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.