Israel.

When we arrived at Ben Gurion International on Friday the sixteenth, we were all wearied from a day in London. The only sleep any of us had gotten in the past full 24 hour day was whatever we managed on the four hour flight from London to Tel Aviv. We flew out of Chicago after being awake all day on Wednesday, overnight into a London waking up on Thursday morning, walked around London all day, then left Heathrow International that night for Tel Aviv. We were awake for all of Wednesday, all of Wednesday night which we spent over the Atlantic, and all of Thursday, which we spent galavanting around London.
We were all exhausted, so we were dreading the infamous security at Ben Gurion. Much to our surprise, we made it through security without a single problem.
After a rainy day in London, the Tel Aviv weather was heavenly; an occasional cloud, a slight breeze and a comfortably dry 75º morning greeted us outside the airport. We loaded up the bus and our time in Israel finally began.
We drove straight from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, where our hotel wasn't ready for us yet, so we ascended the Mount of Olives to enjoy the morning sun and a spectacular view of the world's holiest city. Our experience in Israel began with a traditional welcoming ceremony not unlike communion on Sunday mornings here in America. Ceremonial wine, bread, and a reading of something in Hebrew, which I, of course, could not understand a word of.
I was too tired to really care anyways.
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To chronicle the trip day by day would be too tedious and time consuming for this blog; we generally visited four or five sites per day, every day of the trip. I took 2,900 pictures.
Because of this, I plan to simply write about, and show pictures of the highlights..
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Our first week was spent in Jerusalem, at the Notre Dame Center hotel, just outside the New Gate of the Old City of Jerusalem. The hotel was beautiful, the food was great, and it was very close to the Old City, so we were able to spend lots of time walking around within the walls after the days' activities. The hotel is actually run by the Vatican, go figure.


The view of Jerusalem we saw on our first morning in the Land, from the Mount of Olives.


Breakfast on day one. We bought them just inside Jaffa Gate. Imagine a full-sized soft pretzel that's shaped like a loop, not a pretzel, and covered in sesame seeds instead of salt. The green stuff is salt. Inside the cup is an Americana. I quickly discovered that due to Israel's nasty tendency of only serving instant coffee, the only way to get anything of decent strength and taste is to get an Americana.


An orthodox Jew walking just inside Jaffa Gate.


Police and military personnel are everywhere in Israel, and the mounted riot-ready police officers were regarded by us tourists alone; they are just a part of everyday life for an Israeli.


Cats are everywhere in Jerusalem. So are Israeli flags.


A typical street in the Old City.








An interesting thing I noticed in Israel is that there are national flags of all shapes and sizes all over the country; on buildings, cars, buses, signs, billboards, you name it; however, unlike in the USA, the flag isn't treated with the same reverence. For instance, we saw the end of a military ceremony near the Western Wall, and we watched the soldiers tear down the stage after it was over and pack everything up. They lowered the flags, took them off the flag poles, balled them up and tossed them on the ground near the bin they belonged in while they continued cleaning things up.


The hotel we stayed at in Jerusalem, the Notre Dame Center.

I'll start at the beginning...

As many of you already know, my laptop was left behind at the security checkpoint at O'hare international when I passed through to board our flight to London. I didn't realize that laptops have to be put into a separate tray to go through the xray machine, and when it was taken from my bag no one informed me. The five pounds my Macbook weighs wasn't enough for me to notice the difference in a backpack that totaled about thirty pounds.
By the grace of God, the computer was still with the TSA when my mom called, and when my dad picked it up upon landing at O'hare the next day.
Crisis averted.
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Our first experience overseas was security in Heathrow, then a 6 1/2 hour jaunt through London. Jaunt is probably the wrong adjective to describe our day in London. We saw practically all of London in those 6 1/2 hours. There were several in our group who would have been left on the underground train car when we returned to the airport if we hadn't woken them up.
While in London, we saw Big Ben and Parliament, walked through the British museum (possibly the best museum I have ever visited, and its free!), walked to Buckingham Palace, the Tower of London and Tower Bridge, and to and through Westminster Abbey.

That is THE Rosetta Stone.  There are lots of things in the British Museum that should probably belong to different countries, but, whatever.  The tall guy on the other side is Jason Irwin.

I just like this picture.



Ornament from the gate of, and most of the group in front of Buckingham Palace.


Westminster Abbey. I wish cameras were allowed inside. It was the most magnificent building I have ever been inside of.



Parliament. Big Ben.

Israel '08

"...  establish David's throne over Israel and Judah from Dan to Beersheba."- 2 Samuel 3:10

This blog will be where my day-to-day reflections and photographs will be posted throughout my trip..  I'll update as much as possible, which will hopefully be on a near-daily basis.  

FYI- Saying "from Dan to Beersheba" in reference to Israel is like saying "from sea to shining sea" in reference to the States.  It means the entire country..  In biblical times, Dan was in the northernmost reaches of the nation, and Beersheba was the southern extreme.