Saturday and Sunday in Israel

(NOTE, IF A PIC LOOKS PRETTY CLICK ON IT AND YOU WILL SEE IT BIGGER, gah, I wish I'd gotten my blog on wordpress.)

Doug, Bart's husband is home for work and coming over for dinner in a couple of days and he's bringing Bomba from Bart. I brought back a suitcase full on my trip there and the guy at the airport rolled his eyes and told me I could buy it in America... but I don't know where... kinda like Bart and black beans... so she's sending us our favorite with the peanut butter filling. At any rate, it goaded me into finishing the chronicles of possibly my only grand adventure overseas in this lifetime.

It's not as fresh so this will be less descriptive. I'm sad. Not that anyone else really cares. I wish I had thrown myself into blogging with fervor each night right when I got home while the euphoria of having been somewhere exotic and different was still running through me. I didn't. I laid plastered to the couch staring at fingerprints all over everything wondering when I would feel like cleaning my house again so the kids could fingerprint it again.

I think I'm on Saturday. After we wandered around looking for broken pottery and staring at the amazing desert fossils and rocks splashed with iron, I watched a film crew for a bit then we left the Bedouins. I will hold them in my heart forever. It was a beautiful and whimsical place but half of my joy was watching the people and to listen to them talk. I heard one young man talking in english with a very thick accent; both were in dread locks dressed in what looked like blankets to me and he was saying quite earnestly "I am trying to drink less coffee and more tea." It was something you'd hear the person at a table next to you in a restaurant in America say... but there we were at the edge of nowhere, camped on the border of a country so violent you don't dare cross and you hear this simple normal exchange. I chortled. (I admit I may not have chortled but I really felt the urge to type that word.)

We drove back to Jerusalem a completely different way through beautiful country. The desert with old ruins and a vast expanse,

followed by areas flooded by the spring rains...

gave way to rocky green mountains

then giant rolling hills like northwestern Arkansas only it was so old. So very old with beautiful rock terracing and grape vineyards and herds of sheep and goats. 

 Doug nicely pulled over and let me take pictures a couple times.

When we got back to Jerusalem it was Shabbat so you can't shop anywhere except the 24 hour stores which are exorbitantly priced... which we did. We recuperated that afternoon. Doug's back hurt fiercely and it made me feel guilty that he drove me literally all over Israel under great stress in rain etc... One more example of what the Bartlett's gave me; something I'll never be able to repay.

Sunday Doug had to go back to work. The boys school has an American schedule but he works an Israeli schedule. So, he gets Friday Saturday off, they get half of Friday and Saturday Sunday off. The rest of us got up, made scones and went to church.

Going to church was a very meaningful part of the trip to me. It was very spiritual. It was a beautiful Anglican church in the Old City. The service was nice, I enjoyed it very much but at the end, right there in the Old City, a stones throw from the via dolorosa I took communion. I knelt at an alter and the priest came to me and he placed a cracker in my palm then he pressed it until it broke and said "this is Christ's body broken for you." I've always tried to grasp it, make it feel real, absorb it... but with that simple motion he made it real. So real. I've never had a moment in communion like that. It twisted my heart and showed me what a shallow human I am.
We had lunch at a cute little place at the Mamilla mall. Had some cappuccino... of course. Then we wandered through the Old City. I saw some weird giant gold candelabra they have made for the next Temple which is very creepy to me ( I know that shocks people but I went through a place where they are collecting everything they need for the next temple and it gives me the willies) and the "Western Wall." Bart made me stand in front of them like a tourist for my picture. I felt... uncomfortable. There was no magic there for me.

Then we found some ruins. They were really cool. Nobody was there. And we saw the temple steps. Steps that maybe Jesus sat on and taught from. I wanted my picture there. Bart took it but I can't seem to find it. I look the same... like a tourist.  It felt special though. Here's some various pictures of Hassidic Jews, the army, some cool old roman pillars and the ruins that I loved.

Halfway

On Friday as I bumbled along in the back seat with Bedford's head lolling over the seat we headed for Tel Aviv. It's funny that Israel is the size of New Jersey but yet they have such a variety of climates and landscapes. Tel Aviv is on the Mediterranean Sea so it's humid, green (when I was there anyway) and rather lush with more flat and rolling hills. Jerusalem is more hilly, rocky and an average humidity. So, we dropped off their horse at the doggy day care and he was thrilled. The boy and I cozied up for a long weekend in the back seat together.

Ashkelon was our lunch destination. It was pouring rain. Bart was worried about going to the desert during a deluge but Doug said we should go for it so we did and I'm glad even if everyone did suffer each in their own way. As the Bartletts like to say, during a lot of it "we had fun without having fun", the rest was fun or just crazy and unreal. In Ashkelon the recommended restaurant was closed so we went to "Meat Me". It was... good food and nobody spoke any english. They conveyed to us that they were searching for their english menu and we saw them search high and low to no avail. We finally ordered some beef and some chicken (the usual options in Israel) and he told us it would be $500. Doug dealt with it quickly asking how many zero's and he said one so my heart resumed beating. We sat down to eat. Doug felt compelled to take my picture in this clash of cultures with a rather alarming/disturbing phrase in the background though I daresay the Israeli's probably think it's clever and have no innuendo in mind... There were napkin dispensers from the 80's in America and a real live cigarette vending machine. I loved my lunch at "Meat Me" so much that I took several pictures.

We made a brief stop at the Mediterranean Sea but it was cold and windy so we picked up sea shells for my munchkins at home and skedaddled. 

After that we were back in the car pell mell and off to the border of Gaza just to say we went. We parked by the border and Doug and his mini me (Warren) rhapsodized over how close we were to Gaza and how we would all die if we crossed the border until Bart very calmly asked if we could leave. 

I think if she had known how the rest of our day would pan out she might not have bothered to feel any angst. It was to be the theme of her day. I was just a small child in the back seat without a care in the world kicking the seat in front of me and begging people to listen to my headphones with me so I really didn't add any gray hairs to my head. I guess it's not nice to brag. I guess I did join reality now and then to laugh like an imbecile and shrug my shoulders and wish for wifi so i could make nonsensical Facebook posts about my adventures on the border of Egypt and Gaza. Anyway, we got lost. We were headed for the desert to camp with the Bedouins and ride camels the next day but the Israeli version of Siri took us on a rather extensive off track tour of southern Israel. What eventually happened was we crossed over into a military zone, got stopped by a very scary looking humvee full of Israeli soldiers who wanted to know what we were doing. Since we were lost, we didn't really have to play the part we just acted dazed and confused which we were. They sent us packing and Bart forbade me from taking a picture of them which was torture. Ithink if she had known how the rest of our day would pan out she might not have bothered to feel any angst. It was to be the theme of her day. I was just a small child in the back seat without a care in the world kicking the seat in front of me and begging people to listen to my headphones with me so I really didn't add any gray hairs to my head. I guess it's not nice to brag. I guess I did join reality now and then to laugh like an imbecile and shrug my shoulders and wish for wifi so i could make nonsensical Facebook posts about my adventures on the border of Egypt and Gaza. Anyway, we got lost. We were headed for the desert to camp with the Bedouins and ride camels the next day but the Israeli version of Siri took us on a rather extensive off track tour of southern Israel. What eventually happened was we crossed over into a military zone, got stopped by a very scary looking humvee full of Israeli soldiers who wanted to know what we were doing. Since we were lost, we didn't really have to play the part we just acted dazed and confused which we were. They sent us packing and Bart forbade me from taking a picture of them which was torture. 

There's a little map of our tour though I really can't say where we went off track seeing as how I was oblivious most of the time. 

At one point we wound up in some kind of settlement behind a gate, unable to find our way back to any recognizable road. It was funny... well give me a break. I was a little kid kicking the seat. 

Finally after a harrowing drive through the desert in a deluge... Bart said we almost washed off of a bridge at one point... I was blissfully unaware... Doug got us to the place just in time for dinner. That was the best dinner of my freaking life after trekking back and forth from the car to the room through shin deep water with all of our luggage, pillows, blankets and sleeping bags. Sorry, no pictures. It would have been completely impossible, though it would have made a hilarious movie. 

Ahhhh dinner! Blessed amazing dinner!

We had tea by the fire and warmed up and tried to dry out a little. It was pretty magical. I'm still amazed at the lengths the Bartlett's all went to entertain me... little old me. 

The next day we had a lovely breakfast with what Harrison declared were the best eggs ever and many more sumptuous foods and teas. They had green tea and Bedouin tea. I liked the green tea personally. After breakfast and dinner both people staying there played music and sat around drinking tea and laughing. It's a very magical place. 

Here's what you saw right after you came out the door of our lodge.

 This is the restrooms but they're so pretty I had to take a pic. I was basically standing in the sunshine brushing my teeth.

This is the lodge we stayed in.

Yes, those tracks were right by the place we stayed the morning after the deluge!!! In the parking lot by our lodge. 

I'm outa juice. I keep stopping in the middle of a day. It bugs me.