10-30-2022: Roosevelt Island

We had an uneventful flight from Athens to JFK and even arrived about an hour early. We got through passport control after moving through quite a line. Then with luggage in hand we took the JFK AirTrain to the hotel shuttle stop and arrived at the Hampton JFK. I had booked this hotel thinking we’d arrive later in the evening and I hadn’t wanted to mess around with getting us to Roosevelt Island (RI) in the evening since I had planned to transfer via subway to RI. The other reason was that the Hampton was half the cost of the RI hotel and I’m a cheapskate. At any rate, we got settled in to our room and got to bed. Our bodies are on Israel/Greece time so it felt like 5:00 a.m. and we were exhausted.

This morning we debated our transfer to RI. There was a way to do it via subway with only one transfer, but with luggage and not knowing if there would be working escalators or elevators at the stations we needed to go through, we made the better decision to take an Uber. Quite frankly, I’ve never used Uber before so this was a first. It was a great decision, even though I am a cheapskate, it was worth every penny.

We arrived on RI at the coolest hotel, the Graduate Hotel. Since it was only noon, we figured we’d have to store our luggage and wait until later in the afternoon to check in, but surprisingly, they had an available room so we could dump our luggage and start our visit with Joe Aboulafia. Our room on the 13th floor had a very wonderful view looking south down the East River. The Graduate Hotel is in the Cornell Technology Park on RI and, in addition to being Roosevelt family themed, it also is all about being a student. Everywhere around the lobby and restaurant are shelves containing textbooks. And the room key cards are replicas of famous people’s college IDs. We got Toni Morrison and Ruth Bader Ginsberg!

We called Joe and he came over to the hotel, a 5 minute walk from his new apartment on RI. We had lunch in the hotel’s restaurant and enjoyed catching up and talking about our visit with Carol and David. After lunch, we took him up to our hotel room to show him all the neat things in the hallways and in the room. We then walked over to his apartment and he showed us around. He seems to have settled into his new home nicely and he says that he loves it and is happy to be on RI. There really is something about RI, you can just feel something about being on this very nice island. You can see big city life all around across the river, but on RI you get a lovely sense of calm and laid back living.

We then set off for some touring taking a ferry from RI down to Wall St. We have had great weather the whole trip, and today was no different; lovely sunshine and moderate temperatures.

We strolled around the Wall Street area and Joe pointed out some of the buildings in which he worked over his career. I asked him about his experience on 9/11 and what he recounted was horrifying. He was making his way to his office 2 blocks away from the Towers. He actually walked past a jet engine lying in the street and experienced all the debris floating down from the building. He also witnessed many people falling who had jumped from the building. It was an awful, awful thing and Joe was up close and personal with the whole thing. We did make our way to the 9/11 memorial pools, which I have always wanted to see. It was a very moving experience.

We saw some other notable sites walking around the Wall Street area.

We then ended up at the Winter Garden atrium at Brookfield Place. The atrium is a 10-story glass vaulted pavilion. The atrium houses various plants, trees, flowers and very swanky shops. It opens out onto World Financial Center Plaza and a big marina. We sat out in the plaza, a waterfront patio, enjoying a drink and the late afternoon sun. It’s a really lovely spot.

We then walked through the Oculus, the World Trade Center transportation hub. Wow, an amazing space!

We took the subway back to RI and to Joe’s apartment. Joe made a wonderful chicken, pirogi and green bean dinner for us with a fantastic chocolate mousse cake for dessert. His apartment is on the 7th floor and he has a great view looking east. So we relaxed and chatted and enjoyed the view. It was a very lovely evening spending time with Joe and talking about all sorts of things. He’s auditing a course at Columbia on philosophy and how philosophical concepts shape modern thinking and science – very fascinating – and he’s loving the course. So, for sure, that led to good conversation.

By 9:00 p.m., Christine and I were having trouble keeping our eyes open, so we had to take our leave. Joe walked us back to our hotel and we said goodbye. I really like Joe. My relationship with Christine has brought so many wonderful people into my life – lucky me. We’ll look forward to seeing Joe again soon on one of our trips to NYC for Christine’s doctor appointments. We’re really glad to see Joe seeming to be creating a new chapter in his life, having lost his husband of 43 years not long ago. What a huge hole that has left for Joe, but he is working towards finding things that he enjoys and he does seem happy to be living on RI and getting into the city to see plays and shows and engaging in lots of satisfying activities.

Back at the Graduate Hotel, we enjoyed our view before collapsing into bed. What a great day we had with Joe!

Tomorrow we’ll be getting to Port Authority (via Uber – no more subways for us when we have luggage!) and taking the bus home. It will be so nice to be home.

10-26/27/28-2022: At Sea and Santorini

We spent 3 great days on the ship, 2 of them we practically had the place to ourselves as everyone else went off on excursion. On Wednesday, after our long Jerusalem excursion, we decided to not do another Jerusalem excursion. And the logistics of doing something on our own from Ashdod didn’t seem practical, requiring a shuttle bus to central Ashdod and then figuring out how to get someplace by public transport. So we relaxed and enjoyed simply being lazy and hanging out on the ship. The evening’s entertainment was singer Michele Moten and she was really wonderful. She sang mostly standards from the Great American Songbook and was very good. She’s had a 30-year music career, reinventing herself many time over. The story of her journey was inspirational.

Thursday was a scheduled day at sea as we departed Ashdod, Israel for the Greek Isle of Santorini. We spent time talking with women with whom we’ve enjoyed meeting. It’s nice to sit and chat during and after breakfast or lunch or just hang out and watch what everyone else is doing.

Thursday evening we had a reservation at one of the two specialty restaurants on the ship. We went to Aquilina, an Italian restaurant. We enjoyed our meal, especially the surprise tiramisu that arrived before the dessert course as an extra, not that we needed two desserts, but it was out of this world.

We arrived in Santorini early Friday morning. We were one of 7 ships anchored just off the island, two of the ships were huge, having over 5,000 passengers each. With that many tourists taking the cable car up to the town of Fira, we decided to skip the crowds and spend another day on the ship, again, practically on our own. We visited Santorini on our Venice to Athens cruise in 2018, so we didn’t feel it necessary to go up to the town again.

We enjoyed marveling at the scenery. You can’t quite believe your eyes seeing all the white buildings across the tops of the mountain peaks and hanging off the sides of the mountains. Our anchorage was between Santorini and another small island that was a national park. It did not appear to be inhabited, at least not on the side we saw, but we enjoyed seeing and hearing all the birds swooping along the shoreline. And off in the distance there is another island having a mountaintop village with a winding white road down the mountain to the sea. I remember it so distinctly from our visit in 2018.

We lazed the day away, soaking in the hot tub and lying out on the pool deck. There was a very strong wind so the ship’s flags were snapping in the breeze and we had to coverup while lying on the loungers by the pool. One of the things we watched was a bunch of crew members working on the string of lights that goes across the ship from forward to aft. They had the string down on the deck and were replacing bulbs and mending the electrical cord. Then guys climbed up the antennae stack aft and the chimney stack forward and hoisted up the string of lights. The guys up high were in precarious positions trying to get the string positioned correctly. But job well done and we applauded the crew when the job was finished. The crew is mostly Southeast Asian and we’ve been impressed by how cheerful they are. Service staff in the restaurants are anxious to chat with you, I think because they are practicing their English. I imagine, the better their English, the more opportunities they have for advancement. Most of the staff we spoke with like working for Azamara, which was nice to hear.

For dinner we went to the main restaurant with women from the Lifeboat group. We hadn’t made it to the main restaurant all week, preferring the buffet meals in the cafe. It was a really good dinner and an enjoyable way to end the week. After dinner we went to the show, Roxanna Ward. We’ve seen her several times as she’s been doing Olivia tours for 30 years. Although she never has much new material in the way of songs, her constant chattering is very entertaining. We enjoyed her very much, especially the song she does about 18 wheels on a big rig, which she gets the audience to sing in different languages, counting to 18. The part that totally cracks we up is when she says let’s sing it in Roman numerals, counting to 18.

So at the end of Friday, we had to pack and get our luggage out the door by 11:00 p.m. for pickup. It’s always a job to plan well enough to have what you need for the morning but not have too much stuff that you can’t pack it in your carry on. I think we did okay with that.

Saturday, it’s disembarkation from the ship, an airport transfer by bus, and then our flight from Athens to JFK. Makes for a very long day. Then Saturday night well stay at a Hampton at JFK Airport, and then Sunday we’ll go to Roosevelt Island and spend a night there at the Graduate Hotel. We’ll be meeting up with another college friend of Christine’s, Joe Aboulafia. Should be fun to catch up with him and tell him all about our visit with Carol, who he also knows.

Then it’s home, sweet home on Monday, October 31, taking the bus from Port Authority. I think we’re both looking forward to being home. It’s been a wonderful trip, but there’s no place like home.

10-25-2022: Bethlehem and Jerusalem

We were due to arrive in Ashdod, Israel at about 7:00 a.m., but we were greeted early by an announcement from the captain. During the night, we had to stop our movement in the sea because we would have entered an area where the Israeli Navy was conducting live fire exercises (yikes!), so we were delayed by about 2 hours getting into port. Of course, that messed up the scheduling for all the excursions that were to have left between 8:30 and 9:00 this morning. Our excursion left at 11:00, which was 90 minutes late.

Ashdod is a very large industrial port and it was very active with the huge cranes unloading and loading shipping containers. Ashdod is about an hour from Jerusalem so all the excursions to Jerusalem started with a long bus ride.

I had been looking forward to our excursion titled, “Let’s talk: 1 state, 2 views.” Our guides were an Israeli Jew and a Palestinian Arab. I expected that we would hear information about Jews and Arabs living in Israel, but none of that was presented. Our Palestinian guide didn’t arrive and we had to change our planned itinerary and find a way to pick up the other guide. Our Jewish guide, a tiny woman named Mozel Tov, was actually very informative and we both enjoyed hearing what she had to say.

We started our trip by going to Bethlehem. What a zoo that place is! It’s a little daunting because Bethlehem is controlled by the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank territory, and entering the city looks like going into a prison as there were high, razor wire covered walls with guard turrets. Mozel Tov prepared us for the possibility of being questioned by guards, but our entry went smoothly with no guards entering the bus.

Bethlehem, like most Israeli cities, is spread across hills, so you either go uphill or downhill. The traffic was horrible and we crept along steep streets. Today was very murky and so the views across the valley were hazy and you couldn’t really see much. The big draw in Bethlehem is the Basilica of the Holy Nativity, which is the site of Jesus’s birth. The bus parked in an underground parking garage with about 200 other buses. All along the walls of the parking garage were shops with hawkers practically in your face trying to get you to buy whatever they were selling. It was crowded, noisy, smelly from the bus fumes, and very confusing. We did meet up with our Palestinian guide, but he was a big zero in terms of any information. He really didn’t have much to say.

We walked out of the parking garage and uphill in the street to the Church of the Holy Nativity along with hundreds of other tourists. At the top of the hill was a very large limestone church having many newer additions (still centuries old). Right around the main entrance area were two minarets from neighboring mosques. Everything in the Holy Land section of Israel is a mishmash of religions and this is part of the struggles amongst the peoples. Who should control?

I remember Carol telling us about a visit she made to this church many years ago, but all she remembers is that she banged her head either going in or coming out of the church entrance. I’m glad she told us that because you do have to crouch down and enter the church by a very small opening where you could easily bang your head. The entrance is called the “Door of Humility” because you do have to stoop low to enter.

Inside the church is a long central space bordered by columns. There’s a big lineup to one side for those wishing to go down to the grotto where they think the site of the manger stood. We didn’t have time to do that. The areas above the columns had beautiful golden mosaics. The chancel area was covered with gold and there was a group of women polishing all the gold, which was a big job for sure.

On the way out, we stopped to look at a sculpture of St. George killing the dragon, apparently a very famous piece of art.

Back in the parking garage, we couldn’t find our bus among the 200+ buses and Mozel Tov took off trying to find our driver. The driver had a habit of disappearing and not being where he was supposed to be. Back on the bus, we stopped at St Michael’s store, which I guess was a required part of the tour, but I don’t think anyone from our group actually bought anything.

We then drove to our lunch stop which was at the Olive Tree Hotel in Jerusalem. That took an hour and with all the Jerusalem traffic, we didn’t arrive at the gate into the Old City until about 4:00. We did go by very familiar territory where David and Carol took us. We saw Gethsemane Basilica and St. Mary Magdalene Church on Mt. Olive, the Tomb of Absalom, and the very large Jewish cemetery. We then left the bus and entered the Old City via the Dung Gate.

Our first stop was at the plaza in front of the Western Wall, also known as the Wailing Wall. The Western Wall has been the center of Jewish yearning and memory for more than 2,000 years. It is the only fragment of the great Temple that survived the Roman destruction. It is said that the Divine Presence has never departed from the Western Wall. It is the most sacred structure of the Jewish people. The approach to the wall is divided, men on one side and women on the other. The women’s side is smaller and much more crowded. As you get closer to the wall there are loads of Jews reading their bible, rocking, praying, some crying. Many people are inserting small scraps of paper with prayers or messages written on the paper into the cracks between the stones in the Wall. Once you place the message into the Wall you are supposed to place both palms on the Wall and “feel” whether your prayer will be answered. I must say it was an amazing experience to be in the middle of this sacred space.

We then walked through some of the Jewish quarter of the Old City and then into the Muslim quarter. The market shops were all in full swing with lots of efforts being made to talk us into buying something. It was quite a hodgepodge of food shops, souvenir shops, household goods shops and everything imaginable that you’d want to buy.

We joined up with Via Dolorosa, the route that Jesus walked carrying his cross on his way to his crucifixion. There are 14 stations of the cross, nine along the route and five within the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. We passed several stations of the cross on our way to the church.

Via Dolorosa goes from the Muslim quarter to the Christian Quarter and ends at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, which is the site where Jesus was crucified and once dead, was taken down from the cross and laid on a stone and prepared for burial in the tomb. Some of the church is from Crusader times and within are multiple chapels and churches and religious processions of Orthodox, Coptic, Franciscan, Catholic, and other sects engaged in religious activities. There are many rooms carved into the rock that have significance to Jesus’s crucifixion and entombment, and the stone of anointing, where he was laid down from the cross and prepared for burial is quite central to a lot of worshipers who were touching and kissing the stone. There is a large rotunda in the main church and under the rotunda is a freestanding chapel that is quite sacred to Eastern Orthodox sects. Again, it was quite an experience to be in such a sacred space. But as with all of the Holy Land, all of the important sites are mobbed with people and it’s difficult to really see and take in all that is there to see.

After the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, we continued on through the market streets in the Christian quarter and ended up departing through the Jaffa Gate, where David and Carol had taken us. We walked down to the parking garage where our bus was supposed to be, but once again, the bus was nowhere to be found and Mozel Tov had to go in search of the driver. We eventually found the bus and driver. By now it was dark and about 7:00p so we had been in the Old City about 3 hours. Everyone was tired after having climbed a lot of stairs and gone up and down alleyways in the Old City. One annoying thing was on the ride back to Ashdod, the bus driver talked nearly the entire time on his phone in a very loud voice. Of course, he was speaking Hebrew so we didn’t know what he was saying, but it was rather rude, I thought, of him talking so loudly and for nearly an hour.

At any rate, we got back to the ship at about 8:00p which made for a long day. Although I was disappointed in terms of what I expected from the tour, we did get to see several really important sites and experience a lot of the Old City.

We’ve decided to not do a tour tomorrow and we’ll be staying on the ship. Thursday is a day at sea which means no Internet connection so I won’t be doing any blogging for a few days. Friday is a stop in Santorini but we don’t have anything planned. And Saturday is back to Piraeus, disembarkation, and a long flight to JFK. This week is going by quickly!

10-24-2022: Cyprus

Our first port of call was Limassol, Cyprus. I didn’t know anything about Cyprus, other than it is an island in the eastern Mediterranean. The Greeks and Turks have been fighting over Cyprus for centuries. Currently, half of Cyprus is an independent republic and the other half is occupied by Turkey. Just like in Israel, there is a ”green line” that divides the country. No other country, other than Turkey, recognizes the occupied territory, but the Republic of Cyprus is recognized by the rest of the world. There are two official languages, Greek and Turkish, but these languages are spoken in their respective halves of the country. Cypriots are independent, but very heavily Greek oriented, at least in the Republic of Cyprus.

The history of the island is so very similar to Malta, including an important visit by St. Paul and later occupation by the Crusaders. Early in the 1800s, Cyprus came under British rule until some time in the 1970s. Our tour guide, Olga, an immigrant from Belarus who has made Cyprus her home, said that Cypriots are grateful to the Brits because the country was modernized and developed. The Brits left a solid infrastructure of roads, electrical grid, water systems, etc., and so Cyprus has continued to develop as a modern country.

Our tour was from Limassol to another city, Pafos, which was an ancient capital and important seaport. We like the look of Cyprus. The part we saw, the southwestern area, was not overdeveloped. It was agricultural with rolling hills. What struck me the most was how neat, clean and tidy everything was, homes, roadways, villages, and archaeological sites. That was refreshing to see.

Our first stop was a seaside site where Aphrodite was born. Olga gave us a very thorough Greek mythology lesson. We noticed that lots of businesses and places have Aphrodite in their name and she is quite an important figure in Cyprus. Pafos became a center of the worship of the goddess Aphrodite.

It was a beautiful location.

We then traveled on to an archeological site near Pafos called Tomb of the Kings. This is an underground necropolis from the 4th century BC that is carved out of solid rock. The name came from the extravagance of the tombs, although no kings were buried here. This was a rich peoples’ burial ground. It was quite amazing to go underground and see such large chambers containing niches and small rooms that held the dead. There were tunnels connecting many of the chambers which seemed to go quite a distance underground, all carved out of solid rock.

Our final stop was the Pafos Archeological Park right at the harbor in Pafos. This dig site is a pretty big one and several ancient Greek and Roman villas were uncovered. As I mentioned, Pafos was a very important port city in ancient times. Wealthy merchants settled near the port and built elaborate villas. A particularly important excavation was of Roman mosaics. We saw very similar mosaics when we visited a Roman villa in Sicily. The detail, especially in the hunt scenes with animals, was amazing.

There was also a lovely lighthouse nearby and nice views of the coast and harbor.

Back on board the ship we rested a bit and then went to the early show which was a one woman play by Deborah Eliezer. The story was about her father, an Arab Jew born in a once cosmopolitan Iraq, who became a member of the Zionist underground in the aftermath of WWII, who then emigrated to America. In telling her father’s story she comes to a fuller understanding of her own identity, American, Arab, Jew. I thought it was a good story and in the background contained projected photographs of life in Iraq during her father’s childhood, and some of the underground activity going on after the war.

After the show we had dinner and then went for a stroll on deck. We met a lovely couple from Capetown, South Africa, Mem and Amanda. We really enjoyed talking with them.

And that brought the end of a nice day in Cyprus.

10-22/23-2022: At Sea

We checked out of our Pireaus hotel at about 11:30 and took a cab to the cruise terminal. We knew we would be very early and would have to wait to board. However, when we arrived, a whole bunch of Azamara staff welcomed us to the terminal, gave us a number (1!), asked us to be seated, and await further instructions. We didn’t have to wait very long, and we were on our way through check in and security. By about 12:45, we would be walking up the gangplank to the Azamara Quest. We were one of the first groups of people on the ship. It was kind of weird walking around a nearly empty ship.

Our stateroom wasn’t ready, but we found our way up to the Windows Cafe for lunch. After lunch, we wandered around familiarizing ourselves with the ship. We have been on this ship in the past. Our 2018 Venice to Athens cruise was on the Azamara Quest, so seeing the areas around the ship jogged memories.

Our luggage was delivered to our stateroom at about 4:00. We unpacked, and then it was time for the sail away party on the pool deck.

And before we knew it, we were on our way.

Olivia brings all of the entertainment onboard. There are two shows, one at 6:30 and one at 8:30, so the big decision is show first, then dinner, or the other way around. We’ve decided to see the first show. The first night was comedienne Michele Balen. I think we saw her once before. Some of her stuff was funny, but not as funny as I wanted her to be.

We had dinner and then settled in the for the night. It’s fun being on the ship and we’re meeting some new folks and Christine is getting reconnected with members of the Lifeboat group.

Sunday was a day at sea, so it’s a laid back day. We attended the Olivia presentation about upcoming trips. They raffled off a number of 2 for the price of 1 certificates, but we didn’t win any (darn!).

Later in the day we attended a panel talk about LBGTQ+ life in Israel. In some ways, Israel is ahead of the U.S. in terms of gay rights, especially services to gays and lesbians. Unfortunately, gay marriage has not yet been legalized, although partnerships and couple rights are recognized. Adoption and surrogacy is also allowed.

The evening show was someone named Mikalah Gordon, having become famous from her stint on American Idol.

We were sitting with new friends Shirl and Bette. What’s really funny is, unplanned, after the second song, Christine and I got up and exited via the right aisle, and Shirl and Bette quietly exited via the left aisle. We met outside the Cabaret and laughed seeing each other. Not our cup of tea, obviously, and one of the awful things about the performance was how loud it was. We all had ringing ears. But then we went to dinner and had a thoroughly enjoyable time with Shirl and Bette, lovely women from Florida.

So that ended our day at sea. Tomorrow we’re in Cyprus.

10-21-2022: Pireaus

Pireaus is a port city within the Athens urban area. It’s where a lot of ferries to the Greek islands come and go and cruise ships dock. Today we walked over to the terminal where we will embark tomorrow to see if it is walkable with our luggage. It’s not, so we’ll taxi over tomorrow. It’s nearly a mile walk and there are too many sidewalks that are not smooth and very uneven so wheeling luggage would be impossible. Good to know.

We first walked through an open air market that was right around the corner from the hotel. Fish was one of the big products being sold.

The port is large with lots of boat traffic, especially ferries.

Near the cruise terminal was a very tiny Eastern Orthodox chapel named Chapel of the Neomartyrs, Raphael, Nicholas, and Irene. These are venerated saints from the 15th century who were canonized in the mid-1900s.

We then went on an Orthodox Church bonanza seeing three marvelous churches that were within a couple of blocks. The first was the Church of Saint Nicholas, a beautiful building with a wonderful blue dome. Inside the walls and ceiling were covered with painted iconography of Orthodox saints. The chandeliers were huge and beautiful.

Next was the Church of St. Spyridon, a saint I’ve never heard of, but I now know he is the patron saint of potters. He became canonized based on him converting someone based on a story using a pot shard to illustrate how one single entity (a piece of pottery) could be composed of three unique entities (fire, water and clay), a metaphor for the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. When Spryidon was finished speaking, the shard is said to have miraculously burst into flame, water dripped on the ground, and only dust remained in his hand. Again, the inside of the church was full of hand painted iconography.

We stopped in a cafe and had a sparkling iced tea. It was quite a process to make because the tea was actually made just for the drink, so a bunch of tea leaves and other things went into a pot to quickly boil. Then ice was dumped in and that was furiously stirred. A cup with several types of berries was produced and the tea poured in. Then some sparkling water finished off the drink. Christine’s was a sparkling sunset and mine was a sparkling passion. Both were delicious and really hit the spot.

We then visited our final Orthodox church, Church of the Holy Trinity. It’s the newest of the churches we visited, but we both loved the exterior as it was very different from the other two. Inside, per usual, the walls were covered in painted iconography. The very large dome was the unique thing because it was very large and you could actually see it from anywhere in the church.

In each of the churches, it was clear that many visitors were devout Orthodox Christians as they touched or kissed many of the paintings and icons as they moved around the church. They also lit a lot of candles.

On our way back to the hotel we strolled through another outdoor market. This one was for household goods and garden supplies.

I like these types of open air markets. The shopkeepers are always conversing with each other across the lane and people are much more interactive. I think neighbors see each other and stop and chat with one another. And there are outdoor cafes everywhere where clusters of mostly older men sit and chat.

We stopped in at a shop to get something for lunch. Christine had a nice piece of spanikopita and I had a small pizza. We sat in an open window looking out onto the street and watched the comings and going. It was quite nice. We extended the leftovers into some dinner later in the evening.

So now it’s just pack up in the morning, check out of the hotel, get a cab to the terminal, and embark onto the Azamara Quest at about 2:00 where we’ll be with 630 other lesbians for a fun-filled week cruising the western Mediterranean. Christine is especially looking forward to being on the cruise where she’ll be able to meet up with several other Lifeboat group members that she got close with a year ago when we were on another Olivia trip in Tulum, Mexico. It should be another wonderful Olivia cruise.

10-19/20-2022: Final Day in Israel; Off to Athens

This is Wednesday and our final day with Carol and David in Israel. Tomorrow we fly from Tel Aviv to Athens. I can’t believe how fast 16 days has flown by. I’m already saddened to be leaving.

Today we spent time doing laundry and getting organized. Later in the day we packed. In between, Carol walked us around the kibbutz on our way to another small museum housing many artifacts dug up on the kibbutz as buildings went up. The most significant finds all went to big museums. David showed us a display case in the Museum of Israel of stuff that came from Mishmar HaEmek. I was pretty impressed by the collection remaining at the kibbutz. It told a story from paleolithic times through more modern times.

It’s amazing to me how in a dig many shards of broken pots are found and then are pieced back together again. When we went up to the first mosaic site, Carol was constantly looking on the ground trying to spot ancient coins. Many were displayed in a case in the museum. Eron said that he had found several coins in the woods near the place where we went to see the second mosaic. Apparently, that area was an army encampment of soldiers of King Herod and there were many items recovered from that site. At any rate, it was very cool seeing things recovered from essentially underneath where we have been standing.

Mishmar HaEmek has about 600 apartments that are grouped into neighborhoods. The neighborhoods are by the age of the buildings. Eron and his family are moving into a new apartment in a neighborhood being just completed on the kibbutz.

It is interesting to see the various neighborhoods. Some of the oldest apartments are being totally renovated, some even torn down. Assignment of apartments seems to be done by seniority so that the oldest residents of the kibbutz get the larger, newer apartments. David, who has lived on the kibbutz his entire life, except during military service and for one year in the U.S., said that the apartments used to be only 44 square feet in size. Now, the newer larger apartments have 3 bedrooms. Most of the residential buildings are two apartments, typically side-by-side. Some of the older ones are up and down. One of the nicest things around the kibbutz is the vegetation, lots of flowering shrubs and trees. It’s really a lovely place.

Eron , Dana and two of their girls came for dinner. They wanted to say goodbye. We have so enjoyed getting to know all the family. Christine and I are so taken by how lovely they all are. It is so nice seeing a close, loving, and supportive family. And to David and Carol, our heartfelt thanks for a fabulous visit.

We were off early Thursday to the airport in Tel Aviv. We arrived in good time, about 3 hours ahead of our flight. Carol walked us in to the terminal and steered us to the right check in queue. We said our goodbyes, always a teary thing for me. I just love Carol. She is a wonderful woman, and a real hoot.

We made it through check in, passport control, security, and immigration in good shape and found our departure gate. After a 90 minute wait, we boarded the plane to Athens. We were all ready to push back from the terminal when the captain made an announcement in Hebrew. Most everyone on the plane gave a loud groan and many stood up and started getting things out of the overhead compartments. Since the pilot’s message was not translated to English, we didn’t know what was going on, but it didn’t look good. We managed to get enough translation from surrounding passengers to learn that the plane would not be able to land in Athens on schedule so we had to wait another 35 minutes before taking off. Apparently, the Athens airport is very small and has a capacity issue. At least the flight wasn’t being canceled which is what I thought was happening.

About an hour and fifteen minutes later, we were in the air. We had a smooth, two hour flight. As you may recall from other trips, I love airplane pictures, especially coastlines. We flew over a lot if Greek islands, too, that looked cool from the air.

Because we were delayed, I worried that our hired car would not be waiting, but once through passport control, immigration, baggage pickup, and custom, our driver was waiting for us with Christine’s name on a tablet. We rode about 40 minutes to Piraeus where the cruise terminal is. On the way, we had some fantastic views of the Acropolis, which brought back great memories of our time in Athens with Eve in 2018. We got checked into our hotel, the Triton Hotel, and settled in for the night.

Sad to be leaving Carol and David, but excited to begin the next part of our trip. We’ll be boarding our ship Saturday afternoon. Tomorrow, we’ll wander around the hotel neighborhood and see some sights.

10-18-2022: Haifa

Our final excursion in Israel with Carol was to Haifa. Haifa sits on the coast in the north. It is the 3rd largest city in Israel, after Tel Aviv and Jerusalem with about 300,000 people. It’s less than an hour’s drive from Mishmar HaEmek. Carol gave us a really good tour of the city.

Like many cities and villages in Israel, Haifa is situated around and on the Carmel Mountain Range. There are essentially 3 parts to the city. There’s a downtown section that is near the sea, an older residential section that is halfway up the mountain where many Russian Jews immigrated, and a kind of newer, more ritzy section at the top of the mountain.

We drove into Haifa through the downtown commercial district and along the seaport. Haifa is a big shipping terminal as well as an oil and gas terminus. The downtown section is very ethnic with Turkish and Arab communities. It is also where the German Templers first settled in Israel. We visited what’s called the German Colony. Many of the Termper structures, which are in their original location, have been renovated and are businesses, restaurants, and boutique hotels.

Haifa is home to the world center of the Bahai faith and there is a big shrine here in Haifa. We visited a Bahai shrine in Australia. Although we didn’t actually go to the shrine, we saw it from both below and above. The shrine is centered in an amazing promenade with gardens.

You can see part of the port and that big granary building in the shrine from above picture. And, we’re only two-thirds of the way up Mt. Carmel. The views from the top of Mt. Carmel are quite breathtaking. Standing on the top are the mountain are twin towers of about 30 stories tall, so I imagine the views from those apartments are worth the price one pays for the apartment.

We walked through a lovely park and wandered around the scenic overlook area. We then drove to a Stella Maris retreat center. This would be a wonderful place to retreat to as it is also on top of the mountain with stunning views.

We then headed back to Mishmar HaEmek on a route through the Carmel mountains. It was a nice drive through forested hills which offered nice views of the sea in some spots.

We came to the Druze village (city really) of Isfiya. I had never heard of the Druze religion. They are an Arabic-speaking esoteric ethnoreligious group from western Asia. The religion grew out of Ismalism, but the Druze do not identify as Muslims. Wikipedia says, “they practice Druzism, an Abrahamic, monotheistic, syncretic and ethnic religion based on the teachings of Hamza ibn Ali ibn Ahmad and ancient Grekk philosphers like Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras, and Zeno of Citium. Adherents of the Cruze religion are called The People of Monotheism.” Reading about this religion makes me scratch my head as it is quite substantial in all the things it believes. Carol said it’s a secret religion, but it certainly seems to be very complex.

We stopped for a late lunch at a restaurant. We ordered 3 dishes to share, which was an enormous amount of food. We also got a giant pita. The food was really good, especially a big salad that had all kinds of dried fruits and nuts in it. We also had a cauliflower dish and an eggplant dish. It was all delicious and I ate way too much.

We got back home after a lovely day touring Haifa. Unfortunately, that great lunch was the end of me. By early evening and into the night I was quite sick. It couldn’t have been food poisoning because Carol and Christine ate exactly the same things as I did. But something didn’t agree with me and my body got rid of it. My thought was that Carol will never invite us again because first I come and infect her with a cold, and now I suffer another sickness just as we are about to leave. Some guest I am.

10-17-2022: Swim in the Mediterranean

This morning Shira and her mother arrived to pick up Eitan. They were on their way to a family gather. Peleg stayed home with Gadi, but the report is that he is feeling much better. Eron arrived to have breakfast with us. Today’s fair was French toast, yum!

We sat around the table talking until Shira, her mother and Eitan left. I spent some time talking politics with Eron. It’s interesting to hear the varied perspectives on the upcoming election here in Israel. The Gilad family is anti-Netanyahu and they hope he doesn’t get enough votes to form a coalition and be back in power.

Carol and I made sandwiches to take to the beach. One of Christine’s requests was to go to the seashore. Mishmar HaEmek is only about 30 minutes from the Mediterranean so it’s fairly easy to have a beach day. We went to a town called Dor where we had access to a very nice beach. I’m actually very surprised to see that there is not that much beachfront development, at least not in this area. I’m sure that on the outskirts of the big cities there is, as we saw looking down the beach in Jaffa.

We managed to find some shade and to commandeer a few chairs. It was only a few minutes before we all hit the water. The sea was relatively warm, except for the part about getting in and the waves hit you mid-torso.

We all had a lovely swim in the sea. There were some waves breaking close to shore, but most were outside of the swimming area. We did get to bob up and down in the swells, which I love doing.

Once out of the water, I went for a little walk up the beach. The swimming area is a little bay and is surrounded on the north and south by rocky formations. And what I found out pretty quickly is that the lovely sandy beach turns to mountains of sharp seashells in the rocky areas. In bare feet, I didn’t get too far.

The sandwiches we made provided a satisfying lunch and we sat in the shade enjoying our surroundings. There’s something about the sound of waves, the cawing of birds, and the shrieks of little children that makes for a great beach day.

Carol went back in the sea while Christine and I walked down the beach. It was a lovely day, not too hot due to a constant breeze from the sea. Except for about 30 seconds of rain that occurred while we were in Tel Aviv, the weather has been clear and hot, typically in the mid-80s during the day. The nights are starting to get cool, though, which is a relief to everyone, I think.

After a wonderful afternoon at the beach, we returned home. We ate at the apartment and then watched a movie, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. David loved it, he’s seen it before, and finds the themes in it very interesting. Truth be told, I bailed out well before the movie ended.

Another wonderful day in Israel, thanks to the incredible hospitality of Carol and David.

10-16-2022: Nazareth

Today’s outing was to Nazareth. It’s right across the Jezreel Valley, about 30 minutes from the kibbutz. Carol has pointed it out to us as we leave from the front entrance of the kibbutz. As with many villages and cities in Israel, it rises up to the hilltops of the Nazareth Range in Israel’s Northern District. It is the largest Arab city in Israel with some 77,000 people, 70% Muslim and 30% Christian. Jews have settled in a section that was called Nazareth Illit, but now the area has become its own city called Nof Hagalil. Interestingly, after the fall of the U.S.S.R., many Russian Jews emigrated to Nof Hagalil making it a center for Russian Jewish culture in Israel. And while Nof Hagalil is a mixed city with about 30% Arabs, the Arabs rely mainly on Nazareth for goods and services.

Nazareth is an ancient city and, as is typical, was held by all the major powers. It turned hands from Arab, Jewish, or Christian many times over the centuries. Depending on who was in power, the religion out of favor did not fair well. When the British gained control during WWI, that’s when there was a large effort made to build churches and highlight the Christian history of the area.

Nazareth is a pilgrimage site for Christians. As Carol said, this was Jesus’s “hood.” The significance for Christians is also related to the annunciation and is supposedly the sight where the angel Gabriel came to Mary to tell her she would conceive and bear a son through a virgin birth and become the mother of the son of God. So, in the middle of this Arab city is a large church called the Basilica of the Annunciation. It’s Catholic tradition holds that it is built over the site of Mary’s home. It is also near a well, named Mary’s Well, where some believe was the location of the annunciation.

The basilica was completed in 1969 and was constructed over the site of several former churches and supposedly Mary’s house. I wasn’t expecting a modern building. When you hear the word Nazareth, you think of the biblical Nazareth, so a major city and modern basilica seems out of character. It was quite modern and was comprised of 2 floors.

In the lower church is the Grotto of the Annunciation and is a very revered Catholic site. It is believed to be the remains of Mary’s home.

The upper church, located on the second floor had gorgeous mosaics on the walls that were made and donated by countries that have large Catholic populations. Each of the mosaics was either the Virgin Mary and child or depiction of the Annunciation.

Although I thought most of them were very beautiful, I didn’t care for the one from the USA. I thought it gaudy, and certainly not a traditional mosaic.

Near the basilica is another church, St. Joseph’s, which supposedly stands on the sight of Joseph’s carpentry workshop. St. Joseph’s was a much plainer church, but it had an underground crypt and a mosaic with a basin in front of it.

As we were walking from St. Joseph’s Church back out through the basilica courtyard, I noticed another mosaic near a staircase and I knew I had to get Christine’s photo by the mosaic.

We also looked at the underground site over which the basilica was built. There were ruins there dating back many thousands of years.

After visiting the basilica, we wandered around the area. Unfortunately, two things that I wanted to see were not open. We were visiting on a Sunday and I guess because this is a holy Christian area the market was closed, as was the Church Synagogue where Jesus did his studies as a boy. Oh well, can’t have everything.

Walking back to where we parked the car, I noticed this sign.

Carol then drove us over to the Jewish area Nof Hagalil which was not without some excitement. We missed a turn and ended up on an extremely steep back street through a less than nice neighborhood. The street was so narrow that only one car could go through, so of course, we met a car coming the other way. We had a bit of a stare-down with the driver of the other car, a much bigger, nicer car than our little Kia, so he won the stare-down and we had to back up with great difficulty to a bit of an opening allowing the guy to get through. I will say that I gave the guy a rude gesture after he passed.

The Nof Hagalil area is pretty new and certainly looks nicer than the older Arab neighborhoods of Nazareth. There were some pretty amazing houses hanging off the hilltop.

On the return trip back to Mishmar HaEmek, Carol took us through Afula, a city of about 55,000 referred to as the capital of the valley due to its strategic location in the Jezreel Valley. After Israel was established in 1948, Muslims and Christians in the area were replaced by Jewish immigrants from Ethiopia and the USSR. Afula’s population has doubled since 1995 and from the building going on it looks like it may double again. We stopped to eat lunch at a falafel joint. It was so good and incredibly filling. I said I got full eating falafels in Afula.

As we were driving back across the Jezreel Valley, I saw lots of agricultural products being grown. However, the cotton fields were the neatest thing to see. And then I saw large bales of cotton wrapped in Tama netfilm. Even I felt proud seeing that.

It is a nice day touring around Nazareth and seeing some of the sights. Back at the kibbutz, we rested and then had dinner in the dining hall. Dana and Eron and girls were there and we met their Indian neighbors just back from a visit to India. The fun part of learning about their trip was a story about a carved coconut in the shape of a monkey that they brought back for Dana. She was a little freaked out by the thing’s beady black eyes and there was a lot of joking going on about where the thing would end up, like on the pillow next to a sleeping person. It was fun seeing Dana and Eron joke with one another. Dana has the most delightful laugh that makes me smile.

So, another wonderful day in Israel. Carol has been such a trooper driving us all over the place and telling us about the area. She could run her own touring business, for sure.