Blogs from Middle East - page 1229

After our security briefing this morning with Sara, we had some "getting-to-know-you" activities with David and Shirel. This was a good morning (read easy) for our first full day. We had an outstanding lunch at a Turkish restaurant in Talpiot, a working class neighborhood near where we are staying. This location established a sense that this trip is different from the typical tourist or youth trip. Rather than eating someplace central or scenic, we were eating in a typical, everyday area. In the afternoon, we had a walking tour of the Jewish Quarter of the Old City and of the Rabbinic Tunnels under the Kotel. The tour focused mainly on the history, both archaeological and recent, of these areas. After spending some time at the Kotel after the tour, we headed back to the hotel. Our ... read more

After a long day last Tuesday/Wednesday, we arrived at Ben Gurion safely and a little bit ahead of schedule. Unfortunately, we lost that time waiting for our baggage due to the strike (not the last time we will encounter the effects of the strike I'm sure). Our wonderful madricha, Shirel, met us at the airport, and we then went to the tayelet (promenade) overlooking Jerusalem. We made a kiddush there and said shehecheyanu on our arrival as a group in Jerusalem. After that, we went to our hotel, at Ramat Rachel (a kibbutz in Jerusalem). To give an idea of how intertwined the city is, we are in a Jewish area, but overlooking Bethlehem, Tzur Baher (an Arab villge), and Har Homa (a new Jewish neighborhood). The hotel is nice, and the grounds have many gardens ... read more

Please note: This is a very rough draft taken from my travel journal during one of my recent trips across Turkey. I post it only to help others understand some of the issues in traveling across this incredible land until I have time to edit it properly. The people are truly wonderful but like all lands and cultures, there are people who will take advantage of you, so “buyer beware”. If you are only interested in Istanbul, most of the information can be found towards the end of this “log”. There is also an extensive list of what things cost during the summer of 2002. Please be aware that as of Christmas 2002 that the entry visa for US citizens that is good for three months has now risen to $100!!! This is the third increase ... read more

Well, we are nearly at the end of out trip, we fly out of Istanbul on Thursday. We have not had nearly long enough here, only really in Jordan and Syria did we feel that we had seen enough. We decided not to spend much time here in Turkey as we would only get frustrated at not being able to see what we want, we'll just have to come back again! Anyway, what have we done since the last blog. We left Jordan and travelled to Damascus, Syria. We spent about 36 hours there, enough to see what we wanted to see. We spent a long morning going round the old city, round the mosque and the neat, narrow back streets. We had a lovely breakfast of these flat bread things with a cheese and egg ... read more

We only had a brief time in Jordan, but its been great, mostly. We are currently in Amman and are off to Damascus tomorrow afternoon. The boat across from Nuweiba, Egypt to Aqaba, Jordan was fine, it was a nice, newish catamaran. The trip was so smooth, you hardly felt like you were moving at all. Passport control at aqaba was strange, our passports were collected from us as we got off the boat, then we were bussed to the arrivals hall and had to wait for our names to be called out so we could collect our passports with the visas stamped in them. We had to wait until the end while all the easier Arabic names were called first. We caught a taxi to Wadi Musa (Petra) that evening with a Canadian couple. The ... read more