Along the way, I collected brochures and postcards - in case my photos didn't turn out and to help me remember information about the photos.
http://picasaweb.google.com/joansulser/PostcardsBrochures
Monday, July 2, 2007
Sunday, July 1, 2007
Photos
You can link to photos from my journey by clicking on the following:
http://picasaweb.google.com/joansulser/IsraelPartTwo
http://picasaweb.google.com/joansulser/IsraelPartOne
http://picasaweb.google.com/joansulser/Italy
http://picasaweb.google.com/joansulser/ArkansasTexas
http://picasaweb.google.com/joansulser/IsraelPartTwo
http://picasaweb.google.com/joansulser/IsraelPartOne
http://picasaweb.google.com/joansulser/Italy
http://picasaweb.google.com/joansulser/ArkansasTexas
Friday, June 29, 2007
I'm home!
At 6:30pm, 25 hours after leaving Tantur, I arrived home. Travel was very smooth, with no problems at any of the passport checks, customs, plane connections, luggage handling, ticketing, seats, etc. Amazing when all the pieces necessary for international travel fall easily into place.
It's good to be home. Everything is so beautifully green - a welcome sight after so much stone and aridity. I've looked at most of the mail, but that's all for tonight. Tomorrow I'll unpack, tend to the yard, get groceries and begin readjusting to life in Wisconsin.
I'll start sorting through photos in the next few days and posting them, along with some reflections. Right now my bed is calling my name.
It's good to be home. Everything is so beautifully green - a welcome sight after so much stone and aridity. I've looked at most of the mail, but that's all for tonight. Tomorrow I'll unpack, tend to the yard, get groceries and begin readjusting to life in Wisconsin.
I'll start sorting through photos in the next few days and posting them, along with some reflections. Right now my bed is calling my name.
Monday, June 25, 2007
Too darn hot
Our little streak of below-average temperatures has ended. It's been in the mid-90's to upper-90's the past several days. Tomorrow and the rest of the week, it's supposed to drop into the mid-80's to upper-80's. I wonder if I'll feel a difference. I'm very glad I'm here for the June session ... I wouldn't want to be here in July!
Today we went to the Negev Desert, south of Jerusalem a ways. It was 110 there - in the shade. This was the trip we were supposed to do last Wednesday but was postponed due to our group's virus. I couldn't believe we went! Our tour guide talked very long at each site, most of it very repetitive, while our brains broiled. Then we'd have a little time to actually see the site, before going by bus to the next place. We left Tantur at 7am and began tromping through the desert by 9am. We were still tromping at 4pm! Of course, we weren't in the desert all that time, sometimes we were in our bus (whose air conditioning was struggling to keep up). I figured out the whole thing could have been done in 3 hours less time if he had done his speeches on the bus as we traveled to the site. Then we could have gotten out, spent 30 minutes touring the site and headed to the next one. We would have been done by 1pm, before it got extremely hot.
At 12:30, after being in the sun for an hour, he led the group down into a canyon "to experience the silence of the desert for a few minutes." I decided I could experience the silence just fine in the breezy shade of palm trees near the park entrance. They were down in that canyon for almost 45 minutes! We arrived at our final site at 3pm. He led folks up to the top of the stone ruins, read to them from various parts of the Bible for an hour, and then led them on a tour of the site. You notice I said "they," not "we." As we got off the bus at 3pm, I considered all the tips I know for survival in the desert at 3pm on a blazing hot day. I chose to follow Tip # 1 - don't enter the desert at 3pm on a blazing hot day. A few others followed my example and we stayed with the bus driver on the bus. If I had gone, I could have walked on some of the same stones that King Hezekiah walked on around 2,500 years ago ... but I'll save that for another time in my life.
We did get to experience what the Israelites experienced as they spent 40 years traveling from Egypt to upper Israel (although I bet they didn't travel during the hottest part of the day) - we were especially in sync with "the people murmured and grumbled and complained in the desert."
I'm trying to remember what we saw ... ruins of a fortress from King David's time (he was several kings before Hezekiah) ... ruins of a Canaanite village from 5,000BC ... ruins of a major town on the old trade routes of camel days ... after a while, I confess, all the ruins start to look alike to me. I am NOT cut out to be an archeologist! You'll be reassured to know that I did NOT take zillions of photos at every corner of every ruin.
Tomorrow we have our last field trip - to churches and holy sites in Jerusalem. A few of us plan to eat lunch together and do some final shopping in the Old City. Wednesday morning is our final lecture. Thursday is evaluations and packing. I'll be in La Crosse by Friday night.
I'm ready to be home. On Saturday night I went into the Old City for a free chamber music concert. It was beautiful music, with free wine and sweets afterwards. By the time I headed to the bus station, almost all of the buses had stopped running for the night. I was the only non-Arab in a very Arab section of town, and I was the only woman alone. Since I can't read, speak or understand Arabic, and since there were lots of young single guys around, I was a little nervous. Everything worked out fine ... I got the very last bus that ran to my part of town and there was one other woman on it. Not knowing the language becomes very tiring. Of course, there are many other reasons I'm ready to go home. I've very much enjoyed my time away - first in Italy and now in Israel. It's been an incredibly rich experience and I feel very fortunate I've been able to have the time and ability to do this.
That's all for now ... my brain is still a little fried.
Today we went to the Negev Desert, south of Jerusalem a ways. It was 110 there - in the shade. This was the trip we were supposed to do last Wednesday but was postponed due to our group's virus. I couldn't believe we went! Our tour guide talked very long at each site, most of it very repetitive, while our brains broiled. Then we'd have a little time to actually see the site, before going by bus to the next place. We left Tantur at 7am and began tromping through the desert by 9am. We were still tromping at 4pm! Of course, we weren't in the desert all that time, sometimes we were in our bus (whose air conditioning was struggling to keep up). I figured out the whole thing could have been done in 3 hours less time if he had done his speeches on the bus as we traveled to the site. Then we could have gotten out, spent 30 minutes touring the site and headed to the next one. We would have been done by 1pm, before it got extremely hot.
At 12:30, after being in the sun for an hour, he led the group down into a canyon "to experience the silence of the desert for a few minutes." I decided I could experience the silence just fine in the breezy shade of palm trees near the park entrance. They were down in that canyon for almost 45 minutes! We arrived at our final site at 3pm. He led folks up to the top of the stone ruins, read to them from various parts of the Bible for an hour, and then led them on a tour of the site. You notice I said "they," not "we." As we got off the bus at 3pm, I considered all the tips I know for survival in the desert at 3pm on a blazing hot day. I chose to follow Tip # 1 - don't enter the desert at 3pm on a blazing hot day. A few others followed my example and we stayed with the bus driver on the bus. If I had gone, I could have walked on some of the same stones that King Hezekiah walked on around 2,500 years ago ... but I'll save that for another time in my life.
We did get to experience what the Israelites experienced as they spent 40 years traveling from Egypt to upper Israel (although I bet they didn't travel during the hottest part of the day) - we were especially in sync with "the people murmured and grumbled and complained in the desert."
I'm trying to remember what we saw ... ruins of a fortress from King David's time (he was several kings before Hezekiah) ... ruins of a Canaanite village from 5,000BC ... ruins of a major town on the old trade routes of camel days ... after a while, I confess, all the ruins start to look alike to me. I am NOT cut out to be an archeologist! You'll be reassured to know that I did NOT take zillions of photos at every corner of every ruin.
Tomorrow we have our last field trip - to churches and holy sites in Jerusalem. A few of us plan to eat lunch together and do some final shopping in the Old City. Wednesday morning is our final lecture. Thursday is evaluations and packing. I'll be in La Crosse by Friday night.
I'm ready to be home. On Saturday night I went into the Old City for a free chamber music concert. It was beautiful music, with free wine and sweets afterwards. By the time I headed to the bus station, almost all of the buses had stopped running for the night. I was the only non-Arab in a very Arab section of town, and I was the only woman alone. Since I can't read, speak or understand Arabic, and since there were lots of young single guys around, I was a little nervous. Everything worked out fine ... I got the very last bus that ran to my part of town and there was one other woman on it. Not knowing the language becomes very tiring. Of course, there are many other reasons I'm ready to go home. I've very much enjoyed my time away - first in Italy and now in Israel. It's been an incredibly rich experience and I feel very fortunate I've been able to have the time and ability to do this.
That's all for now ... my brain is still a little fried.
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