Thursday/Friday, November 14/15 Our last day in Israel – and L’Hitra’ot.

Thursday/Friday, November 14/15 Our last day in Israel – and L’Hitra’ot.

Today was the day Reuven was able to set aside for us. So where did we want to go? No clue.

We followed his suggestion – we drove about 90 minutes or so to Karmiel, where he and his family had lived for three years. We visited the Arab/Jewish school where his boys attended – called “Yad v’Yad” (“hand in hand”), the goal of the program is to break down the barriers between Arabs and Jews. Classes are held in Arabic and Hebrew.

The school’s principal kindly allowed one of the teachers (a transplant from Seattle) to show us around the building. He was obviously Mr. Poplular – he was surrounded by babbling and laughing little girls. He told us the school has a strong emphasis on art, but unfortunately the art teacher was nowhere to be found.

Next we stopped by the shul where Reuven worked. Lots of familiar siddurim (prayer books) and humashim (bibles) were on the shelves. It felt very homey.

While we ate lunch, we thought about where to go next. Reuven was happy to take us back to Tsfat – it was “only” another hour away. But a 3 hour drive back! He insisted he didn’t mind, so off we went.

Of course when we arrived at Tsfat, it was from a different direction than the week before – and we had been in a van not paying any attention at all where we had walked. Took a few tries asking directions to get us to the general vicinity of the old city. Then we parked the car and just got out and started walking.

The previous week we had been scooted down only one street of shops – it was now apparent that there were many streets with galleries. We wandered into one of the galleries – spectacular pieces, most of them well beyond what we normally spend on artwork. The salesperson did a great job of stressing that all the artwork in her gallery were inspired by spiritual concepts, which made them all the more appealing, but not much less expensive! But, we did find something we liked within our price range, and arranged to have it shipped.

We walked back up the street where we had been just the week before – we found the weaver’s shop with the glorious (and expensive) prayer shawls. We still don’t buy one.

While we’re wandering around, Reuven has conversations with the shop keepers, who tell him that there is an artists’ cooperative in Tsfat (started shortly after the War for Independence in 1949). To join the cooperative, you have to be a resident of Tsfat for some number of years (i.e. you can’t just move there and join the cooperative), then you apply and audition. If you are accepted, you are given space for you to work and sell your pieces. The shops are not in competition – since it’s a cooperative arrangement, all the profits for all the shops are distributed.

Looking at this link I see that Andy and I missed a LOT. We’ll just have to go back!

http://www.artists.co.il/safed/show_e.html

Maybe by the next time we go to Israel there’ll be a train to Tsfat. Wishful thinking.

We decided to get back on the road by 4:00, because we still needed to pack and get ourselves to the airport.

Off we go, Reuven figured he knew the way back. But then we couldn’t seem to get ourselves out of Tsfat – we kept going around the same traffic circle with the same results, until we finally realized it was all right exits until we were back on the highway going south.

ANNNNDDD….rush hour traffic. Yey.

So Reuven launched into his family’s drive-time-killing game of “Initials”. The idea is, give the initials and sex of a person you’re thinking of and everybody else can ask unlimited questions until they figure it out. Immediately there is a philosophical disagreement as to whether or not there should be unlimited questions or only 20. We try Reuven’s way for a few turns, then Andy’s way. We are so engrossed in the game and the Talmudic discourse regarding the virtues and values of each point of view, we suddenly noticed that we were in Haifa. We weren’t supposed to be in Haifa.

Oh here we go again. Something about us that derails all good intentions and travel instructions. I’m now becoming concerned about getting to the airport – though it’s supposed to be just a 20 minute drive from Modi’in, I can just imagine what our presence in the car will do to suddenly have us back in Tel Aviv instead.

Technology comes to the rescue – Andy turns on data roaming on his phone and eventually we’re back on the right track and headed towards Modi’in. Amazingly enough we only lost about 30 minutes – we arrived back at about 7:30.

Our last meal with the Resnicks included a virtuoso performance by Yaron on saxophone. What a send off!

We did manage to get to the airport in one straight shot – so sad to say goodbye to the Resnicks and Israel. But we’ll be back! It’s only L’hitra’ot – till we meet again!

We checked in, paid for our extra bag (thank you once again, Shula and Reuven), and toddled towards our gate. Already exhausted and achy, I hoped I’d just pass out once the plain took off.

Around midnight we starting listening for the boarding announcement. But we hear nothing. People are lining up, but we still don’t hear anything. We go stand in some line, but we’re asked if we’re with the “group”  - what group? – and obviously we are not, and we are directed to the end of the other very long line. What is going on here? How come there’s no 1^st class/business class/small children calls for boarding?

There’s an extra check of carry-on bags before boarding – I’m asked if I had bought any liquids at the airport. Well, yeah, I said, but I finished it. Ah, ok, the El Al person says, please go ahead and board. So I take off down the tunnel, get onto the plane, find my seat, turn around to let Andy in first and….there’s no Andy.

Because he had filled his water bottle after security and while we were sitting at the gate, but they told him he had to empty it.

Sooooo the airport regulations let you bring liquids onto the plane as long as you bought them after security. But El Al regulations say No Liquids Period.

Boarding takes absolutely forever. Andy’s window seat has no window – this tells me that even more seats have been squished into this 747 than designed. The guy in the middle seat is not a small guy. I feel like a sardine. The right armrest is digging into my leg and with a stranger next to me; I absolutely cannot find a position that is comfortable. The guy in front of me is already testing how far back he can push back his seat.

In front of Andy is a woman; a hasid asks her very politely if she is “with” the man next to her – she is not. He then asks her if she would mind changing seats with him (another window seat a few rows up), so that he won’t have to sit next a woman on the flight. He is very solicitous, and she graciously agrees.

Now Andy has this big guy in the seat in front of him, wearing his big black coat. Big guy with big coat cannot get comfortable (I can commiserate), but he won’t take off his coat. His hatbox will not fit under the seat. There is continued fussing until things are stowed.

Both Andy and I notice that our front neighbors have stowed their stuff under their own seats instead of the seat in front of them. Both of us are shifting our front-neighbors stuff around so there’s room for our own stuff and our feet.

There are lots of babies on this flight, one of whom is particularly vocal about his/her unhappiness. I am tempted to join in.

This is going to be a really long 11 hours….

It only felt like 3 days. It was a blessed relief to land and get off that plane.

Ah well. Home sweet home – it was a highly successful trip, but it was good to be home.

So, where shall we go next year?

Wednesday, November 13: With A Little Help From Our Friends

Wednesday – November 13 With a little help from our friends

We were a little bit at a loss as to what to do today, but we decided to take the train to Tel Aviv because the train was easier to deal with than the bus/shirut to and from Jerusalem. Plus we had not really scoped out Dizengoff St. and also my friend, Merry, was due to back from her trip to India. 

I've known Merry for over 40 years. I baby sat her kids while I was in college and even a bit after. No need to point out those kids are now in their late 30s/early 40s, married with two kids. They are still 4 and 6 years old in my mind. Merry had made aliyah (moved to Israel) 20 years ago.

I gave Merry a call at about 10:00, and sure enough, she was home and awake and happy to meet us for lunch at 1:00. We have a plan!

We walked over to Dizengoff and started up the street.We walked up Dizengoff window shopping till we found a store called "The Bauerhouse". Once more did our part to support the global economy by buying dreidels and a menorah.

We met Merry at her apartment at 1:00 – we hadn’t seen each other in 10 years. She took us to a restaurant in a nearby park – you wouldn’t even know we were in a big city. It was great catching up with her and what her kids were doing.

This evening we wanted to make sure we were back to Modi’in a bit early, because we had talked the Resnicks into letting us take all of them out for dinner as a thank you for hosting us this week. So we talked about heading back to the Tel Aviv Mercaz station.

And Merry said, “Why are you walking all the way over there? There’s a closer station – the Azrieli station is only 20 minutes away instead of 30.” That sounded like a great idea.

The “Azreili station” is the nick-name for the Tel Aviv HaShalom station. It’s called “Azreili” because it’s around the corner from the Azreili Center, which consists of 3 buildings – one round, one square and one triangular.

We ask the teller for the usual – 2 tickets to Modi’in. As she hands me the tickets, she tells me that the next train is in 7 minutes on platform 2. We go into the station, find platform 2, and 7 minutes later a train shows up. We get on it without verifying it’s the correct train, because of course it is, right? We’re on platform 2 and the train came in 7 minutes.

As we chug along, we hear the station announcements (all in Hebrew), but we hear words like “Ben Gurion” and “Modi’in”, so we figure it’s all good. Half hour later, Andy notices that we are in fact not going in the correct direction – we are going south, not east. We are now in Rehovot. He also points out that unlike the actual train to Modi’in where all the instructions are repeated in English, we haven’t heard a word of English since getting on this train.

Uh. Oh.

So we get off. We’re now in Rehovot. We went a half hour in the wrong direction.

We went up to the station master’s office and have a broken conversation over the turnstiles (we don’t want to exit the station because we’d have to buy new tickets). We’re told that we need to take the next train back towards Tel Aviv and get off at the Tel Aviv Haganah station, then switch to the Modi’in train on track #2. And when is the next train? A half hour.

While we’re waiting, we try to figure out the electronic signs that are flashing the incoming trains and their next few stations. Mind you, the sign is all in Hebrew, so we were a bit challenged to figure this out.

Let’s see, on the Benyamina train (the one we want) Tel Aviv Haganah is the 5^th stop once we’re on the train. We will get on the train, count 5 stops, and get off. That will work.

Another challenge is now it is dark and the train stations typically seem to have only one big sign announcing their name. We can sort of make out the name of the station from the booming announcement before we arrive, and we’re carefully counting stations as well.

As we approach the 5^th station, both of us clearly hear that the next station Tel Aviv Haganah. So we get off the train and toddle as quickly as possible to track #2, because we figure the train to Modi’in must be coming along any minute.

Guess what? It’s not Tel Aviv Haganah by any stretch of anybody’s imagination. As a matter of fact, we have no idea what station it is at all. It’s a tiny station – only two tracks – and in the middle of nowhere. What the heck did we do? What happened here? How do we get to Modi'in from here?

Because it’s such a small station, the station staff’s English is not so great. Somehow we communicate that we need to get to Modi’in – us on one side of the turnstile, the staff on the other. The ticket agent says,

“Rakefet Modi’in!”

and I reply, “Train to Modi’in!”. She smiles, thrilled that she’s understood. She says,

“Shtayim!” and I reply,

“Two!”

whereupon we seem to be stuck for a minute, because that’s all she says, and I’m not quite grasping the message. And then, voila!

“The train to Modi’in is on track #2?”

“Ken, ken, ken!!” (Yes, yes, yes!)

So we go back to where we had been just a few minutes ago.

We really don’t have a real good idea as to exactly what went wrong. That first train at the Azreili station was either the wrong train (maybe it was the train AFTER it we needed to be on?), but we hadn’t verified it was the correct train by checking the signs on the sides of the cars. Or, could be the ticket agent assumed that we knew we needed to get off at the Tel Aviv Haganah station and switch to the train to Modi’in.

Even though this is a moot point, we just can’t let it go. And it gives us something to talk about while we’re waiting for the next train. Which is in another 20 minutes – at 6:31. We have been traveling for almost 2 hours and have gone absolutely nowhere. We’ve decided to place all the "blame" on Merry for talking us into taking the train from the Azreili station. If we had just walked 10 minutes longer to Tel Aviv Mercaz, none of this would have happened. Yes, that’s it, it’s Merry’s fault! Why did she need to be so helpful! ;-)

Shula calls and I give her an update on the silly situation. While I’m on the phone with her, the stationmaster asks to see our tickets.

“This is not the train to Modi’in”, he says.

“We know”, we reply.

“You can’t get to Modi’in from here, you have to change trains.”

“We know.”

While Andy fills him in on our little adventure, I’m walking up and down the platform with Shula on the phone because she wants to know what station this is. I have no idea, and I end up walking halfway down the platform until I finally locate the station sign that says, “Kfar Badad”. Wherever that might be, Shula recognizes it. She tells me we’ll need to take the next train one stop, get off, and transfer to the train to Modi’in. Yep, that’s what we hear.

I come back to Andy and the station master, and it’s clear that the station master finds all of this pretty funny. Which, in fact, it is.  It’s beyond ridiculous into the absurd zone.

At 6:31 the train arrives. We go one stop. We get off and- it’s the Tel Aviv Haganah station! In the distance I can see the Azreili center buildings, where we were 2 hours ago.

The train to Modi’in arrives – we can tell it’s the correct train, because it’s a single level blue train (instead of a double decker red train)  and the “Modi’in” signs on the sides of the cars. It’s now 6:45 and we’re finally headed in the correct direction.

We arrive at Modi’in a little before 7:30. A quick 3 hours, and we’re at last where we’re supposed to be.

Shula picks us up and drives to the strip mall where we’ll meet the guys for dinner. Except she can’t find the restaurant. We’re beginning to thing we’re wearing our getting-lost-ness off onto other people.

But we do find the restaurant, the meal is excellent, and it’s just time for this day to end already.

Tomorrow: Our Last Day in Israel and We Go A-wandering.

Tuesday, November 12: Mission Accomplished

Tuesday, November 12.  The Real Mission of This Trip Accomplished and Tel Aviv Redux

My paternal grandfather died in 1965 and was buried somewhere outside Tel Aviv. My parents found his grave when they went to Israel for the first time in 1980. When I was last in Israel in 2003, I thought about visiting his grave just a little too late – that and I realized I really needed a car and someone with me who can read and speak Hebrew. Therefore, no one had been to visit in over 30 years.

So, months ago I had asked our friend Reuven if he could possibly help – since he of course knows Hebrew and has a car. And of course he said he would.

Well, today was the day. I had brought with me a copy of my grandfather’s death certificate with my father’s notes written on it. A five minute conversation on the phone with the cemetery and all the information was confirmed, and off we went.

Unlike the cemeteries I was used to in the New York area (which don’t exactly follow the grid pattern alluded to on the cemetery maps and are overgrown with trees and bushes and the like), this cemetery was barren of green and as organized as a sheet of graph paper. We found the grave within 5 minutes.

The inscription reads something to the affect “Here lies Harry, who had a hard life, was ill and suffered a long time.” No clue who wrote that, but it’s not exactly “Beloved Father and Grandfather.”

The Jewish custom is to leave a rock or a pebble on the grave when you visit (don't ask me why, 'cause I dunno). There was one rock already there – of course no way to know one way or the other, but I’d like to think that it was my dad who put that rock there in 1980.

Mission accomplished.

Since we were close to Bat Yam, we stopped off to see the community center where Reuven works with Russian immigrants on our way to the train station.

We’ve got the hang of this train thing. No problemo! On our way to Tel Aviv Mercaz (central) station.

Once back in Tel Aviv, we walk to the Tel Aviv Museum of Art (TAMA). The last time we were in this museum in 1981, it wasn’t much of anything. It has certainly grown in the last 30 years. A very diverse collection, this… thing…(fabric art? Textile art?) was my favorite – pieces of it are all over the museum.

It’s already dark when we’re done with the museum and we walk the 30 minutes back to the Tel Aviv Mercaz station and take the next available train back to Modi’in.

We really have this train thing down. Piece of cake!

Tomorrow: Um. We’ll figure that out in the morning.

Monday, November 11 - On Our Own Again in Jerusalem

Monday, November 11 – back to Jerusalem

We had no real plan at all as to what we were going to do for the next 4 days. Reuven said that his calendar was booked until Thursday.

This was ok. The tour had done its job of showing us highlights, but now was the opportunity to return to places we thought we needed more time to explore.

So, it was easy – beeline back to Jerusalem. Of the four days in Jerusalem on the tour, we only had one afternoon in the old city. We wanted to go back to the Cardo and finish shopping there. Maybe see the Christian sites that had been assiduously avoided by the tour. Who knows what we would decide to do.

After 10 days of being told where we were off to next, we were FREE! Woohoo! But first we had to get there.

Reuven drove us to a bus stop on the shoulder of a major highway and waited with us until the bus to Jerusalem picked us up. Half hour later we were in the central bus station – with its huge mall.

We started walking down Jaffa street (road? Blvd?) towards the old city. We passed by the Machane Yehuda market where we had seen the madhouse crowds on our first Friday in Israel. No crazy crowds on a Monday morning.

The weather was perfect – high 60s/low 70s and no humidity. A pleasant walk following the light rail line. We figured once we were done with whatever it was we were going to do, we’d take the light rail back to the bus station – because we were walking downhill, which meant the return trip would be uphill.

We found the Jaffa Gate where we had been the first Saturday night in Israel to see the light show at David’s Citadel. Then we sorta back-tracked to the upscale Mamila mall just outside the gate where I knew I could find a bathroom. No more Gila to point out bathrooms – I had to turn on my bathroom-dar for myself.

We sat in the mall for quite some time, trying to figure out using GPS/Apple maps/Google maps exactly where the Cardo was. We didn’t want to spend too, too much time getting lost.

But it became obvious that we were getting nowhere, so we just walked back in through the Jaffa Gate and saw an information center. Where the staff showed us on a paper map exactly how to get there. We were only 10 minutes away. Ok, so sometimes low-tech still works better than hi-tech.

The direct route took us directly into the Arab shuk – though not quite as obnoxious as the shuk in Istanbul or Tunis, it was, let’s face it, a shuk. So looking at any object for more than a milli-second was an invitation for the sales guy to attack (“Madam, madam, such a lovely Jewish star you have, where did you get it? I have others just like it, just step inside, step inside….”).

We overshot the Cardo by only one block (street?), which we thought was pretty darn good. We walked through the Cardo – up one way. Then back the other. Hmmm. Was this all there was? There’s the place we bought the bird “painting”. There’s the place where our tour-friends bought a shofar. The Cardo seemed a LOT bigger last Sunday afternoon. I guess we really did finish shopping here that Sunday.

Now what? Lunch!

We found the general area where we had lunch the last time. Since it was Monday, we heard a Bar Mitzvah celebration from the Kotel (Torah is read on Monday, Thursday and Saturday, and a bar mitzvah can occur on any day Torah is read). At one point, we saw a processional: two musicians leading the way with a boy under a chupah following behind, and his family behind him. Awesome – they moved too fast and I couldn’t get a video of it.

We wandered around a bit looking for more shops, then decided we would head to the church of the Holy Sepulcher.

It took maybe a minute, two max, to get lost in the bowels of the shuk. Tried following the map, but streets on the map didn’t exist (or couldn’t find), and streets we walking on didn’t exist on the map. Sometimes we thought we had to be getting closer, because the ratio of Jewish to Christian items in the shuk shops would shift from prayer shawls and hamsas to crosses and icons. We figured we were really really close when the crosses and icons got really really big.

At one point, we saw tour groups going by and we wondered if we should just follow them – they had to be either on their way to or just left the Holy Sepulcher. One shuk guy was very helpful, telling us that the church was just a left and a right and a left – which put us into a small clearing – we could see an opening, like an entrance/exit, and on the other side were people staring up at something. But we turned left. And lost the church again. Could see its dome roof above the shuk, but couldn’t get there. So close and yet so far.

Based on help from another shuk guy that we needed to go back a street and turn on St. Helena’s street, we suddenly popped out into the church’s courtyard.

Of all the churches in the world, the Holy Sepulcher is one not-impressive building from the outside:

Inside was crammed with pilgrims, all trying to touch the last station of the cross

Or stand in some endless line for Christ’s tomb.

Nothing in this church is labeled and we did not have a guide book with us. This meant that many things were lost on us. Especially a rock encased in glass. We figured it had to be something very important, but we had no idea what it was.

I’m not sure when or why it occurred to us to tackle the climb up the Mount of Olives, but we had a map so we figured, why not? Back into the shuk we plunged. And then we realized the exit out the courtyard was the entrance we had seen about 45 minutes before, but had decided to turn left instead.

Following the map, we headed towards the Lion Gate, weaving through the shuk until we ran out of shuk. And then we were just random tourists in the Arab quarter. And suddenly we had the narrow streets virtually to ourselves. We knew we were headed in the correct direction, because we saw these things on the way:

The Pool of Bethesda (which we didn’t see, because it required tickets)

The birthplace of the Virgin Mary

Walking, walking, walking…out of nowhere a 10 year old boy pops out in front of me clapping his hands in my face (shouting “HAH!”) as he looked me directly in the eye. The clap had an odd sound – like he had honked a horn. Mildly startling, it weirded me out just a bit. Just an obnoxious kid, we thought, but we also thought there was a little aggressiveness there. Let’s keep walking.

We stopped for a break:

Suddenly, a broom handle goes flying over our heads and lands at our feet. Who comes to retrieve it? Our obnoxious little friend who has brought another obnoxious little friend with him. Obnoxious kid #1 picks up the broom handle and waves it at us, like he’s going to throw it to his buddy over our heads. Exchanging nasty glares, we just move on and out the Lion Gate.

Andy decided to follow the signs to climbing the ramparts to the top of the wall, so I sat outside the Lion Gate watching a guy load a bobcat truck into the bed of a dump truck. Quite a crowd collected to watch him do it – took a few tries, but he got it done.

In the meant time, Andy is following the steps up to the top of the wall until he comes to a locked gate. He sees a couple of (new) obnoxious boys, who speak to him in Arabic, which is, of course, a complete and total waste of time. Andy turns to leave when he hears a faint noise – like a small pebble hitting the iron fence. Like the boys threw a rock at him.

Time to move on to friendlier territory – we walked down the hill to the street at the base of the Mount of Olives. We walked along the road and saw another road to the left and going up the hill. But we figured that was the car/bus road up, not the pedestrian way up. Which consisted of endless stairs.

We found that opening – called the “Pathway for the Cohanim”. The Cohens (Jewish priestly tribe) are forbidden to enter cemeteries, because coming in contact with the dead renders you ritually impure. And the only way for a Cohen to purify himself of the cemetery requires a Holy Temple. Which we don’t have.

Up we go!

Up we go!

Up we go.

Up.

We.

Go.

Oh boy.

The sun is going down and we really hope that:

1.        We get to the top in time to take a photo of the iconic view.
2.     There’s a taxicab up there to take us back to the bus station.

And wow that last 100 feet is a doozy of a steep hill on asphalt.

BUT – we make it!

And there is indeed a cab waiting out front of the Seven Arches Hotel. The cabbie was very talkative, chatting about his kids living in the U.S. He dropped us off where he thought the shirut (little bus-vans) to Modi’in should be parked.

Except the only shiruts on that corner are for local Jerusalem locations or Tel Aviv. After finally following Shula’s instructions (after she repeated them to us over the phone for the third time), we go into the bus station, go downstairs and follow the signs to “Arrivals”. And there’s the Modi’in shirut.

Shula retrieves us from the pickup spot and we spend a great evening with the Resnicks.

Tomorrow: Return to Tel Aviv

Sunday, November 10 - L'hitra'ot Chaverim (Till we meet again)

Sunday, November 10: L’Hitra’ot to the Group

Though it was our day to check out of the hotel, our check out time was very late. Which was nice – we didn’t have to frantically pack up and be ready before breakfast.

First activity of the day: gleaning food for the poor at a beet farm in Rehovot. The bus heads south while Gila explains how the beet farm leaves a certain amount of the crop unpicked, so that it can be donated to those who do not have enough to eat. I defer out of this activity to avoid agony in my back and knees. I’m not alone in the bus, since our friends Ed and Carol are also opting out.

Note: I am not in this photo

The group picked 1000 lbs of beets, enough to feed 100 families. Great job!

One of our troops decides to bring a beet to lunch with us. It’s huge. He walks around with it like it’s a light saber.

Our last activity together before lunch is a visit to Weissman Institute and the house that is preserved as a museum. Chaim Weissman was a chemist, a Zionist, and a founding father of the state of Israel, a contemporary of David Ben Gurion, and Israel’s first President.

The institute has an entertaining interactive/geeky display showing what the scientists at the institute are researching.

The house is really nice – rather upscale, as a matter of fact. Interesting layout, beautiful furnishings. I could see living there. Except for the spiral staircase:

Thank you to Andy for climbing all the way up to the top to take this photo.

I also liked the 1930’s vintage fridge:

For our farewell lunch, we go to a restaurant that is just a couple of blocks from the Carmel market. Endless excellent food, we all realize that this is in fact the last time we will all be together, as some of us are going home that night, others are off to Eilat and Petra, and Andy and I are off to visit our friends, the Resnicks, in Modi’in.

What an adventure we’ve had together! All in all, everything has worked out very well. L’hitra’ot, everybody! Till we meet again!

Andy and I opt not to take the bus back to the hotel to give us the opportunity to walk through the Carmel market. Where we manage to find a way to continue to stimulate the Israeli economy.

We shared a cab with another couple, after hailing down a shirut (van-bus) proves to be fruitless.

We pack up our now bulging suitcases and carry-on bag. We had told the Resnicks that we were aiming to be on the 5:26 train from Tel Aviv Mercaz (a/k/a the Arlozorov or central station) to Modi’in. Grabbing a cab was no problem. Traffic was a problem. We didn’t arrive at the station till almost 5:30. 

Ok, so we’ll be on the 5:48 train. No problem.

Though one would think that since one can take the train to Ben Gurion airport that seeing people with suitcases on the train should be a common experience, the guards at the station entrance look at us like we each have 3 heads and 9 arms. AND, to make things more fun, each bag has to go through the scanner! Our suitcases are big. And bulging. Mostly with dirty laundry.

It takes two people (Andy and a soldier) to heave each suitcase onto the scanner bed, and amazingly enough, they bags don’t get stuck. I was convinced this was the next thing to go wrong, but I was wrong about the next thing to go wrong.

Next – how do we buy tickets? Well of course the automated machines are 100% Hebrew, so forget that. So of course we get to stand in the long line at the windows. And lastly, of course this is Sunday night, which has its own rush hour.

No problem, no problem! I have my credit card ready. I know the words I need to say as I get to the window and see the grumpy-looking ticket agent:

“Two tickets to Modi’in Center, please”.

Stare.

Pause.

I could have sworn her response was (barely into her microphone behind the Plexiglas), “Two shekels.”

Really? Only 2 shekels to Modi'in? That makes no sense. But I give her my credit card anyway. She looks at me like the soldiers did – I seriously wondered that I must have 3 heads and 9 arms, but maybe I have even more heads now? Her expression said, why are you giving me a credit card for 2 shekels? So I ask Andy to give me 2 shekels and I pass it through to her under the Plexiglas.

I definitely now have 4 heads and 10 arms and maybe wings, because the look of disbelief on her face is astounding. Again, it sounds like she’s saying, “TWO SHEKELS”. I mean, it’s noisy in the station, but don’t have to shout.

It’s obvious we are not communicating, and her grumpiness combined with my frustration (as I glance at the clock to see 5:48 rapidly approaching) is not helping.

Finally, she takes out a piece of paper and writes: “32”.

She was saying “32 shekels”? really? Wow, ok, I was NOT hearing that. So I wondered what the problem was with me giving her a credit card, and I try passing it to her again.

She swipes the card and flings it back to me. Glares at me (if looks could kill…), because I’m wasting her time.

What? How about some explanation here? Which she gave me – in Hebrew. G0d bless some guy behind me who said, “Your card is not working.” Oh no! what’s wrong with the card? It worked not that long ago in the Carmel Market, what’s going on here? Is it locked? Did the credit card company pick up on a fraudulent purchase? Been there done that a year ago in Jamaica.

So, I gave her another card. She swipes it, and flings it back at me with a look of total disgust. You stupid American.

My guardian angel, whispers, “It’s your American card. The machine won’t take your American card.”

Oh for crying out loud. Why didn’t she just say so. My frustration is off the scale. Andy has a 50 shekel bill, I buy the two tickets and FINALLY we head to the platform. But guess what? It’s 5:50, and we missed the 5:48 by literally 2 minutes.

O.

M.

G.

I figure out how to text Shula from my American phone to let her and Reuven know yey, now we’re on the 6:26 train. And thank goodness the stop we need is the very last stop on the line, making it really hard to mess up. Though if we tried I’m sure we could have (more on that later).

At long last we are at Modi’in Mercaz and – there’s Reuven bounding down the stairs to greet us! Woot! And we manage to squish our giant suitcases into his teensy car, and the guard at the shopping mall entrance managed to not reject us because one suitcase completely fills the trunk.

We find the food court  to have dinner and then – there’s Shula, and eventually all the boys!

The next part of our Excellent Adventure has begun!

Saturday, November 9: Thank G0d for Shabbat

Saturday, November 9: Thank G0d for Shabbat

First: Happy Birthday to Robin! Except the 7 hour time difference and Shabbat makes it a bit difficult for a birthday phone call or facetime.

For the first time this trip, we got to sleep past 6:30. Wow. Thank G0d for Shabbat! 

Seemed like everybody at the hotel had the same idea, because the dining hall was filled.

Even though our paid-for lunch at the hotel was at 2:00, we decided to walk to Jaffa and take our chances. We started our trek on Ben Yehudah street, which was particularly not impressive – borderline (or more) seedy. And it was rather warm out as well, so we crossed the street whenever we found ourselves not in the shade. One nice thing – there were lots of randomly placed benches for breaks from the humidity.

Our first goal was HaTachana – the site of the old railway station. Descriptions of it alluded to an upscale area with shops and restaurants. It was a challenge finding it on the paper map and Google maps.

When we finally did find it (45 minutes later), it was nothing like what we were expecting – didn’t see any shops (of course it was Shabbat, so perhaps nothing was open), but we did see run-down looking buildings with restaurants. And we found a theater that seemed to be having a piano performance, and also a dance school. We were still not sure we had actually found “it”, but we sure did find a gelato store. Good enough!

So we gave up on the HaTachana concept, and continued our walk till we found the Jaffa clock tower:

Kept going to find the intersection where the Jaffa fleamarket should have been, but it was not. 

Kept going to walk through the Jerusalem Gate of the Jaffa old city, but the road was very steep and there seemed to be not much of anything to see, and it was very warm. We contemplated giving up, but instead we decided to have lunch then perhaps tackle the Jaffa old city from the other direction.

So we randomly picked a restaurant at a random intersection that managed to not have a menu in the window, but I saw people eating felafel, so it had to be ok. The restaurant seemed to be in two halves on either side of the street. We picked the half on the right.

We sat down. There were menus on the table, but they are in Hebrew. Not helpful. I couldn't remember how to say “menu” in Hebrew. We asked a waiter for a menu in English. He disappeared. Then reappeared. Without a menu, and proceeded to ignore us as if we had never asked him for anything, or perhaps we were figments of his imagination. Or wished we were.

Tried a different person – a woman who at least made some effort to find the English version of the menu. But soon she too was distracted and we are back to where we started – no English menu.

I asked the waitress again, and this time she talked to a manager-like looking person – she returned to tell us that *he* will tell us what’s on the menu and help us out. We saw him picking up menus to check, only to finally figure out that the apparent only copy of the menu in English is at a table at the other half of the restaurant. Why he couldn’t ask those people if they were done with it, I don’t know.

So, he says, “We have fish and kabob. But this is a fish restaurant. So you should have the sea bass. 120 shekels {$30?!?}, no problem.”

$30 for lunch per person? Really?

What about the kabobs? Well, yes they have kabobs, “But this is a fish restaurant, so you should have the sea bass, 120 shekels, no problem.”

Um. What?

We didn’t want to spend $30 per person.

“Well normally 110 shekels, but TODAY it is 120.” He says like this is a discount, when in fact it’s and extra fee because he’s open on Shabbat.

Still not clicking here. Try one more time regarding the kabobs.

“Yes, but this is fish restaurant. You have sea bass, 120 shekel no problem.”

Wow going nowhere really fast. I was beginning to wonder if this side of the restaurant was fish and the other side was meat. We had seen something similar in Jerusalem where a restaurant was actually two – one for meat and one for dairy.

So how about we share a grilled and filleted sea bass? Ah HAH, since we’re now talking about fish, this is fine. 40 shekels per person, plus the salads, no problem. Ok! Now we’re getting somewhere.

Pita, salads, drinks arrive. Sea bass arrives. It is very good. Then I notice that at the table behind us they are having -  you guessed it – chicken kabobs.

What happened here? I have no idea.

Ok, so finally we are back on our way climbing up a different steep street, but this time finding a square with shops, a fountain and a St. Peter’s Catholic church, which has a beautiful ceiling. We realize this is actually the first church we’ve been in since coming to Israel.

St Peter's Catholic Church

Eventually, after a full day of walking up hill the novelty finally wore off. We decided to start the trudge down the {endless} steps down to the port to find a cab back to the hotel. Of course, halfway down the {endless} steps we see a directory – of all the shops we missed because we turned to the right to come down. If we had turned left, we would have seen more side alleys with shops. But of course, there was no way of knowing if they would have been open (we said to ourselves).

Once at last down at the port level, we walk for a bit and ponder how far we’ve walked from this view of Tel Aviv:

We walked all the way from almost furthest left edge of Tel Aviv to where we took this photo. That's far.

We figure it’s been about a 5 mile trek today. But, we’re done. We grab a cab back to the hotel to rest a bit before heading out to dinner on Dizengoff Street after Shabbat.

Tomorrow – our last day of the tour.

Friday, November 8 - Tel Aviv

Friday November 8: Tel Aviv

In the morning we needed to pack up, again, for the purpose of changing rooms when we got back. Good news – I could no longer smell the cigarette smoke. But because of the bad news – my head was completely stuffed up.

Breakfast not impressive. The selection was the poorest of all the hotels so far.  That with the lack of a “hotel book”, poor quality T.V. and a bad selection of T.V. stations – this hotel was not a bargain.

Today’s agenda included two more military related sites – a museum at the Ayalon Institute and the Palmach memorial.

Our Ayalon Institute’s tour guide name was Shachar – I’ve totally forgotten all the names of all the other tour guides of all the other sites we’ve visited, but his has stuck because it means “morning”. That and he was very entertaining in his presentation.

Before there was an Ayalon Institute there was a kibbutz on that site. Knowing that sufficient ammunition would be critical for the survival of an eventual Jewish state, the Haganah recruited kibbutznicks  for a super-secret ammunitions factory – buried deep in the ground under the kibbutz.  No one else at the kibbutz could know – the secret had to be maintained by the factory workers to minimize the risk of exposure. That and the British were stationed not far away.

The equipment was installed in 3 weeks. There were two entrances – one under the bakery oven. This entrance was only opened 3 times – to install the equipment, to move it out after the declaration of the State of Israel, and to re-install the equipment for the creation of the museum. The kibbutz baker was in on the secret – he was involved in the midnight delivery of finished bullets and receipt of the raw materials for the next batch.

The other entrance was under the industrial washing machine in the laundry room. This was the entrance the workers used twice a day. The laundry manager was in on the secret as well, and helped time the activity in the laundry to allow for the workers to go come and go to maintain the appearance of normality.

Laundry room with the entrance exposed

Kibbutzniks not in on the secret were called “giraffes” – because their heads were in the clouds and didn’t know what was going on under their feet.

Since the munitions machinery was noisy, the laundry machine needed to be constantly busy to cover it. So the kibbutz took in laundry from outside clients – including the British!

Because the workers spent so much time underground, they didn’t have the same dark complexion as the rest of the kibbutzniks – a dead give away. So a UV lamp was installed in a closet (“the spa”).

QC testing took place at the “firing range” – in the same space as all the munitions machinery.

Bullets were cranked out underground (40,000 per day) - all by hand – from 1946 to 1948. After the declaration of the State of Israel, the factory was moved above ground.

The full length of the factory - that's the guide, Shachar, on the right

 The secret was kept for 28 years!

Lunch was at yet another mall and not memorable. Literally, because I have no clue what it was.

The afternoon’s activity was the Palmach memorial. The Palmach originally were a Jewish brigade trained by the British to fight against the Nazis. But WWII ended before they were needed. Disbanded by the British, they became the crack unit of the Israeli underground army, the Haganah.

The Palmach memorial was not typical exhibit. It was a walk-through of a series of rooms with actors reenacting the events of a real group of friends. The exhibit was all in Hebrew, so we were given translation mp3 players. The English was more of a narrated paraphrasing than a word for word translation, which was awkward at times. But still, it was very well done and moving.

By the time we got back to the hotel it was fairly late in the afternoon, with just enough time for Gila to get home to Jerusalem for Shabbat. {Interesting that it was ok for Gila to home for Shabbat, but it wasn’t ok for Raffi, but never mind, water under the bridge by now…}

We barely have time ourselves to change and walk over to the synagogue we had decided to attend for Shabbat services. It was a 30-minute walk and we arrived just a couple of minutes late – which relegated our seats to the “quiet room” all the way in the back with the not-so-quiet children. The service was 99% Hebrew (including the D’var), but many of the melodies were familiar, even if we didn’t grasp the content of the D’var. We stuck around for a few minutes afterwards to say Kiddush, and then walked back to the hotel for dinner.

Dinner was better than breakfast, thank goodness. One of our group had an intense and dumb “discussion” with the restaurant manager over the obviously plugged in hot water machine. The manager insisted that “the rabbi” insisted that the hot water could NOT be used to make coffee or tea at dinner – it was only to be used at breakfast.

We hung out talking until the manager threw us out.

And our new room was on the 7th - and officially - non-smoking floor. Identical to the previous room, but no cigarette smell and the T.V. was even in worse shape.

Tomorrow - Shabbat in Tel Aviv

Thursday, November 7 – Go West! And North. Then South.

Thursday, November 7 – Go West! And North. Then South.

We checked out of the kibbutz in the morning, along with the swarm of Nigerian tourists we had noticed a couple of nights ago. Ever cheerful, they sang as they loaded onto their buses.

And I did note that the Dona Gracia museum and dinner at Decks summed up our time in Tiberias. Once again, a bit frustrating. Tiberias has played a huge part of Jewish history (it was once a major center of Jewish study with the graves of prominent rabbis) and I’ve yet to actually see any part of that. Somehow, maybe next visit.

For sure it was clear (at least to me) that Gila was definitely more organized than Raffi – clearer and more exact in her instructions. We were to have our luggage out in the hallway by 7:30 a.m. and meet in the lobby to load it onto the bus at 7:55 (7:55? Not 8:00ish?), so we would be on the road by 8:10 at the latest. And indeed we were.

Heading even more north and then west to the coast, as far as we could go – up to the border with Lebanon at Rosh HaNikra – to begin our journey down to Tel Aviv by evening.

Rosh HaNikra is sort of (but not quite) the white cliffs of Dover – daunting and beautiful white cliffs, with water carved caves and rock formations within. Previously a railroad tunnel was blasted into the rock to build a continuous track through to Beirut. The bridge connecting two cliffs was blown up by the Plamach during the Israeli War of Independence in a coordinated event to cut off all access to the fledgling state.

The cable car dock was empty – I flashed-back to my previous visit in August, 2003, when we had a 45 minute wait in the blazing sun and heat. Once on the other side, we could look up to the top of the cliff to see the bristling barbed wire fence marking the border with Lebanon.

The Mediterranean was at low tide, so the caves and grottos were calm – still beautiful, but not nearly as dramatic as they can be at high tide with the waves crashing and sloshing at your feet.

I was also noticing that Gila was better at bathroom breaks, pointing out every opportunity.

Still missed Raffi, though. Something about the rabbinical approach to things. Though I suspect that was what was annoying to some of the other folk in the group.

Back on the bus, we made our way to Akko. Ten years ago all there was to see was ruins of the Turkish/British prison. Since then a great deal of excavation has revealed crusader buildings underneath. Beautifully preserved, with very little reconstruction required.

Let’s not forget about Crusader toilets:

Though I knew there was a shuk in Akko, we went nowhere near it. We continued on to Caesarea, Herod’s pagan city.

Again, ten years ago there was very little to see – only the reconstructed theater. Now, it was the huge ancient city Herod built, including a palace on the shore for himself, and a hippodrome to entertain the masses.

And let’s not forget ancient Roman toilets:

Gila and the Roman Toilets

Even with all our efforts to stay within our allotted time, somehow we were running a little late – the gates to the site were closing at 3:30, and now we were in a rush for the final bathroom break, the final photos of the theater as we went jogging out the gate (the theater was the only thing to see 10 years ago and now we would miss).

Onwards now finally south to Tel Aviv and our first taste of Tel Aviv rush hour traffic, including an ordinary toll booth. I asked Gila if Israel has transponders (like EZpass in the U.S.) but amazingly enough they are not common, and at there is no consistent/uniform system.

As we chugged along through traffic, Gila organized a group of us to go to dinner together at a restaurant called “Benny HaDahg” (Bennie the fish), a seafood restaurant. Interestingly enough, Benny the Fish was not kosher, since crab and shrimp were on the menu. Certainly this would not have been Raffi’s suggestion.

We arrived at the Tal hotel, located at the northern most tip of Tel Aviv’s beach just around the corner from the new port. Greeting us in the lobby was Micki, whom we hadn’t seen since a week ago last Thursday at the airport. She proceeded to apologize for Raffi and hoped that Gila was working out better.

Sure, of course, Gila was indeed very good.

Though we did have to cancel that annoying wake-up call for the next morning.

A brief break in our room before dinner, we detected cigarette/cigar smoke. Before we went too far with unpacking, we called the front desk who agreed to move us to a different room in the morning.

Those of us going to Benny the Fish met in the lobby and we walked the 5 minutes along the boardwalk to the new port.

It was a really, really good thing that Gila was with us. The wait staff was so incredibly arrogant and rude that for sure Andy and I would have walked out after 5 minutes.

Menus were brought out, but it was useless.  A list of available fish and how they could be prepared? Except that only 3 of them could be filleted, and no, you can’t get Saint Peter’s fish filleted and grilled. Whole, half-fried, half grilled. Take it or leave it. And those side dishes? Forget it. The chef decides the sides for the day take it or leave it. Today? Baked potatoes. Want fries? You’re out of luck.

Water was out on the table, but I ordered a big bottle of “soda” (a/k/a seltzer/club soda). For me. Myself. The waiter brings it out and proceeds to start pouring my soda in other people’s glasses! Stop! No! that’s just for me! AHHHHH!

Fortunately, a quick rearrangement of clean glasses solved that little problem.

A flood of “salads” (the Israeli term that really seems to mean “appetizer”) came streaming to our table. Good news – the food was excellent.

My grilled sea bass was a little dry, but Andy’s baked sea bream (whatever that is) was very good.

Stuffed to the gills (pun intended) we toddled our way back to the hotel. Good news! Free wifi everywhere in the hotel, not just in the lobby! Finally!

But, there was no standard hotel book describing the hotel’s features/amenities/T.V. stations. We asked about it at the front desk, but they had absolutely no clue as to what we were talking about. And the T.V. selection turned out to be the worst of all the hotels till now.

Ah well. Looking forward to waking up with a stuffy head due to the lingering cigarette smoke.