Dave and I had a great opportunity to get acquainted with Jerusalem with a trip sponsored by one of our Budget Blinds vendors, Springs Window Fashions. The timing could not have been more perfect. The kids were all at Turkey Hill Ranch Bible Camp in Vienna, MO. They rode the bus down to camp with a bunch of other kids the same morning we flew out. We plan to fly home and arrive at our house just hours before the bus plans to drive into town.
6-11 and 6-12, 2022
I'm typing this post at 4:04 Monday 6-13 am. It is 8:04pm the day before in central time zone back in the US. I can't sleep. I got rest from 9:30pm-4am...not awful, but I could still be sleeping.
Our travel here was as you'd expect...rather grueling. The first hour-long flight on Sat 6-11 from W'loo to Chicago was smooth. We had a short wait in the Chicago airport and went to terminal M, one Dave and I hadn't seen. We grabbed a lunch at Frontera mexican grill and then made our way on a long tram ride to terminal M to check in at our British Airways flight to London Heathrow airport. That was on the famous airbus 380 - a big double decker plane. We were on the lower level, and it was a smooth but long 8 hr flight.
When we got off our flight in London, we had to go through security again before boarding our flight to Tel Aviv. It was a very tight connection and we had to sprint up a few escalators and slide into our flight last minute and breathless. It involved tram rides and countless escalators. The attendant at the gate had already shut the plane's door and they opened it for us. WHEW. My poor left heel is pounding from the run.
The flight from London to Tel Aviv on British Airways was like a "tour of Europe" to my map loving brain. I should have been sleeping but I stared out the window at the English channel, admired the white tops of the Swiss Alps, identified the coast of Croatia and all their little islands, noted the mountainous terrain of Greece, and saw lots of little islands on the Mediterranean on our way to Israel. I think I did sleep a little. We had some food on the planes which was surprisingly good. I think my dad and Rachel would be impressed that I enjoyed the little button mushrooms and tomatoes in the "traditional english breakfast" along with scrambled eggs and a piece of sausage.
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| the big double decker airbus 380 from London to Tel Aviv |
Landing in Tel Aviv was smooth. Seeing unrecognizable Hebrew everywhere sure is odd. We met a Springs rep right past customs and she guided us outside to a vehicle that took us to our hotel. Jerusalem was an hour drive. Our driver pointed out the Judean hills, and we were impressed how high up the city of Jerusalem.
Our hotel is called David Citadel - and has a few of the old city walls of Jerusalem. We got checked in, and rested for awhile. I iced my sore foot which helped it feel a little better.
7:30 pm was a scheduled welcome dinner at the restaurant in the hotel which had a gorgeous view. A few food stations were set up and we chatted with some other BB people. I remember Pat and Paul from Texas, Bill and Courtney from Ohio, and Frank the COO from Wisconsin.
Foggy from fagitue, we went back to our room. I got ready for bed and Dave went out to find an ATM to get some SHEKELS. We spending shekels. It is surreal.
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| our room in the David Citadel hotel |
And I slept for awhile...and got up feeling like I couldn't sleep so I blogged. Tomorrow (uhhh I mean later today) is a 7 hour long walking tour to popular places in Jerusalem which I am very excited about, but hope my foot can keep up.
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| hotel entrance |
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| view from dinner at hotel |
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| tower of David and old city walls in distance |
Monday, June 13, 2022 - Walking tour of the Old City of Jerusalem
Today was an organized tour for everyone of the Old City of Jerusalem. We got up for breakfast at 6:15, got ready, had some delicious dishes - what an array of food. So many fresh veggies/fruits in the morning. We met with our group at 7:45am and the bus took us first to the Mount of Olives, which has few olives left, but it is full of many buried there - basically a huge cemetery on a hillside. It was the perspective view to learn where the rubble of King David's house was, where the gate was that Jesus walked through on the day of Passover. We saw the actual Garden of Gethsemane, the oldest olive tree there, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher (or Church of the Resurrection), walked a portion of the Via Dolorosa, lunch was provided at a restaurant, and then a tour of where the Last Supper may have occurred, and where the real Mount Zion is. So beautiful to see all of this and put places to match so many things we've read about. It is very difficult to remember and accurately recap everything we just experienced and heard, but pictures will help me. The tour was 8:30-4:40pm. We got back to the hotel, arranged a tour for tomorrow, and are resting in our room.
Our tour guide was a Biblical archeologist and was full of information, and helped us identify layers and layers of different dynasties that ruled and their style of "building".
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| rubble from King David's house |
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two domes - location of crucifixion.
Gold dome is "Dome of the Rock" church - supposedly has rock Abraham almost sacrificed Isaac on and muslims believe Allah ascended to heaven there. |
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| the gate through which Jesus walked upon entering the city on Passover. Garden of Gethsemane is right behind me. |
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| Garden of Gethsemane |
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| oldest olive tree - supported by wire fence to survive |
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| Western Wall |
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| these roman numerals (this one is V) mark the path of the via dolorosa - the supposed path Jesus walked as He carried his cross. |
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| A place exposed that is said Jesus touched his hand to |
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| #7 - a place He may have slipped to the ground |
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| place Jesus' body was supposedly prepared for burial after death |
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| the rock upon which He was crucified |
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| one of 5 tombs said to be Jesus' burial tomb |
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| inside of it |
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| walking in the bazaar - past all kind of shops |
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| explaining layers of history |
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| walking on a wall that dates to 1500 AD - which our tour guide says is relatively "new" |
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| underground is the Mount Zion! |
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| facing mount of olives and seeing spaces below housing where there are holes in the ground - indicating tombs. |
That's all for now. My foot has been icing for 20 minutes! 8000 steps into the day and 4000 of them hurt. :(
Dave and I strolled slowly through a nearby shopping center. I bought a wide brimmed hat and Dave and I eventually found an appetite and tried a place on the shopping strip called Joy Grill. They serve all kosher food, so we had a yummy appetizer of loaded hummus and some burgers without cheese!
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| loaded hummus - it was full of meat, herbs, spices, chick peas, hard boiled eggs |
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| I could only eat half this big burger. |
While we were eating dinner we got a call from Turkey Hill Ranch Bible Camp with news that Eli had hit his head on the pool's edge and it had cut deep enough to require stitches. Both camp nurses agreed with this decision. Our good friend Gabe and another guy counselor accompanied him once he got cleaned up and the bleeding stopped. Gabe is a good communicator and is texting pictures and updates. I had to speak with the hospital to give verbal consent. It is hard being this far away but we're glad he's in good hands with friends we know that Eli is comfortable with. I was told the cut was about 1.5 inches long.
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| ice cream after the hospital! I'm so thankful for so many people helping him. |
Tuesday, June 14, 2022 - "Masada and the Dead Sea"
Today is our 19th anniversary - what a cool place to celebrate! Today was our scheduled trip to Masada and the Dead Sea. We had breakfast in the hotel restaurant - and met the group to get on the bus at 9am.
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| Mom - I got carrot juice with my breakfast today! |
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Violet - look at the huge honeycomb standing vertically by the breads!
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The drive to the Dead Sea and Masada was around an hour. We were guided by Miriam this time, and she did a good job explaining things on the way. We saw actual Bedouin groups walking their animals around, the dessert irrigated date palms, city of Jericho out the window, and started the day at Masada. We rode a tram to the top of the plateau and got a 2 hour tour of the main attractions. This place was constructed by "the Great King Herod" in the last century BC as a winter home and haven from enemies. It had three terraces, a bath house, store rooms, and a church. Later after Herod died, a group of Jews used it as a place of refuge when the Romans came through the area in the first century AD. They added a synagogue. The Romans engineering a breach in the wall is an admirable feat. The Jews are said to have all committed suicide instead of being killed by Romans, as an escape from a life of being Roman slaves. There isn't archeological evidence of hundreds of Jewish bodies found, but there are ideas of where their bodies could have gone.
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| painted interiors of the bathhouse - indicates wealth |
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| one of the water cisterns - having water was a sign of extreme wealth |
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| tram ride down |
We had a delicious lunch buffet at a hotel right by the Dead Sea spas - and then we changed into swimsuits and enjoyed that hot, oily, salty odd water experience. We smeared mud all over us and "rinsed it off" in the Dead Sea.
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| Getting this picture was tricky. We both mudded up and then had to go rinse our hands to take pictures. haha! |
The ride back was a quiet one. Most of the group slept. I nodded off a little but was awakened by my phone ringing and it was the camp nurse, Abbie, telling me Eli was doing great. She said he had 15-20 staples in his head and was acting normal and smiling. She's amazing and I am glad she called. He'll need to have them taken out in a week or two.
I got some good shots of the Dead Sea on our bus ride back. I learned that walking along the "Dead Sea Beach" is dangerous because of the recession of the water leaving behind empty pockets. The land collapses and leaves pits!
We are resting in our hotel room and will clean up for dinner shortly. Today was so hot! We drank tons of water, used our sunscreen, wore the hats, and took the pictures. It was definitely a unique memorable experience!
We went for a short 20 minute swim in the hotel pool - 6:40-7 and the pool closed at 7.
---- after break ----
We asked the hotel concierge for dinner recommendations, and he immediately answered "The Culinary Workshop"! He said it was a 15 minute walk, it was 8pm, he booked us for 8:30. Great. We strolled down the street and took in all the Jerusalem sites. I was grateful for a relief from foot pain for a few hours. I don't know why it didn't hurt...but I could walk comfortably. For us Americans, who aren't in constant contact with Jews, it is just a different experience to be acquainted with the Jewish culture. We didn't talk to anyone, but rather observed their behavior. We crossed paths with a few couples that appeared to be dating. They either sat or walked 3-4 feet away from the other. They have their little head coverings, men leave their side hair grow long and it turns to curls, and dressy way of being out in public.
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| This water feature is meant to look like a harp. This is right outside our hotel and this is the beginning of our walk to dinner. |
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| We passed by the King David Hotel, a place that has been visited by hundreds of very famous people. |
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| A "The Culinary Workshop" - Dave was choosing his steak from the cooler. |
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| appetizer of bread/herbs, eggplant something, and blood sausage with beets and herbs. |
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| brisket and steak - they served a piece of bone with marrow on Dave's plate |
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Every door here has a little piece of a scroll with Scripture to memorialize the passover. This is a hotel room door.
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The night got late. Our waiter was hilarious...couldn't speak English very well so he consulted others to make sure we had everything. We used Google translate to tell him it was our anniversary, and he immediately brought over a tray with three whiskey shots and took some with us. We learned "thank you very much" is pronounced "toda raba" - but of course is written in hebrew.
We stopped by this famous King David Hotel and saw the floor of all the signatures of people who had visited. Many former US presidents, celebrities, etc. That was interesting!
We made our way back to our hotel and got ready for another early morning start to the day.
Wednesday, June 15, 2022 - tour bus trip to Nazareth, Church of the Annunciation, Tiberias, Sea of Galilee, Jordan River
This morning started early - we didn't enjoy waking up at 6:15 am but we had to meet our group after breakfast at 7:45 am. Our breakfast waiters have learned that we like our coffee with cream in to go cups! :)
Our tour guide Karen set up a map explaining our travel for the day. This was the farthest by far we have traveled...heading west from Jerusalem, heading north on the west side of the west bank, north towards Nazareth, east to Tiberias and seeing the Sea of Galilee, then back south between the west bank and the Jordan border. The whole day was 8am-5pm.
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| we ate fried fish from the Sea of Galilee - we didn't know it was going to be served like this. We did our best to pick off the meat. |
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| driving back south a different way. You can see Syria and mountains of Jordan. |
We arrived back to our hotel by 5ish - time to rest up and change for the farewell dinner sponsored by Springs window fashions. The evening was held inside the walls of the Tower of David Museum. This place had its own history, with layers of construction pointing to the many different dynasties or countries that controlled it up until the current day. Appetizers, filet mignon dinner, and an amazing 30 minute light show with music that visualized the entire history of the nation of Israel. It was very impressive.
Thurs, June 16, 2022 - Half day tour to Bethlehem, free time to explore Old City of Jerusalem
We booked a tour through a local tour company (Ben Haraim), to go to Bethlehem. This is located in Palestine, the West Bank. A bus picked us up at 8am and took us to a different place where a different driver took us to the border of where Israelis can go. We were handed off to another driver from Palestine and he took us to Bethlehem. We saw the signs that blocked off the areas where Israelis cannot go. Tourism is appreciated and we are free to go to both places. All the drivers were congenial and acknowledged one another with smiles and waves. I think this only goes as far as being kind treating tourists.
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| At the Shepherd's Field (now a basilica built on it). |
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| Dave was invited to read Luke 2:8-20 |
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| holes in the ground, actually.... |
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| you could see the highly protected border from Bethlehem |
We were transported to nearby shop where we picked up a Christmas ornament (fitting, eh?!) and were able to use the restroom. Then we were transported to the Church of the Nativity that is built over the spot where it is said Jesus was born in a cave.
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| The Church of the Nativity was built around A.D. 330 by the first Christian Roman Emperor Constantine and was mostly destroyed—possibly during a Samaritan rebellion in A.D. 529—though parts of the original mosaic floor remain. Soon after, the Byzantine Emperor Justinian rebuilt the church in a bigger, grander fashion—largely the structure that remains today. In A.D. 614, the Persians, who razed many other churches during wars with Byzantium, spared the Church of the Nativity, supposedly out of respect for a mosaic of the Magi shown wearing Persian attire. |
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A statue in memory of Jerome. If you look by his feet, there is a skull. It is said he wanted to finish the famous translation before he died because it was so important to him.
The Vulgate. St Jerome translated the Bible into Latin between A.D. 383 and 404. He originally translated it all from Greek, but as he went on he corrected the Old Testament against the Hebrew original. (The New Testament was originally written in Greek.) Jerome's Latin version was called the Biblia vulgata, the 'Bible in the common tongue'. By rendering it into Latin he made it accessible to Western Europe. This was the Bible used throughout the Middle Ages.
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Our tour of Bethlehem was over at this point, and we were transported back to our Israeli driver. We stopped in our hotel room to recover from the odd morning. I say odd because it was a little confusing going from place to place with little communication to us how/where we were going. We had an open afternoon, so from around 2:30-5:30 we walked around inside of the Old City. We entered and exited the same 'New Gate'. We experienced the quarters, and how the guards keep people out of certain places. Never-ending shops that seem to sell the same stuff try get you to buy their things.
None of the current city of Jerusalem is real from its ancient state when Jesus walked in it. The original remains are 30 feet below everything.
We came upon a sign with a pit with glass over it and showed a view 30 feet below and marked a column of the original city.
this is looking straight down through glass - the dark column in the corner is original from old ancient Jerusalem. |
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| As we walked back we are struck by how unique the people are here. There are Muslims, Jews, and Christians everywhere. The Jews are so easily recognizable. |
We stopped for lunch at a restaurant just near the gate exit - and had a greek salad and pasta, and some schwarma (marinated chicken with warm seasonings), and then walked back to our hotel. We are just resting/hanging out/sleeping/blogging.
Our ride to the airport is at 1am on 6/17 --- yup --- 1am - for a 5:15am flight to Madrid.
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| ...and here's ME! (blogging) |
-------- travel update -----------
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| leaving our hotel at 1 am - to catch a 5:15 am flight. Tel Aviv is a very large airport and getting through security was a long proess. |
If you're still reading this far, congratulations...and thank you. :)
What do you think the chances are that your kid would have to go to the emergency room two times in their week at camp? I don't know the numbers, but it happened to Eli. On Thursday, (Friday morning 5am for us), we received another call when we were boarded on our first flight from Tel Aviv to Madrid, Spain. It was Jimmy from Turkey Hill saying Eli had fallen and ripped open his knee. The nurses said he needed stitches, so off he went to the ER. Man. If there was ever a time I wished I hadn't traveled internationally this was it. I had to make a call to the hospital he was going to and give verbal consent for him to be treated...again. I only had this 2 minute window of time to make a call before the plane door would be closed. Thee nurse said "well, he's not here yet so I'll need to wait until he's here before you give consent." I said in my most mama bear voice, "no, you'll have to work with me here. I'm on a plane and unavailable to talk for the next 5 hours so this will have to work". She said alright...and I had to hang up the phone.
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| sunrise over Israel on our way out |
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| photos from Teresa Smith at camp |
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| Nurse Abbie Weikert! |
Dave and I had a rather tiring trip back. Everything went smooth, no close calls, no security issues. We easily made the connections. It was just exhausting. 5 hour first plane ride, 8 hour second plane ride, 1 hour third plane ride. We got home at 6pm, and collapsed in bed until we heard from Marlys when the bus would be arriving. I somehow kept up with text conversations with important people transporting everyone home from camp as they were all in 3 different vehicles. Violet was with staff in the van, Calvin and Vanessa were on the bus, and Eli rode in nurse Abbie's car to keep him protected from the "wiles of the van"....definitely a safe choice.
We stumbled out of bed (THE MOST COMFY NAP EVER) at 10:10pm and drove to the church to meet two kids. We left Violet's car for her there to get home herself. Abbie brought Eli right to our house at midnight.
We all were happy to be together. Dave ordered pizza, and we collapsed as a family. Eli just wanted to sleep.
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| head staples |
