Blogs from Israel, Middle East - page 130

Saturday, Oct. 4: Until today the only news we could get was Aljazeera in English; very interesting. The weather today was 89 and very clear. We drove today from Jerusalem to the Galilee district. Highway one, a super highway, was build along the old border between Israel and Jordan. We went through the Jezreel Valley, an agricultural district. The Israelis use modern, scientific farming methods on flat land. The Arabs are left with stoney slopes some of which have been terraced since Biblical times. It is the beginning of harvest for olives and cotton, quite a contrast in methods. The first stop was Nazareth, the Church of the Annunciation. It is supposedly built over the grotto/house in which Mary lived. Nazareth is now predominately Arab Muslim; until recently it was Arab Christian. On the way we ... read more

October 1-2: Our flights were uneventful. We left Louisville at 9:30 AM on Wednesday, met Mike and Lynn at the gate in Atlanta,and got our Austrian Airlines flight at JFK for Vienna. At the gate in Vienna there was a group of Orthodox Jews- black coats and hats, curly forelock on the older ones. Younger men mostly wore white shirts and had the fringe of their prayer shawls dangling from their waists. They paraded the Torah (scroll), kissed it and read from it, occasionally blowing the shofar. It was Rosh Hashana. They were a lively party. After hearing loud singing and horn blowing on the 3 hour flight, the charm wore thin! Ben Gurion airport is beautiful and ultra modern. There was no military or police presence. It was about an hour drive to Jerusalem. Our ... read more

Another atrocious nights sleep one of the new occupants snored like a giant anteater with bronchial pneumonia. We kept chucking stuff at him during the night but he wouldn't wake up, thankfully wouldn't have to put up with that again as I headed off to Tel Aviv. With my huge backpack I waddled off to Damascus gate to get the bus to the trrain station, was then told that I should head off to Jaffa gate (the Israelis call it yafo). From there you need to walk up Jaffa road to the bus stop. On arriving at the central bus station, it is huge, apparently Egged the main bus company in Israel is the largest in the world. The bus station has 7 floors, with all kinds of modern shops and outlets. Immediately got on a ... read more

The Sea of Galilee is not a large lake. From most places on the shore, you can see all the way around it. But during our visit we observed a sudden storm descend on the lake, whipping the placid water into angry whitecaps. We imagined a storm so sudden and violent that it could swamp a small fishing boat. It was on such an occasion that Jesus commanded the wind to be quiet. Another time he walked across the surface of the water to reach his disciples. They were headed for the village of Geneseret, so our boat is floating about where this miracle occurred. To the left is Migdal, former home of Mary Magdalene. There are a couple of tricks to being able to walk on water. One is to allow the temperature of the ... read more

I woke up this morning to the sounds of Ernests alarm - I don't know why he had set his alarm he wasn't going to do anything!! After breakfast went for another dip int the dead sea and then got on a bus to Jerusalem which cost 33 sheckels - it took around 2 hours. On arriving at the old city I initially had a look round at the Lutheran hospice but it didn't have any dorms so settled on the Hebron Hostel in the Muslim quarter. They charge 35 sheckels a night which meant that 3 nights there was the same price as one night in the the youth hostel - a bargain. The hostel was Ok just what you expect and it did have lockers - a bonus. The old city of Jerusalem is ... read more