho we were told is the place with the longest continuous human inhabitation. Qumran is where the caves with the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. Masada also has a long history but has been mostly abandoned since a 1st century siege that ended tragically. We saw the remains of Herod's construction there which was the same time frame as Caesarea. The Jews who died there later did not built, but just moved in and modified Herod's buildings. It was impressive. We were glad for the cable car up and down! Especially after yesterday, we'd have never survived the 1000 ft. or so elevation climb and descent. Talk about stairs!
The Dead Sea is the lowest place on earth. The Jordan River that we saw in the Golan Heights in the North runs through the Sea of Galilee and I suppose just ends in the Dead Sea. I mean if it is the earth's lowest point, how could the water get out. As I understand it, it just evaporates. The Dead Sea is receding and is now in 2 separate parts connected by a manmade canal. We drove by both parts and stopped for lunch and bathing at Ein Bokek or En Boqeq at the Hod Hotel. Our package gave us all a towel pass at the hotel to be used to change clothes, shower and use the spa's hydro-facilities. We didn't but just accessed the beach through there and walked along the shore and back. On a clear day, you can see Jordan, but not today.
At 3pm, we drove back to Jerusalem. We got back about 4:30pm or so. We ate the snacks we'd collected about 5pm and finished our 2 liter Coke Zero. We have to meet in the lobby in about 20 minutes to walk to our evening light show that the entire group opted in to do. I'll post this now and expect to go to bed after we return. If I have anything else to report, I'll do it tomorrow. Today was an easy day touring wise. I personally had a hard day. My right leg felt like lead and I had to drag it along. Not an easy day for me, but it would have been a real nightmare yesterday.
Oh yes, last news. We got an Air Canada email and our bid to upgrade to Business Class on Monday was unsuccessful so it will be Premium Economy for us for 12 hours. So sad for us!
Hooray! The lights just came on! Shabbat is over.
Photos
Little Bob hits the road
Little Bob hits the road
Saturday, February 10, 2018
Friday, February 9, 2018
Day of 1000 stairs
I don't think I'm exaggerating, If anything, my 1000 stair estimate may be conservative. We were up and down all kinds of stairs all day long. Old Jerusalem touring is not for sissies.
I was up early, before the 6am alarm sounded. I had explosive diarrhea last night with cramps and gas. It hit with a wave of dizziness and nausea about an hour before the lecture. I may have not appeciated the lecture as much as I should have because of that, but Clay didn't seem too thrilled either. Anyway, I am not sure that either of us learned anything new or formed any new opinions or impressions of Israel as a result of the lecture. After the lecture, given my condition, we just went to the Lobby Bar for their snack menu. I didn't want much. We ordered a cheese pizza to share with a beer and a Coke Zero. It was good and the perfect amount of food. It was also crazy overpriced. My small glass bottle of Coke Zero was $5.50 USD. After dinner, we walked one block uphill after turning right out of the hotel door and hit a small supermarket, more like a convenience store. We bought a 2 liter bottle of Coke Zero for a fraction of the cost. We also bought a bag of chips and a box of chocolate cookies. We were laying supplies for the onset of Shabbat. We've had dire warnings about restaurants being closed and requiring reservations for those that aren't. We won't go hungry now.
The buffet breakfast this morning was good and came with a view overlooking the old walled city. Ori asked on the bus this morning if anyone had a room with that view. NO! Anyway, I learned at breakfast that I was still in intestinal distress. I finally broke down and took 2 loperamide when we came back to the room to brush our teeth. Good news is it worked! Hopefully it will wear off naturally but we'll be home within 4 days anyway. This was always a short trip, but it is flying by.
At 8am, the bus departed for the Mount of Olives. We had bus number 3 today as Misha's bus couldn't climb hills yesterday. We can't remember today's driver's name but it isn't clear if we'll finish the trip with him or not. We only spent a couple of hours today with him. From our vantage atop Mount of Olives, we could see an overview of many important Christian sites. We saw where "Jesus wept." Where Peter denied Christ 3 times before the cock crowed. Where Jesus was crucified. Where the Ark of the Covenant was once kept. Where the Last Supper was held. Where Pontius Pilate tried and sentenced Christ. The 2nd of 2 places where the Virgin Mary is said to have died. The list went on and on. It was astounding but the atmosphere was of a carnival. There were people selling trinkets and photo opps on camel and white donkeys. It seemed surreal and disrespectful.
We loaded the bus again and drove back to the Dung Gate of the Old City. We went first to the Western Wall because our guide in the Davidson Centre had not arrived. The Western Wall is also known as the Wailing Wall. It is an outside base layer close to where the Ark of the Covenant was once stored and therefore thought to be a place to be close to God. We had to divide by sex to go through security to go there. Then we had to divide by sex again to approach the wall. The men get the wall on the other side of room that held the Ten Commandments, the women get a smaller section further away from the holiness. Men have to cover their heads and women don't. Clay got a souvenir yarmulke or kippah. The tradition is to touch the wall and pray and to write a prayer and fold it up and place it on the wall or in a crack. Clay said he put his hand on it. The women though were packed in 3 and 4 deep at the wall and we only had a short time allowed there. I got to be 2 back from the wall and reached in between 2 women who were standing touching the wall to set my prayer paper on a ledge. The woman to my right evidently didn't like that and elbowed me. I hadn't touched her! Since women were sitting on chairs in front of the first row of standing women reaching over them, I didn't think I was breaching etiquette. Anyway, I got out of there after that and got taken for a shekel at the free ladies room. At 10:45am, we all regrouped and walked back to try the Davidson Centre again. Our guide was not organized and though he knew a lot, he didn't communicate it very effectively. The good news was that the half hour of our lives that he wasted sitting in the dark in a sub-basement was at least dark and cool and quiet. But we were here, and it seemed silly to sit looking at computer simulations when the real thing was outside and above us. Anyway. It seemed that was the low point of the tour for the group. It wasn't just us. We came back outside in time to hear the muezzin call to prayer for Muslims. We had to go through the security checkpoint again. We walked across a good portion of the Old City for the rest of the day. We were warned to take water and our belongings when we left the bus at 10am or so that we wouldn't be back until afternoon. It isn't clear why then since we exited through the Jaffa Gate which we've been told is a 5 to 15 minute walk from our David Citadel Hotel. Here is a map that might help. So as the call for noon prayer was sounding and the noon church bells were ringing, we began the Via Doloroso and the Stations of the Cross. This was not on our itinerary, though Ori had mentioned it when he was pointing things out from the Mount of Olives. It was a surprise. A good one. We started at 3 since 1 and 2 are not accessible according to Ori. We went through 8 I think before we stopped for lunch at about 1pm. It was the latest we've had lunch and it was a hard walk with all the stairs and cobblestones and blazing sunshine and crowds. People seemed stressed. It didn't help that lunch was sidewalk seating at a shwarma/falafel stand. We were fine with it. It wasn't as good as the shwarma we had in Tel Aviv though. After lunch, we went to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to finish the Stations of the Cross. The carnival atmosphere picked up again here. It did not feel sacred. I was surprised. It was a super crowded noisy maze. I'm glad we went, but what a mess. After a near revolt by about half the group over Ori refusing to stop for souvenirs or shopping of any kind, and after Mick had promised it to them, Mick yanked Ori aside and insisted. We got 15 minutes in a market area. Ori first derided the experience and described something like a long ago Turkish market. They stopped doing that even in Turkey and nothing like that was seen by us. I don't know what his deal is about riding us for spending our time in Israel in toilets or souvenir shops. What difference should it make to him if that is what happens. People, especially old people, go to the bathroom alot and enjoy shopping. I finally found an Israel flag patch in the last shop I checked. So, I'm done!
We rode the bus a long and circuituous route to arrive back at the hotel around 4:30pm. One of the women on our tour had shown me her free H. Stern charm from the voucher with our hotel keycards and told us where to find the store. I have another H. Stern charm from Manaus and I wanted to get mine. I had the voucher in my purse so hoping to beat the Shabbat shutdown, we went straight to the mall across the street to find it all shut down already. We had been told it would be about 5:15pm but it was earlier. We went ahead and walked all the way back to the David Tower to find the store for later reference. It looks like maybe Sunday afternoon on our last day.
We walked straight on to the Mandarin Chinese restaurant that Clay had found near our hotel that would be open as non-kosher on Shabbat. We walked through a bunch of open pubs and coffee shops on our way there as well as past an Italian place named Cielo that would open at 6:30pm. We were inside Mandarin and upstairs eating when we heard the citywide sirens sounding to give the 5 minute warning that Shabbat was beginning. Clay had to make 2 trips up the stairs because Mandarin didn't accept credit cards. He had to go to an ATM across the street. The Chinese food was good. It was a nice change. We got back to find that our setting the AC Shabbat settings per directions had left our AC running, but the lights being out was a problem. The bedside reading lights worked and the maid had left the bathroom lights on so we won't touch that switch all night to have light in there for showers in the morning. According to the hotel guide, the outlets should still work, but all the lamps have wall switches and since we didn't leave them turned on before we left, we can't use them now. The closet lights come on when the doors are opened which the hotel guide wouldn't work with the overhead lights. The elevators work and the hall lights are on. The lights are on in the ice machine room and the ice maker works. The TV works as do our tablets, so the dark is the only issue.
Tomorrow we visit Masada, the Dead Sea and in the evening Ori suggested we all go to an evening show at 55 shekels each. I think everyone took him up on that. Shabbat should end about 8:15pm tomorrow. The show is at 6:30pm, I think. Mick told us right before we got off the bus that tomorrow the tour would provide everyone of us a ticket to some kind of Dead Sea bathing, so to either bring a swimsuit or buy one in the hotel tonight. We didn't bring or buy swimsuits and neither of us would be seen in one any way. He didn't really explain what was happening tomorrow so if you can't just take off your shoes and roll up your pants to test the water, I'm not sure what we'll be doing while bathing is happening. Mick told us we'd all be impressed by Masada and they both think we'll all be impressed by the evening show. It will be another long day. We'll be ready to go home on Monday and just wish it wasn't such a long flight! We still haven't heard from Mick about our airport transfers which we prepaid for when we bought the tour. We have our fingers crossed that our Air Canada BC upgrade bids are accepted too! We won't know before 48 hours.
Photos
I was up early, before the 6am alarm sounded. I had explosive diarrhea last night with cramps and gas. It hit with a wave of dizziness and nausea about an hour before the lecture. I may have not appeciated the lecture as much as I should have because of that, but Clay didn't seem too thrilled either. Anyway, I am not sure that either of us learned anything new or formed any new opinions or impressions of Israel as a result of the lecture. After the lecture, given my condition, we just went to the Lobby Bar for their snack menu. I didn't want much. We ordered a cheese pizza to share with a beer and a Coke Zero. It was good and the perfect amount of food. It was also crazy overpriced. My small glass bottle of Coke Zero was $5.50 USD. After dinner, we walked one block uphill after turning right out of the hotel door and hit a small supermarket, more like a convenience store. We bought a 2 liter bottle of Coke Zero for a fraction of the cost. We also bought a bag of chips and a box of chocolate cookies. We were laying supplies for the onset of Shabbat. We've had dire warnings about restaurants being closed and requiring reservations for those that aren't. We won't go hungry now.
The buffet breakfast this morning was good and came with a view overlooking the old walled city. Ori asked on the bus this morning if anyone had a room with that view. NO! Anyway, I learned at breakfast that I was still in intestinal distress. I finally broke down and took 2 loperamide when we came back to the room to brush our teeth. Good news is it worked! Hopefully it will wear off naturally but we'll be home within 4 days anyway. This was always a short trip, but it is flying by.
At 8am, the bus departed for the Mount of Olives. We had bus number 3 today as Misha's bus couldn't climb hills yesterday. We can't remember today's driver's name but it isn't clear if we'll finish the trip with him or not. We only spent a couple of hours today with him. From our vantage atop Mount of Olives, we could see an overview of many important Christian sites. We saw where "Jesus wept." Where Peter denied Christ 3 times before the cock crowed. Where Jesus was crucified. Where the Ark of the Covenant was once kept. Where the Last Supper was held. Where Pontius Pilate tried and sentenced Christ. The 2nd of 2 places where the Virgin Mary is said to have died. The list went on and on. It was astounding but the atmosphere was of a carnival. There were people selling trinkets and photo opps on camel and white donkeys. It seemed surreal and disrespectful.
We loaded the bus again and drove back to the Dung Gate of the Old City. We went first to the Western Wall because our guide in the Davidson Centre had not arrived. The Western Wall is also known as the Wailing Wall. It is an outside base layer close to where the Ark of the Covenant was once stored and therefore thought to be a place to be close to God. We had to divide by sex to go through security to go there. Then we had to divide by sex again to approach the wall. The men get the wall on the other side of room that held the Ten Commandments, the women get a smaller section further away from the holiness. Men have to cover their heads and women don't. Clay got a souvenir yarmulke or kippah. The tradition is to touch the wall and pray and to write a prayer and fold it up and place it on the wall or in a crack. Clay said he put his hand on it. The women though were packed in 3 and 4 deep at the wall and we only had a short time allowed there. I got to be 2 back from the wall and reached in between 2 women who were standing touching the wall to set my prayer paper on a ledge. The woman to my right evidently didn't like that and elbowed me. I hadn't touched her! Since women were sitting on chairs in front of the first row of standing women reaching over them, I didn't think I was breaching etiquette. Anyway, I got out of there after that and got taken for a shekel at the free ladies room. At 10:45am, we all regrouped and walked back to try the Davidson Centre again. Our guide was not organized and though he knew a lot, he didn't communicate it very effectively. The good news was that the half hour of our lives that he wasted sitting in the dark in a sub-basement was at least dark and cool and quiet. But we were here, and it seemed silly to sit looking at computer simulations when the real thing was outside and above us. Anyway. It seemed that was the low point of the tour for the group. It wasn't just us. We came back outside in time to hear the muezzin call to prayer for Muslims. We had to go through the security checkpoint again. We walked across a good portion of the Old City for the rest of the day. We were warned to take water and our belongings when we left the bus at 10am or so that we wouldn't be back until afternoon. It isn't clear why then since we exited through the Jaffa Gate which we've been told is a 5 to 15 minute walk from our David Citadel Hotel. Here is a map that might help. So as the call for noon prayer was sounding and the noon church bells were ringing, we began the Via Doloroso and the Stations of the Cross. This was not on our itinerary, though Ori had mentioned it when he was pointing things out from the Mount of Olives. It was a surprise. A good one. We started at 3 since 1 and 2 are not accessible according to Ori. We went through 8 I think before we stopped for lunch at about 1pm. It was the latest we've had lunch and it was a hard walk with all the stairs and cobblestones and blazing sunshine and crowds. People seemed stressed. It didn't help that lunch was sidewalk seating at a shwarma/falafel stand. We were fine with it. It wasn't as good as the shwarma we had in Tel Aviv though. After lunch, we went to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to finish the Stations of the Cross. The carnival atmosphere picked up again here. It did not feel sacred. I was surprised. It was a super crowded noisy maze. I'm glad we went, but what a mess. After a near revolt by about half the group over Ori refusing to stop for souvenirs or shopping of any kind, and after Mick had promised it to them, Mick yanked Ori aside and insisted. We got 15 minutes in a market area. Ori first derided the experience and described something like a long ago Turkish market. They stopped doing that even in Turkey and nothing like that was seen by us. I don't know what his deal is about riding us for spending our time in Israel in toilets or souvenir shops. What difference should it make to him if that is what happens. People, especially old people, go to the bathroom alot and enjoy shopping. I finally found an Israel flag patch in the last shop I checked. So, I'm done!
We rode the bus a long and circuituous route to arrive back at the hotel around 4:30pm. One of the women on our tour had shown me her free H. Stern charm from the voucher with our hotel keycards and told us where to find the store. I have another H. Stern charm from Manaus and I wanted to get mine. I had the voucher in my purse so hoping to beat the Shabbat shutdown, we went straight to the mall across the street to find it all shut down already. We had been told it would be about 5:15pm but it was earlier. We went ahead and walked all the way back to the David Tower to find the store for later reference. It looks like maybe Sunday afternoon on our last day.
We walked straight on to the Mandarin Chinese restaurant that Clay had found near our hotel that would be open as non-kosher on Shabbat. We walked through a bunch of open pubs and coffee shops on our way there as well as past an Italian place named Cielo that would open at 6:30pm. We were inside Mandarin and upstairs eating when we heard the citywide sirens sounding to give the 5 minute warning that Shabbat was beginning. Clay had to make 2 trips up the stairs because Mandarin didn't accept credit cards. He had to go to an ATM across the street. The Chinese food was good. It was a nice change. We got back to find that our setting the AC Shabbat settings per directions had left our AC running, but the lights being out was a problem. The bedside reading lights worked and the maid had left the bathroom lights on so we won't touch that switch all night to have light in there for showers in the morning. According to the hotel guide, the outlets should still work, but all the lamps have wall switches and since we didn't leave them turned on before we left, we can't use them now. The closet lights come on when the doors are opened which the hotel guide wouldn't work with the overhead lights. The elevators work and the hall lights are on. The lights are on in the ice machine room and the ice maker works. The TV works as do our tablets, so the dark is the only issue.
Tomorrow we visit Masada, the Dead Sea and in the evening Ori suggested we all go to an evening show at 55 shekels each. I think everyone took him up on that. Shabbat should end about 8:15pm tomorrow. The show is at 6:30pm, I think. Mick told us right before we got off the bus that tomorrow the tour would provide everyone of us a ticket to some kind of Dead Sea bathing, so to either bring a swimsuit or buy one in the hotel tonight. We didn't bring or buy swimsuits and neither of us would be seen in one any way. He didn't really explain what was happening tomorrow so if you can't just take off your shoes and roll up your pants to test the water, I'm not sure what we'll be doing while bathing is happening. Mick told us we'd all be impressed by Masada and they both think we'll all be impressed by the evening show. It will be another long day. We'll be ready to go home on Monday and just wish it wasn't such a long flight! We still haven't heard from Mick about our airport transfers which we prepaid for when we bought the tour. We have our fingers crossed that our Air Canada BC upgrade bids are accepted too! We won't know before 48 hours.
Photos
Thursday, February 8, 2018
To Jerusalem
The alarm Clay set woke us this morning so we could watch the sun come up again over the Golan Heights and the Sea of Galilee. That happened about 6:45am. Breakfast began at 7am. Bags had to be out by 7:15 and identified at the bus by 7:50am. We went ahead and put out the bags before we left the room and checked out of the Scots Hotel between sunrise and breakfast. It seemed like our best plan since we only had 50 minutes available.
The bus left at 8am and we had our original bus and driver back today. Good news and bad. We all appreciate Misha, our driver, but our bus has little power going up hills. We had some hills again today and we crawled them. We had to get back above sea level leaving Tiberius. We drove almost all the way back to Haifa for our Druze lunch today. First stop at 9am was Megiddo, or Armageddon. It is a ruin of fortresses piled atop one another for thousands of years. It was impressive. We walked uphill to the top and across it while Ori told us about it. When we had walked across we enter a well hole dug to reach a spring outside the fortifications maybe 700 years ago. It was 183 steps down and through a tunnel and up 80 steps to another parking lot to meet the bus. It was very impressive.
Lunch was about 12:30pm in the home of a Druze family in a Druze village called Usfiya or Isfiya. This was bizarre if still enjoyable. We had a 20 year old Druze college girl as our local contact or guide. She took us through a section of the Druze village to a private home where the inhabitants cooked for us, served us and spoke to us but didn't really welcome or greet us or invite us in. It was weird. The food was good, the setting was scenic and the people welcoming but it was slightly uncomfortable. The Druze religion as explained to us was one of the more bizarre, but in my opinion at this point they're all bizarre. As we've recently learned we'll be pretty severely impacted by Shabbat here in Jerusalem at the David Citadel Hotel. I guess we didn't see anything close to this in Tel Aviv last weekend.
Anyway, the rest of the afternoon was spent getting to the hotel. I have so long looked forward to arriving in Jerusalem and I am sorry to say that my initial impression is of immediate dislike. I had been marveling at how comfortable I had felt in Israel. It is like Singapore is to Asia as I felt Israel is to the Middle East. But I don't feel that way in Jerusalem. It feels completely different. Clay is impressed with the David Citadel Hotel, but other than the ice machine across the hall, I much prefered the last 2 hotels. I hope I get over this since our last 4 nights, or the majority of our trip, is spent here. We'll see. There was a major bumble over luggage here with Mick telling us to just go to our rooms as they were assigned and let our luggage be delivered. I bypassed the snacks and welcome drinks and there by found myself as the first asked to check in. I guess that meant we were gone when someone said that every bag had to be identified outside the hotel before it would be brought in. Clay went out and learned this after we had waited about an hour. I suppose this dead time this afternoon was meant to be relaxing but we were pretty stressed. The other thing is that this hotel photocopied our passports and a little bar code/UPC code slip of paper we got at the airport when we arrived. The immigration woman who handed this slips to Clay with our passports did not say a word about how important they were. Evidently, it is like the slip you get in Vietnam or Argentina. You MUST have it on you at all times, it is required for hotel stays and to leave the country. We had to show only Clay's at the Carlton on arrival and then we showed nothing at Scots Hotel. So we didn't know until today. It is just dumb luck that we stuck them in our passports after we left passport control at the airport after using them to scan open the turnstiles and that we didn't drop them in a trash can since the issuer said nothing. In fairness, after we got them back this afternoon at the hotel with an hour or more waiting, I found in small print on the back of the slip that you need to keep it with your passport. That was pretty subtle given the importance. Anyway, now you know.
We have a lecture on Middle East politics at 6:30pm tonight. We have to meet at 6:20pm to walk to another hotel to use a meeting room. We are on our own for dinner every night in Jerusalem except our final farewell dinner on Sunday night. We are told it will be problematic to dine here because of Shabbat from 5pm Friday to about 8:15pm Saturday. We can stand to miss some meals. We'll just see what we find to eat after the lecture tonight or if we'll skip dinner every night here but the last.
We have another early start tommorow so I'll post this now.
Photos
The bus left at 8am and we had our original bus and driver back today. Good news and bad. We all appreciate Misha, our driver, but our bus has little power going up hills. We had some hills again today and we crawled them. We had to get back above sea level leaving Tiberius. We drove almost all the way back to Haifa for our Druze lunch today. First stop at 9am was Megiddo, or Armageddon. It is a ruin of fortresses piled atop one another for thousands of years. It was impressive. We walked uphill to the top and across it while Ori told us about it. When we had walked across we enter a well hole dug to reach a spring outside the fortifications maybe 700 years ago. It was 183 steps down and through a tunnel and up 80 steps to another parking lot to meet the bus. It was very impressive.
Lunch was about 12:30pm in the home of a Druze family in a Druze village called Usfiya or Isfiya. This was bizarre if still enjoyable. We had a 20 year old Druze college girl as our local contact or guide. She took us through a section of the Druze village to a private home where the inhabitants cooked for us, served us and spoke to us but didn't really welcome or greet us or invite us in. It was weird. The food was good, the setting was scenic and the people welcoming but it was slightly uncomfortable. The Druze religion as explained to us was one of the more bizarre, but in my opinion at this point they're all bizarre. As we've recently learned we'll be pretty severely impacted by Shabbat here in Jerusalem at the David Citadel Hotel. I guess we didn't see anything close to this in Tel Aviv last weekend.
Anyway, the rest of the afternoon was spent getting to the hotel. I have so long looked forward to arriving in Jerusalem and I am sorry to say that my initial impression is of immediate dislike. I had been marveling at how comfortable I had felt in Israel. It is like Singapore is to Asia as I felt Israel is to the Middle East. But I don't feel that way in Jerusalem. It feels completely different. Clay is impressed with the David Citadel Hotel, but other than the ice machine across the hall, I much prefered the last 2 hotels. I hope I get over this since our last 4 nights, or the majority of our trip, is spent here. We'll see. There was a major bumble over luggage here with Mick telling us to just go to our rooms as they were assigned and let our luggage be delivered. I bypassed the snacks and welcome drinks and there by found myself as the first asked to check in. I guess that meant we were gone when someone said that every bag had to be identified outside the hotel before it would be brought in. Clay went out and learned this after we had waited about an hour. I suppose this dead time this afternoon was meant to be relaxing but we were pretty stressed. The other thing is that this hotel photocopied our passports and a little bar code/UPC code slip of paper we got at the airport when we arrived. The immigration woman who handed this slips to Clay with our passports did not say a word about how important they were. Evidently, it is like the slip you get in Vietnam or Argentina. You MUST have it on you at all times, it is required for hotel stays and to leave the country. We had to show only Clay's at the Carlton on arrival and then we showed nothing at Scots Hotel. So we didn't know until today. It is just dumb luck that we stuck them in our passports after we left passport control at the airport after using them to scan open the turnstiles and that we didn't drop them in a trash can since the issuer said nothing. In fairness, after we got them back this afternoon at the hotel with an hour or more waiting, I found in small print on the back of the slip that you need to keep it with your passport. That was pretty subtle given the importance. Anyway, now you know.
We have a lecture on Middle East politics at 6:30pm tonight. We have to meet at 6:20pm to walk to another hotel to use a meeting room. We are on our own for dinner every night in Jerusalem except our final farewell dinner on Sunday night. We are told it will be problematic to dine here because of Shabbat from 5pm Friday to about 8:15pm Saturday. We can stand to miss some meals. We'll just see what we find to eat after the lecture tonight or if we'll skip dinner every night here but the last.
We have another early start tommorow so I'll post this now.
Photos
Wednesday, February 7, 2018
A Good Day
We were up for sunrise today over the Sea of Galilee. I don't know why I was up before the alarm went off but I was and we got to see something special before breakfast began at 7am.
We went to the restaurant and gave our room number 202 and were told to go into a crowded and noisy side room. I looked in there and didn't recognize anyone and so I asked him to confirm and he said yes, go in there, you are with a group. Well, we are but not with that group that all had luggage with them as they were leaving today. Anyway, 4 of our group wound up in there crowding them out of their seats while the rest of our group ate at small tables on the sun porch in peace and quiet. I am guessing that tomorrow when it is our turn to check out that we'll be in the noisy side room again. We'll see.
We had another busy day, but not moving hotels is so much easier. Plus it was still daylight when we got to the hotel so I'm not trying to write this up at bedtime! We got a new bus and driver today as yesterday we had a weak engine climbing a hill and today we had to climb the Golan Heights.
We started the morning leaving Scots Hotel in Tiberius at 8:30am. We started at 700 feet below sea level. The Sea of Galilee is Israel's only significant fresh water lake and not a sea at all. Our first stop was at the kibbutz of Ginnosaur to board a wooden boat for an orientation cruise on the Sea of Galilee. It was a nice relaxing way to start the morning. We saw all the places we would visit today from the water.
Next we visited the Mount of Beatitudes, where Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount. Afterward Clay told me when he was about 14 years old he gave a similiar sermon. Huh? It felt sacred. Next was a visit to Tabgha where Jesus performed the miracle of the loaves and fishes. We saw the actual big rock he was supposed to have performed the miracle upon. It was a special place but didn't feel particularly sacred.
Last visit of the morning was to Capernaum. This is where we visited the ruined remains of Peter's house where Jesus lived with him. There is a church over it now and is the most recent of a series of them. We also saw a ruined synagogue built atop the basalt stone foundation of the one that stood there when Jesus lived there. So, I don't know what destroyed all the ruined places we saw today but we were told the Capernaum was one of three cities Jesus cursed. It was destroyed in 749AD by an earthquake and never rebuilt. It and Tabgha were supposedly always spots of Christian worship even during the early Christian period of time when it was banned.
We drove up into the Golan Heights to have lunch and spent the afternoon. We went to Quatsrin or Katzrin. We had lunch at Golan Brewhouse. It was served family style like yesterday's lunch but it was unanimous that it was prefered to yesterday's lunch. It was heartier and tastier. They served some very nice little beef sausages on top of sauerkraut that we finished at our table. They had beer for sale, but we had included OJ, lemonade, water and mint tea or coffee. Clay had a dark beer for 17 shekels and it was good though a small serving. He bought a t-shirt. After lunch, we crossed the street to Olea Essence. We learned about olive oils and by products. It was a very popular stop amongst the shoppers. Last stop of the day was a few minutes away by bus. Golan Vineyards. We had a very thorough tour of the barrels to the bottles followed by a tasting of 2 whites and a red. Very well done and good wine. We have really enjoyed all the wines we've had here. They gave us each a wine opener as a gift. Nice touch.
So, as I said we got back to our hotel before sunset. It is now about 30 minutes to our 7pm dinner and I need to post this and put my shoes back on.
Photos
We went to the restaurant and gave our room number 202 and were told to go into a crowded and noisy side room. I looked in there and didn't recognize anyone and so I asked him to confirm and he said yes, go in there, you are with a group. Well, we are but not with that group that all had luggage with them as they were leaving today. Anyway, 4 of our group wound up in there crowding them out of their seats while the rest of our group ate at small tables on the sun porch in peace and quiet. I am guessing that tomorrow when it is our turn to check out that we'll be in the noisy side room again. We'll see.
We had another busy day, but not moving hotels is so much easier. Plus it was still daylight when we got to the hotel so I'm not trying to write this up at bedtime! We got a new bus and driver today as yesterday we had a weak engine climbing a hill and today we had to climb the Golan Heights.
We started the morning leaving Scots Hotel in Tiberius at 8:30am. We started at 700 feet below sea level. The Sea of Galilee is Israel's only significant fresh water lake and not a sea at all. Our first stop was at the kibbutz of Ginnosaur to board a wooden boat for an orientation cruise on the Sea of Galilee. It was a nice relaxing way to start the morning. We saw all the places we would visit today from the water.
Next we visited the Mount of Beatitudes, where Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount. Afterward Clay told me when he was about 14 years old he gave a similiar sermon. Huh? It felt sacred. Next was a visit to Tabgha where Jesus performed the miracle of the loaves and fishes. We saw the actual big rock he was supposed to have performed the miracle upon. It was a special place but didn't feel particularly sacred.
Last visit of the morning was to Capernaum. This is where we visited the ruined remains of Peter's house where Jesus lived with him. There is a church over it now and is the most recent of a series of them. We also saw a ruined synagogue built atop the basalt stone foundation of the one that stood there when Jesus lived there. So, I don't know what destroyed all the ruined places we saw today but we were told the Capernaum was one of three cities Jesus cursed. It was destroyed in 749AD by an earthquake and never rebuilt. It and Tabgha were supposedly always spots of Christian worship even during the early Christian period of time when it was banned.
We drove up into the Golan Heights to have lunch and spent the afternoon. We went to Quatsrin or Katzrin. We had lunch at Golan Brewhouse. It was served family style like yesterday's lunch but it was unanimous that it was prefered to yesterday's lunch. It was heartier and tastier. They served some very nice little beef sausages on top of sauerkraut that we finished at our table. They had beer for sale, but we had included OJ, lemonade, water and mint tea or coffee. Clay had a dark beer for 17 shekels and it was good though a small serving. He bought a t-shirt. After lunch, we crossed the street to Olea Essence. We learned about olive oils and by products. It was a very popular stop amongst the shoppers. Last stop of the day was a few minutes away by bus. Golan Vineyards. We had a very thorough tour of the barrels to the bottles followed by a tasting of 2 whites and a red. Very well done and good wine. We have really enjoyed all the wines we've had here. They gave us each a wine opener as a gift. Nice touch.
So, as I said we got back to our hotel before sunset. It is now about 30 minutes to our 7pm dinner and I need to post this and put my shoes back on.
Photos
Tuesday, February 6, 2018
Leaving Tel Aviv
It's been a long day. It's late and we have an early morning tomorrow, so I won't be too detailed here I'm afraid.
Breakfast buffet again around 7am, bags out before leaving the room, downstairs to leave at 8:20am. Bus departed at 8:30am. We checked out and ID'd our bags to load the bus in there too. We drove North along the coast road. We visited Caesarea from about 10am to noon. It was the ruins of a massive coastal city built in Roman style about 30 to 10 BC by King Herod. It was interesting. We ate lunch at a restaurant there. It was a variety of dishes served family style with water and coffee or tea. It was OK. We had an addition to today's itinerary with an afternoon stop in Haifa with a view over it and the natural harbor from high on Mt. Carmel atop the Bahá'í Gardens. That was interesting and although it was a clear, sunny day, it was too hazy for a really long view as on a clear day you can see into Lebanon, but not today. Our last visit of the afternoon was Akko or Acre. It was completely different. It was a Crusades-era fort built about 1099 and then buried under dirt and rubble by a conqueror and forgotten about with a prison built atop it. It was the site of one of only 2 of Napoleon's defeats. It was really fascinating. I don't think we'd ever seen anything quite like it or anything of that era in that good a condition of preservation. Neglect can be a great preserver sometimes. It is still a mostly Arab villlage above ground!
We left to head east away from the coast to the Sea of Galilee and Scots Hotel in Tiberias for the next 2 nights. The sun was setting in the west as we left. We immediately landed in the mother of all traffic jams at what appeared to be a poorly timed stop light where it took us an hour to go about 5 miles. We wound up delaying dinner by 15 minutes to 7:15pm and we mostly went straight there. It is too bad we arrived after dark as it looks interesting. It is a former Church of Scotland mission and hospital that is now a hotel still owned and operated by the Church of Scotland. They put our group in the modern building they built to make the property a hotel. They served Scotch as their welcome drink! Dinner was served buffet style and I believe that will be true for breakfast here as well. Getting ice here was not done with the ease of the Carlton in Tel Aviv.
Breakfast, lunch and dinner were included today.
More tomorrow.
Photos
Breakfast buffet again around 7am, bags out before leaving the room, downstairs to leave at 8:20am. Bus departed at 8:30am. We checked out and ID'd our bags to load the bus in there too. We drove North along the coast road. We visited Caesarea from about 10am to noon. It was the ruins of a massive coastal city built in Roman style about 30 to 10 BC by King Herod. It was interesting. We ate lunch at a restaurant there. It was a variety of dishes served family style with water and coffee or tea. It was OK. We had an addition to today's itinerary with an afternoon stop in Haifa with a view over it and the natural harbor from high on Mt. Carmel atop the Bahá'í Gardens. That was interesting and although it was a clear, sunny day, it was too hazy for a really long view as on a clear day you can see into Lebanon, but not today. Our last visit of the afternoon was Akko or Acre. It was completely different. It was a Crusades-era fort built about 1099 and then buried under dirt and rubble by a conqueror and forgotten about with a prison built atop it. It was the site of one of only 2 of Napoleon's defeats. It was really fascinating. I don't think we'd ever seen anything quite like it or anything of that era in that good a condition of preservation. Neglect can be a great preserver sometimes. It is still a mostly Arab villlage above ground!
We left to head east away from the coast to the Sea of Galilee and Scots Hotel in Tiberias for the next 2 nights. The sun was setting in the west as we left. We immediately landed in the mother of all traffic jams at what appeared to be a poorly timed stop light where it took us an hour to go about 5 miles. We wound up delaying dinner by 15 minutes to 7:15pm and we mostly went straight there. It is too bad we arrived after dark as it looks interesting. It is a former Church of Scotland mission and hospital that is now a hotel still owned and operated by the Church of Scotland. They put our group in the modern building they built to make the property a hotel. They served Scotch as their welcome drink! Dinner was served buffet style and I believe that will be true for breakfast here as well. Getting ice here was not done with the ease of the Carlton in Tel Aviv.
Breakfast, lunch and dinner were included today.
More tomorrow.
Photos
Monday, February 5, 2018
Touring in Israel - Day One
After a lavish and extensive buffet breakfast at Carlton on the Beach which is included, we began touring today. We met Mick, our British lives in Italy once married to an Israeli and lived here for a while, tour director last night at the welcome reception and dinner. This morning we met Ori, our Israeli guide, and Misha, our bus driver. We really are only 18 in the group and only 3 are with Tulane and all the rest with Northwestern. We were speaking with a couple who had come in one day earlier than us in the lobby before our meeting and they urged me to go complain at reception about how hot our room is. We should have done this yesterday. It is blowing cold air on me this evening as I type this and we came back to find our west-facing windows with the curtains left open all day by housekeeping!
Mick told us our itinerary had dropped the diamond museum for Neve Tzedek neighborhood walk because the diamond museum had suddenly shut down and gone out of business. I am not sure this was a good substitute. Mick told us last week they walked for over an hour there in a drenching, freezing rain. I can only imagine what they thought.
We started by getting our Vox headsets that we will use every day except when we are on the bus. We loaded the bus and drove to Jaffa. We can see this out our hotel room window in the distance down the coast. It was the original settlement here before Tel Aviv started in 1909. It was a settlement during Old Testament and the home of Jonah who was swallowed by a whale. Appropriately, we unloaded the bus and began our walking tour by a fountain sculpture of a happy whale. We wove through little alley ways and up and down stairs. We visited the St. Peter Church perched as a towering landamark at the end of the little peninsula. We walked back down hill to the clock tower and reloaded the bus. We rode a few minutes and unloaded again to see the former original train station. From there we walked to the Neve Tzedek neighborhood. We strolled and heard a lot about the history of Tel Aviv and Israel. About noon, we walked back to the bus and loaded up. It was a fairly short ride to Allenby Street and the HaCarmel Market or Souk. We had free time here until 1:45pm. We headed into the belly of the beast as instructed but, one it was far too crowded for me, too noisy, no promised street food. About 2 blocks in we cut out to a parallel street and headed back down Allenby St where Clay thought he had overheard Ori say there was a good shawarma stand. We don't know if we found the one he was talking about but we found one with a red and white awning where they were wearing t-shirts that said Doner Kebab. We again way over-ordered and had hummus, falafels and chicken shawarma wraps. Clay will never duplicate the meals he wants to recreate from Libya until he returns to Libya, if ever. We both thought it was closest to one we had in Bordeaux. We walked back down to the noisy souk corner and found a corner market with a cooler box of Ben & Jerry's cookies & cream cones. We each got one and waited for 1:45pm. We reloaded the bus and drove for a while to stop the bus next to the spot where Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated. Our guide, Ori, is a former political journalist and political media spokesman so he had some personal experiences here. Last stop of the day was the Museum of the Jewish Diaspora. We were split into 2 smaller groups and guided through on a truncated and focused visit. It was interesting. We spent time looking a small models of worldwide synagogues and associated artifacts from each. Then we went to an exhibit about Chim, a photographer. We finished earlier than the other group and had a few minutes to slip into a special Leonard Cohen retrospective and got a sample of You Want It Darker with Mick. We got stuck in heavy traffic on the way back to the Carlton and it took over 45 minutes to get back.
We made our usual stop at the Lobby Bar to request a refill of ice cubes for my water bottle and picked up a hot focaccia topped with pesto, feta and olive and cherry tomato halves to bring to the room to share. I couldn't face another long way to the Tel Aviv Old Port and Clay couldn't face another too big meal at Fortuna del Mar right out on the beach. We enjoyed it with our room AC!
Tomorrow we have an early start as we have to pack up and check out to leave by 8:30am. Tomorrow we visit Caesarea, Akko and Tiberius before spending the next 2 nights at the Scots Hotel in Tiberius.
Photos
Mick told us our itinerary had dropped the diamond museum for Neve Tzedek neighborhood walk because the diamond museum had suddenly shut down and gone out of business. I am not sure this was a good substitute. Mick told us last week they walked for over an hour there in a drenching, freezing rain. I can only imagine what they thought.
We started by getting our Vox headsets that we will use every day except when we are on the bus. We loaded the bus and drove to Jaffa. We can see this out our hotel room window in the distance down the coast. It was the original settlement here before Tel Aviv started in 1909. It was a settlement during Old Testament and the home of Jonah who was swallowed by a whale. Appropriately, we unloaded the bus and began our walking tour by a fountain sculpture of a happy whale. We wove through little alley ways and up and down stairs. We visited the St. Peter Church perched as a towering landamark at the end of the little peninsula. We walked back down hill to the clock tower and reloaded the bus. We rode a few minutes and unloaded again to see the former original train station. From there we walked to the Neve Tzedek neighborhood. We strolled and heard a lot about the history of Tel Aviv and Israel. About noon, we walked back to the bus and loaded up. It was a fairly short ride to Allenby Street and the HaCarmel Market or Souk. We had free time here until 1:45pm. We headed into the belly of the beast as instructed but, one it was far too crowded for me, too noisy, no promised street food. About 2 blocks in we cut out to a parallel street and headed back down Allenby St where Clay thought he had overheard Ori say there was a good shawarma stand. We don't know if we found the one he was talking about but we found one with a red and white awning where they were wearing t-shirts that said Doner Kebab. We again way over-ordered and had hummus, falafels and chicken shawarma wraps. Clay will never duplicate the meals he wants to recreate from Libya until he returns to Libya, if ever. We both thought it was closest to one we had in Bordeaux. We walked back down to the noisy souk corner and found a corner market with a cooler box of Ben & Jerry's cookies & cream cones. We each got one and waited for 1:45pm. We reloaded the bus and drove for a while to stop the bus next to the spot where Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated. Our guide, Ori, is a former political journalist and political media spokesman so he had some personal experiences here. Last stop of the day was the Museum of the Jewish Diaspora. We were split into 2 smaller groups and guided through on a truncated and focused visit. It was interesting. We spent time looking a small models of worldwide synagogues and associated artifacts from each. Then we went to an exhibit about Chim, a photographer. We finished earlier than the other group and had a few minutes to slip into a special Leonard Cohen retrospective and got a sample of You Want It Darker with Mick. We got stuck in heavy traffic on the way back to the Carlton and it took over 45 minutes to get back.
We made our usual stop at the Lobby Bar to request a refill of ice cubes for my water bottle and picked up a hot focaccia topped with pesto, feta and olive and cherry tomato halves to bring to the room to share. I couldn't face another long way to the Tel Aviv Old Port and Clay couldn't face another too big meal at Fortuna del Mar right out on the beach. We enjoyed it with our room AC!
Tomorrow we have an early start as we have to pack up and check out to leave by 8:30am. Tomorrow we visit Caesarea, Akko and Tiberius before spending the next 2 nights at the Scots Hotel in Tiberius.
Photos
Sunday, February 4, 2018
A walk on the Tayelet of Tel Aviv
We both slept all night last night. It must have been jetlag because the room is stifling hot, the bed is hard with a heavy duvet and no sheet and the traffic noise went on to the wee hours before things got quiet. We slept, we were jetlagged. Thank God no wild animals came through the door we kept wide open all night!
So, we wound up with at least Plan C all day today. We went back this morning to the cafe/bakery nearby that Clay had picked from the map and their website. As last night even though their website listed open hours, they were closed last night and again this morning. We can see it from the room's balcony and it looked closed but Clay assured me the website said it was open. It wasn't. I think it must not be the same place with the website. It has no name on the building and that would explain the difference between the website and the real place that sits there. Anyway. In good news, we checked with reception and we kept our room so we didn't have to pack and move. We just got new keycards. We got a letter welcoming us to the tour. We found the lobby sign board for AHI Tours suggesting we walk the opposite direction from where we'd previously walked for 15 minutes to reach the Old Tel Aviv port area with a lot of bars, cafes, restaurants and shopping. Since Clay's bakery/cafe was closed we backtracked and walked back past the Carlton in that direction. We walked 15 minutes and reached nothing but we could see that in another 15 minutes there was a restaurant. We couldn't see if it was open. I balked and we turned back again. There was another restaurant at the end of the little strip that holds the Carlton on the Beach breakfast place. Tomorrow on AHI, breakfast is included and should be there as we understand it but not today. We walked to the little place at the end and the guy working there told us he'd open at 9:30am. We came back to the room to kill time. We still didn't know the name of the place and Google Maps never showed it anytime we were out there and asked for restaurants near me. Clay found it online and the menu was the same basically as La La Lands and the bakery/cafes and Carltons. We learned it was Fortuna del Mar. We finally had breakfast. We only walked about 2 miles for it! Clay had the full breakfast which held him for 2 meals and for the same price, I had a bowl of muesli. Go figure.
After breakfast, we went to find the Segway TLV shop. We found guys moving Segways but still didn't see the shop. Anyway we asked them and they said no because they had a big girls' tour today, but gave us a sheet with a phone number to call. I nixed that. We filled out their website request and they never replied. I had already written them off. We walked back past the rental bike stand and decided to go into the room and use the bathroom first before setting out. When we got back there were only 4 bikes left. As we were using the credit card kiosk to rent 2 bikes, 2 more got returned. For whatever reason, the kiosk took our money to rent 2 bikes but would only release one. After several tries, Clay got a human on his cellphone and they told him to walk to another kiosk miles away to get the other bike and said they didn't recognize that the other 4 bikes were still parked there. They assured Clay they had no bike available to rent where we stood and he should walk a couple miles in either direction to reach the next station. He suggested we return the one bike they had released and refund him all his money. They agreed to that. So, plan C we walked. It took us over an hour to reach the big selection of eateries that our AHI sign claimed was 15 minutes down the shore. It is hot and sunny out but we're still pretty good walkers and that was too far to walk for a meal. Clay did get to buy a nice pair of mesh Merrells so he has shoes he can wear without socks now. A good thing because the forecast gets hotter everytime we check Accuweather! I still don't understand why with a 23 pound mostly empty rolling duffel he decided to leave a pair of sandals at home, but he needed a new pair anyway and hopefully these Merrells will fill that need.
So, plan C was we walked for hours. We went as far as the old Tel Aviv port lighthouse and stopped. We had picked up a pair of green apples from the Carlton lobby and we sat in the shade with them viewing the old lighthouse and watching planes land at the city airport. Clay had a gelato a little earlier. Then we walked back. When we got to the room, we found a bottle of local red wine waiting for us as a gift from our friends at Tulane Alumni Travel. Too bad it wasn't something on ice!
We have our tour meeting at 6:30pm in the hotel followed by dinner in the hotel Touring begins in earnest at 8:45am tomorrow. We're glad we came in early to get acclimated! I am going to assume there will nothing else noteworthy to report today and post this now.
Photos
So, we wound up with at least Plan C all day today. We went back this morning to the cafe/bakery nearby that Clay had picked from the map and their website. As last night even though their website listed open hours, they were closed last night and again this morning. We can see it from the room's balcony and it looked closed but Clay assured me the website said it was open. It wasn't. I think it must not be the same place with the website. It has no name on the building and that would explain the difference between the website and the real place that sits there. Anyway. In good news, we checked with reception and we kept our room so we didn't have to pack and move. We just got new keycards. We got a letter welcoming us to the tour. We found the lobby sign board for AHI Tours suggesting we walk the opposite direction from where we'd previously walked for 15 minutes to reach the Old Tel Aviv port area with a lot of bars, cafes, restaurants and shopping. Since Clay's bakery/cafe was closed we backtracked and walked back past the Carlton in that direction. We walked 15 minutes and reached nothing but we could see that in another 15 minutes there was a restaurant. We couldn't see if it was open. I balked and we turned back again. There was another restaurant at the end of the little strip that holds the Carlton on the Beach breakfast place. Tomorrow on AHI, breakfast is included and should be there as we understand it but not today. We walked to the little place at the end and the guy working there told us he'd open at 9:30am. We came back to the room to kill time. We still didn't know the name of the place and Google Maps never showed it anytime we were out there and asked for restaurants near me. Clay found it online and the menu was the same basically as La La Lands and the bakery/cafes and Carltons. We learned it was Fortuna del Mar. We finally had breakfast. We only walked about 2 miles for it! Clay had the full breakfast which held him for 2 meals and for the same price, I had a bowl of muesli. Go figure.
After breakfast, we went to find the Segway TLV shop. We found guys moving Segways but still didn't see the shop. Anyway we asked them and they said no because they had a big girls' tour today, but gave us a sheet with a phone number to call. I nixed that. We filled out their website request and they never replied. I had already written them off. We walked back past the rental bike stand and decided to go into the room and use the bathroom first before setting out. When we got back there were only 4 bikes left. As we were using the credit card kiosk to rent 2 bikes, 2 more got returned. For whatever reason, the kiosk took our money to rent 2 bikes but would only release one. After several tries, Clay got a human on his cellphone and they told him to walk to another kiosk miles away to get the other bike and said they didn't recognize that the other 4 bikes were still parked there. They assured Clay they had no bike available to rent where we stood and he should walk a couple miles in either direction to reach the next station. He suggested we return the one bike they had released and refund him all his money. They agreed to that. So, plan C we walked. It took us over an hour to reach the big selection of eateries that our AHI sign claimed was 15 minutes down the shore. It is hot and sunny out but we're still pretty good walkers and that was too far to walk for a meal. Clay did get to buy a nice pair of mesh Merrells so he has shoes he can wear without socks now. A good thing because the forecast gets hotter everytime we check Accuweather! I still don't understand why with a 23 pound mostly empty rolling duffel he decided to leave a pair of sandals at home, but he needed a new pair anyway and hopefully these Merrells will fill that need.
So, plan C was we walked for hours. We went as far as the old Tel Aviv port lighthouse and stopped. We had picked up a pair of green apples from the Carlton lobby and we sat in the shade with them viewing the old lighthouse and watching planes land at the city airport. Clay had a gelato a little earlier. Then we walked back. When we got to the room, we found a bottle of local red wine waiting for us as a gift from our friends at Tulane Alumni Travel. Too bad it wasn't something on ice!
We have our tour meeting at 6:30pm in the hotel followed by dinner in the hotel Touring begins in earnest at 8:45am tomorrow. We're glad we came in early to get acclimated! I am going to assume there will nothing else noteworthy to report today and post this now.
Photos
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