In Transit...

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Well, I have finally arrived in South Africa after a long and circuitous journey. I ended up flying through Tel Aviv, and spending two days in Jerusalem! It was quite wonderful, and entirely too short. I got into New York early on the morning of the 16th of July, and flew out again around noon, headed to Israel. One side note to an otherwise uneventful flight - they confiscated my laptop because it apparently set off some sort of alarm and they had to run further security checks. They then sent it on to Tel Aviv on a later flight, but this was my first encounter with the world of Israeli airline security.
I got into Tel Aviv at 4am on the morning of the 17th, and my flight for Johannesburg didn't leave till the next morning. My parents, I found out, had been talking to family friends from Israel about finding me a place to stay, and they recommended that I go to Jerusalem. I was blown away - it had never occurred to me that it would be possible to get to Jerusalem (shows you how much I prepared for the trip - I didn't even know the exchange rate before I showed up! As a side note, my lack of preparation was one of the most nerve - wracking parts of this detour.) But I made a hostel booking, got into a cab, and started towards Jerusalem, giddy at the idea of being in the city.

I arrived at the hostel at about 8am, and met the vaguely testy receptionist who insisted that I would in no way be able to check in before 2pm. I regrouped, changed clothes, stored my bags, and headed off to explore (remember that I'd had about 6 hours of sleep over the previous two nights, due to two overnight flights). I should also note that on the way out of the hostel I almost walked into the sliding glass door.
I found two museums quite close by, and started interrogating the very nice and very helpful man at reception, who convinced me to visit the Bible Lands Museum. This was one of the nicer museums I visited. It's distinguishing feature was that they attempted to accompany their archaeological exhibits with Biblical references. For example, when talking about ancient seals display of the and signet rings, they mentioned the ring that Pharaoh gives Joseph in Genesis. As someone who knows the Old Testament much better than ancient Mesopotamian history, it was really helpful to have the two placed side by side. I also thought that the museum resisted well the temptation to offer exegesis on one side or the other about the historicity of the Bible. It probably is also raking in the dough from all the "Bible Lands" tourists, but really, can you fault them for trying?

From the Bible Langs museum, I went over to the Shrine of the Rock at the Israel museum, the permanent home of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The entire original scroll of Isaiah was on special display, and I thought it was spectacular to see. I could also comment on the architecture of the building itself, which I thought was interesting, but came awfully close to crossing the kitsch line. They also had a lovely model of Jerusalem during the first temple period.

By then, it was 2pm, and I returned to the backpackers to check in. I decided to take a short nap, but woke up at 8pm. Oops. By that point, my laptop still hadn't arrived, so I decided to take an extra day in Jerusalem. I refused to leave before I had seen the Western Wall.

The next day I wandered around the Old City on some wonderful advice from a chance acquaintance at the breakfast table, who also happened to be a professor at a college that many of my relatives have attended. He also gave me a ride to the Jaffa gate, which let me get my day started early. I wandered around the city for a bit, and promptly got lost. I finally stumbled upon the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (which was, by the way in the opposite direction of where I had been heading). Before the end of the day I had visited the Rockefeller museum, the Western Wall, Gethsemane, four of the city gates, and all four quarters of the old city. I was mostly lost for most of the day, and I think it's the closest I've ever been to heat stroke in my life, but it was a glorious day. Around 2pm, I went to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum and memorial located on a mountain on the edge of the city. Their memorial was probably one of the most beautiful and moving memorials I'd ever seen. The next morning (barely - it was 1am) I got in a shuttle to the airport (and got ripped off), and by 2am I was at the airport. The airport was a saga in itself; suffice it to say that despite the fact that I arrived at the airport 4 hours before my flight left, I still had to run for the plane. Security was a complete nightmare.

Regardless, I got on my plane to Joburg, and finally arrived in South Africa. And more on that...to come!

Much love to all - don't be a stranger!

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