Part 1 My Trip

When I was seven, I had sticky gooey hands, long scraggly fingernails and stains on every garment I owned. I drove my sister crazy. If a person had held my sticky hand and looked into my eyes and said "stop borrowing your sisters clothes and staining them, she's going to stand by you through some pretty crazy situations and you need to keep her on your good side" I might not have taken the advice but I know I would have believed the speaker. I always knew my sister would ride the roller coaster of life with me. I took that for granted. It was a vague nameless assurance in my heart. When I was 19 I was a slightly plump, aimless and sometimes blonde, sometimes not office girl. I wore borderline inappropriate clothes to my job at an engineering firm and had no plan for my future. If a person had grabbed my arm one pretty spring day that year and pointed at Jody as he stood at the front desk waiting for his job interview and said "he's going to ride the roller coaster with you and you'll have four kids together within the next 12 years", I don't think I would have believed such a forecast quite so surely. But alas, what we foresee never comes and what we never could have imagined does. Which brings me to the incongruous story of my trip to Israel. Through mutual acquaintances I became friends with Jen Bartlett about two years ago. My first definitive memory is sitting in the salon at Jenny's house having my hair done for the spring gala at school. Bart popped in from next door with little hair clips all over her head of wet hair and chatted us up. We discussed what we were going to wear and I darkly asked her if Jenny had already told her I was pregnant. Her face is always an open book so I had the amusing experience of dropping a bomb on her that ricocheted into a million expressions. I'll never forget it. I'll never forget the reactions of every single person I told I was pregnant with Hazel though so I guess that time of my life is crystalized in my memory for ever. Now, if at that point a person had told me that Bart and her husband Doug would someday fly me to Israel and give me the experience of a lifetime just for kicks I certainly would have thought they were crazy. But that's exactly what happened. She had moved to Israel for Doug's work when one day she said "would you ever consider coming to visit?" I said "yes, when Jody finally wins the lottery we'll be on the next flight." She laughed and said "no seriously, if Doug could get you a ticket with airline miles would you come?" I screamed and told her she had to be kidding me of course I would come. She kept asking me if I really meant it and if I was sure so I finally settled down enough to say that I guessed I had better talk to Jody. I found out later why she didn't believe me when I said yes. All of her family and two friends had already declined her invitation. I was stonewalled. I could not believe these people. Of course all of them had been on international trips and they knew what all of the trade offs of international travel were. I, on the other hand was a novice. So, Jody agreed to let me go without hesitation because he loves me like nobody knows how to except him. They invited him as well and at one point I thought he would come with me but then he decidedly declined... just like all of those other people much to my amazement. I like to think that many people declined because they thought it would be impolite to accept the free plane ticket. Maybe they didn't want to be ingratiating. I still find it all puzzling but fortunate for ME! I will admit, there were some difficult moments, weaning Hazel and tearing myself away from her made me cry quite a bit, but something just pushed me through it telling me it was now or never. So, the girl who's seen the ocean once got a passport and hopped on a big jet airplane. I got the best seats in coach because Doug flies all of the time and he bought my ticket. I was so excited I was like a little child. When our plane took off from my Newark connection I looked out my window and practically squealed to the flight attendant "Is that the Statue of Liberty????!!!!" He gave me a tolerant smile and said "yes it is." I was over the moon! A little bonus to my trip I hadn't even thought of. That flight was 6,000 miles. It flew by though. I slept some, read some and boom I was already landing in Tel Aviv. The world was lush, green and beautiful with the Mediterranean Sea glowing blue. I came to the meeting area and there was Bart. She told me later she realized she was about to cry just waiting and hoping I hadn't bailed at the last second (a ridiculous notion). And there they were with my welcome sign, immediately buying me coffee. They pumped me with so much coffee the first two days I was vacillating between arrhythmia and incontinence.

We got into their car and headed straight for Jerusalem. It's about an hour away. Bart and I were like little teenagers sitting in the back calling Doug our driver. I thought I was so funny that day but after being in about 30 taxis in my ten days there, I realized it isn't all that sensational to sit in the back seat and tell a driver to take you somewhere. (more on taxis later!) So we went straight to the Old City and walked through the market where Doug made me try my first fresh squeezed pomegranate juice. Amazing and unforgettable. Then we went down the Via Dolorosa. It was amazing. We saw the jail cell where Jesus was held. A very sobering and real moment for me. I was later to discover that it's simply amazing that it's still there because the entire city has been built on top of several times over. And significant locations almost all have churches built on top of them with little or no access to the actual place. It's a strange thing to go to an old part of the world; to see ruins where something beautiful was destroyed just to make a point and then built on top of and hidden for thousands of years. After that they took me out to lunch. And this was when I realized I wasn't just going to pal around with Jen and hang out with her and see what it's like to live in Jerusalem. They wined and dined me and I still have no idea why but it was impossible to say no. It was incredible and amazing and unforgettable. I had the time of my life. This was the lunch at the Moroccan restaurant. It was a five course meal. After that we went home and ran Harrison to his guitar lesson. I got to meet his teacher and his wife walked down to a cafe with us for coffee. Then we walked to the old city and sat in an outdoor amphitheater and watched the history of Jerusalem in holograms on the buildings in the dark. I loved it. I am amazed just retelling this that I've been blogging for an hour and have only gotten through one day. We tried to get a taxi on the way home but Bart was just waving down random cars instead of taxis so we wound up walking. LOL!