We spent the first 3 tourist days in Israel seeing all the biblical and historical sites in and around Jerusalem. Our tourist day typically started as our bus pulled out of its parking space at the David Citadel Hotel at 7:30 AM sharp and ended back at the hotel at around 6 PM. Most days we would stop for lunch at some spot in/or around the city that could handle the 300 or so of us and as always on this trip ... the food was great. I may not have known exactly what it was I was eating, but it was generally good ... and always kosher! Well ... almost always ... stay tuned in a later episode for our non kosher experience.
Our touring day generally consisted of travel to one site while listening to Ronny our tour guide point out the significant areas around us, including their historical, biblical, and present day significance. Once at a site we would disembark wearing our "Whisperers" ... an electronic gadget that allowed Ronny to continue his lectures without him losing his voice while we followed along like his sheep listening to our Shepard. Somehow Ronny would keep us all together and we would find our way back to our bus (not always where we left it)! Once back on the bus Ronny would do his head count (in Hebrew) and we would be on our way to the next stop. We never did lose anybody ... but there were a couple of close calls when some folks just couldn't pull themselves out of that gift shop in time!
I believe there were 8 buses full of us on this trip and each bus was color coded. We were on the Yellow Bus. I'm sure all the folks on the other buses were happy with their tour guides ... I never heard any complaints ... but I have to believe that Ronny was among the best. Ronny Simon is an Israeli historian who holds a degree in history and geography, spent several years in the IDF (Israel Defense Force) achieving the rank of Lt. Colonel, has been leading tours for some 34 years, has written several books on the history and geography of Israel, and lectures frequently at academic institutions in the USA. I'd have to say he was pretty qualified! At the end of our time with Ronny I'm pretty sure I should have earned at least 7 credits towards some college degree!
Ronny's team mate on the Yellow Bus was our driver Shy. Shy didn't speak much ... but I'm just as impressed with him. Shy drove a 50 some foot long tour bus with about 45 or so passengers - through the extremely narrow streets of Jerusalem and the narrow winding roads around the sea of Galilee with a skill level that can only truly be appreciated by one who drives a motor home in some tight spots. Shy is a real pro!
All we had to do was sit back, enjoy the scenery, try to soak it all in while being fed info through a fire hose ... and enjoying our temperature controlled bus complete with WiFi and USB charging outlets!
Day 1 in Jerusalem we visited the Mount of Olives, the Garden of Gethsemane, and the Israel Museum.
Day 2 in Jerusalem we visited Oskar Schindler's grave, the church St. Peter Galicantu, the traditional site of the Upper Room, the City of David, and the Holocaust Museum at Yad Vashem.
Day 3 in Jerusalem we visited the church of St. Anne built in the 5th century and the site of the Pools at Bethesda in the Muslim Quarter of the city, we also walked through the Jewish Quarter of the city and made our way to the Western (Wailing) Wall. We continued our visit with a quick stop at the NEW site of the American Embassy in Jerusalem! But we weren't done yet ... more walking to one possible site of Jesus' crucifixion/resurrection - The Church of the Holy Sepulchre ... and then a ride to another possible site at the Garden Tomb.
Most of you that read this know that I am not a "regular" church attendee. But you can't go on one of these tours without expecting some serious times of reflection, music, and a sermon or two from Pastor Huckabee in an absolutely fantastic setting. Whether it was the kickoff sermon atop the Mount of Olives, afternoon worship time on the Southern Steps to the Temple, our evening service at the Garden Tomb singing Christian praise music over the muslim call to evening prayers on the nearby loudspeakers, or hearing the theme to Schindler's List played by violinist Maurice Skylar at Schindler's grave ... they were all pretty special!
But the after dinner evening entertainment back at the David Citadel was pretty special as well. The Huckabee's travel with a dedicated group of entertainers from the Nashville/Branson Country and Christian Music Scene that are some fantastic and talented entertainers. I won't try to be a name dropper because I am really bad with names and unless you are really into that stuff you probably wouldn't recognize them anyway. But you would appreciate their talent. And if you have never heard or watched comedian Chonda Pierce ... you need to!
And how special is being entertained by a band with the American Ambassador to Israel on lead guitar, Mike Huckabee on Bass Guitar, one of our bus drivers on drums, a working pastor on vocals, and a few pros thrown in for good measure!
We were truly ready for bed every night!
Greetings once again from the frozen northeastern United States of America. Peggy and I made it home from our Great Israel Experience last Tuesday afternoon ... tired of flying, tired of sitting, just plain tired ... and in my case sick and getting sicker by the moment!
We'll get back to the present in a few paragraphs or perhaps in a few more episodes ... but for now lets talk a bit about our trip. Most, if not all of you have already seen the pictures and read the brief descriptions I posted on Facebook during the trip so I'll try not to duplicate too much of that here.
Our trip actually started on Friday the 8th of February when we made the trip down to Portland and boarded a flight to Newark, New Jersey ... thanks for the ride Stacy and Aiden! Now keep in mind that neither Peggy nor I have flown anywhere since 2007 so a good deal of the whole flying experience was somewhat new. But in retrospect ... not much has really changed ... same general hassles getting boarding passes, same wondering what you have to remove (or not) as you enter the TSA screening process, same packed in tight aboard the aircraft (perhaps even worse). But on the good side .. the Portland Jetport has undergone a lot of changes since 2007, and some changes are still ongoing, resulting an an easier process to check in and get through security. It was about here that I learned that us Senior Citizens must qualify to be "TSA prechecked" since our boarding passes indicated so and we didn't have to remove our shoes! But alas ... the airports have remained very inconsistent on what is required and we had to remove "everything" when getting through TSA in New Jersey! So ... the more things change ... the more they remain the same!
So ... we made it to NJ ... we found our one checked bag ... we found our way to the proper Hotel Shuttle pick up spot ... and we made it to our hotel located very near the airport. I'll take a few sentences here to explain a bit more about our tour group. After doing some research on which of several available tours we wanted to take we settled in on the "The Israel Experience" led by Mike Huckabee (and family) and offered through their travel company Blue Diamond Travel. One of the several reasons we decided on Blue Diamond was that they seemed to have everything covered. We show up - they take care of the rest! And that's pretty much the way it worked. They get you where you need to go, they take care of travel, bellman, tips, entrance fees for those sites that required it ... even "bathroom fees" at a few of the Christian Holy sites that charge a couple of shekels to use the bathroom. But step one was we had to get to our flight! There were somewhere in the vicinity of 300 people on this tour all flying to Tel Aviv at about the same time on 1 of 4 different flights leaving around midnight EST ... 2 flights leaving from the NY-NJ Newark Airport and 2 flights leaving from JFK airport in NY.
So we had made it through step 1 and found ourselves in NJ getting the last good night's sleep we would have for a couple of days. The next morning (Saturday) we met with the Blue Diamond representatives in the lobby of the hotel and were given our travel "packets" which would include more instructions on what to do when we made it to Tel Aviv, and some colored name badges that would follow us everywhere for the next 8-9 days. OK ... so now we are ready to go ... but it's around 10AM and our flight doesn't leave until around 11 PM ... now what? So we waste some time at the hotel, we waste some more time having lunch across the street from the hotel, but even after wasting that time we still made it to the airport about 10 hours before our flight. Oh well ... plenty of time to get our bag checked, fight our way through the very hectic Newark TSA setup and make the long walk to what would ultimately be our departure gate.
After spending lots of hours playing with our various electronic gadgets, walking about the concourse a bit, and even having an airport expensive drink at a nearby lounge ... we were finally able to pass a couple more passport checks and then board the plane to find our "space" ... to sit ... for the next 11 or so hours. Peggy did get some sleep on this flight. Me ... not so much! I read, I watched some movies, I fidgeted in my seat a lot, I watched the little airplane on the screen travel over Long Island, along the coast of Maine, through the Maritimes of Canada, across the North Atlantic, over Ireland, Germany, lots of Europe, and over Greece, Turkey and over the Mediterranean Sea. That little airplane sure took a long time to make that trip - even at over 500 mph! Some 5,700 miles later we finally touched down at Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv - State of Israel!
Now the fun begins! Find our way off the plane and make our way to Passport Control where they check our Passports and ask a couple questions before letting us through ... then off to baggage claim to find our checked bag ... right where it was supposed to be ... then off to find the "Blue Balloons" signifying the Blue Diamond Travel Group ... find our way to a waiting bus ... receive our room keys for our Hotel in Jerusalem ... tag our bags with our room number ... and then sit for another couple of hour drive to Jerusalem ... in the dark ... and a bit of rain. They told us back in New Jersey that once we made it to this point ... the hard part was over. They were right!
We arrived at the David Citadel Hotel in Jerusalem around 6 PM local time, about 13 or so hours after leaving NJ, and after about 28 awake hours for Mikee! But wait ... no sleep yet! Nope ... we need our first major feast at our 5 star Hotel ... and our first evening entertainment led by Mike Huckabee and his group of traveling entertainers from the Branson, MO / Nashville, TN Country/Christian Music Scene! Oh yeah ... let's not forget Maurice Skylar ... the Julliard trained concert violinist ... a Messianic Jew ... who can play a mean country fiddle when he needs to! They not only led the evening entertainment - they traveled with us to each of the sites we visited and put on several "performances" along the way. This was going to be some interesting time for sure!
Sleep finally came around 10 PM local time. But you better be ready for the 6 AM Wake Up Call ... Huge buffet breakfast at 6:30 ... and you better be aboard your bus at 7:15 ready for the 7:30 departure. If you're late ... you are going to see the infamous Huckabee Blue Smoke coming from the Bus tailpipe!
Hard to believe - but it's February already! If it's February then it must be time to get serious about heading somewhere warmer. My phone's weather ap says it is -7 degrees out there and my remote reading thermometer says it is clear up to 0.1 degrees. Either way -- it's COLD.
We could wake up the Winnebago and head to the Gulf as in years past. Although with this polar vortex thing going on I'm not sure that would work right now!
Or we could opt for what's behind door #2 and fly some 5,500 miles east to Israel where the high today in Jerusalem will be 58 degrees. So that's what we are going to do ... in about one week from today. I say "about" because I think I am "about" to become severely jet lagged. First off - we leave around 11 PM on one day Eastern Standard Time and then fly for about 10 hours to some time zone where it is 7 hours later ... where we get to fight our way through the "normal" airport stuff, through the international travel Passport Control stuff, find our luggage, find our tour group bus, and then ride for another hour or so to Jerusalem where we finally check into our Hotel and try to figure out what time it is. By this time I suspect it will be around 6 PM. Do I have breakfast or Dinner?
I'm sure the travel back and forth will be the worse parts of the trip but we are both looking forward to the great adventure that awaits in the 8 or so days in between.
So ... that gets us to late February ... back here in Maine ... where it will still be COLD!
Now the decisions will get difficult. Do we recover from our Israel Experience and then load up Winne for an early spring in the southland? Or do we stay hunkered down in Maine awaiting some warmer weather while working on my newly acquired 1966 Yamaha Big Bear Scrambler!
Ya'all will have to stay tuned to find out the answer ... so will I!
Until then ... Shalom!
