Israel

[Preface: The following journal writing of a one week journey in Israel in February of 2014, is presented here completely unedited, as it is written directly from my Sixth journal book. It is [13] hand written pages.]

   I already forget what time we left our apartment to head to the airport, I think it was sometime between 3:30 and 4PM - it was before 4PM. We had to gas up the car first. The Friday late afternoon traffick was horrible - gridlocked. I believe it took us about an hour and a half - to just under two hours to get to Gardermoen. Our flight was scheduled for 7:40PM. The layover was in Zurich. The flight was just over two hours, we landed in Zurich at 10PM, we had to go through passport control and take a shuttle train to a different terminal. The connecting flight to Tel Aviv was to go at 10:45PM. We had just made it to the gate in time to board. The flight from Zurich to Tel Aviv was about three and a half hours. We landed in Tel Aviv at 3:30AM. We went through passport control and got our luggage, we had booked a rental car with Thrifty - when we got to the Thrifty service counter at the airport there was a customer - a guy in front of us, this guy was going through all kinds of problems and arguments to get a car rented. It was a bit of a fiasco and taking a long time. The guy working the service counter just put us on a shuttle van which took us straight to the Thrifty rental office and where we had to pick up the car. When we got to the rental office the woman we dealt with seemed kind of rude and she couldn't find our booked reservation for the car. But we finally got it all straightened out and got our rental car. I think by now it was around 5:30AM.

   From Tel Aviv it was a four hour drive South to Eilat. The route was the highway 40 South - through the barren yet majestic Israeli desert, to the 90 South. At around 9:30AM that Saturday morning we made it into Eilat. We checked in at the Motel Tsabar. That late morning into the early afternoon we laid at the beach - at the Red sea. We could see over the border to the country Jordan. The day was windy, and the water of the Red sea was too cold to swim. We fell asleep for a few hours - sunbathing. For the rest of that Saturday afternoon and on into the night, we just took it easy - checking out Eilat and having dinner. Saturday night the rain came - pouring. When we got back to the hotel from dinner there was an ambulance and the police at the Tsabar - but we never found out what had happened. It rained all day on Sunday. We couldn't go to the beach. We decided to hit the shopping malls and maybe to see a movie. As we were leaving the hotel, I noticed that the passenger rear tire was almost dead flat. We drove to a gas station to put air in the tire - we could hear the air leaking out, so we had to find a mechanics garage to get the tire fixed. We had full insurance coverage on the car so we didn't have to pay for the repair. This took some time. After all that we hit a couple of malls and ate lunch. The rest of Sunday was a bit uneventful, the rain lasted all day. We checked out of the Tsabar on Monday morning, and headed North on highway 90 for Jerusalem. More driving through the Israeli desert - but this time along the coastline of the Dead sea. In the early afternoon we stopped off for a few hours to relax and swim in the Dead sea. This was quite an experience. At around 4PM we got into Jerusalem. The hotel Commodore where we were staying at was in the Muslim quarter, the map we had from the Thrifty rental place was cut off right at the Muslim quarters and we got a little lost. We stopped to ask for directions and the folks we asked had no idea. People were telling us we were far away from where we needed to be. One lady even told us that our map wasn't even a map of Jerusalem. But we ended up getting it all sorted out and made our way to the Commodore. The hotel was at the base of Mount of Olives and about a thirty minute walk into the city center and old city. That first Monday evening in Jerusalem we walked around the old city, snapped some photos, drank wine in a pub Elin had found, and ate dinner at a vegetarian café we found in the city center.

   Tuesday February 18 - after breakfast we made the half an hour walk to the old city. We walked around a lot checking out the old city, I shot lots of photos, we went to the Western Wall (The Wailing Wall), we checked out the Virgin Mary Birth Place Church, we went inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre - saw the tomb of Jesus and the stone - slab bed his body was laid to rest after he was crucified. We explored a lot in the old city, walked the narrow street ways, checked out the markets - mostly walking around the Jewish and Muslim quarters. In the Jewish quarter we ate a lunch of falafel and hummus, drank beer at a café.

   On Wednesday we took a bus to Bethlehem - (Palestine). We only spent a few hours in the afternoon in Bethlehem. We went to the Church of the Nativity (The Nativity Church) and saw the birth place of Jesus. We also saw the Christmas Church and the Virgin Mary's Church for the Syrian Orthodox. We ate lunch ate a café. When we left Bethlehem - the taxi driver that took us back to the bus station drove us by the graffiti laced wall of the West Bank dividing Palestine and Israel. We stayed in Jerusalem pretty much the entire week, except for those first two days of Eilat.

   Monday February 17th late afternoon to Friday the 21st - late night - that was all Jerusalem. Wednesday afternoon - after Bethlehem, all of Thursday, and Friday was all pretty much the same. Elin and I would make the thirty minute walk from the Commodore into the city center and the old city, we would walk around the old city, I shot photos, we would check out the markets, eat at cafes - mostly in the Jewish quarters of the old city and city center so we could drink wine or beer. In the Jewish quarter in the center we found a good vegan café - Village Green. We explored Jerusalem as much as we could - we saw a lot and did a lot, but there was also a lot we missed. Between Thursday night and Friday morning we were trying to figure out what we were going to do - our flight home from Tel Aviv went at 5:30AM Saturday morning the 22nd - we thought about checking out of the Commodore on Friday morning and going into Tel Aviv for the last day - to get a hotel at the beach there. Then we thought about going back to the Dead sea. We ended up staying in Jerusalem, at the Commodore but just relaxing, taking it easy, resting and sleeping a bit. Some time between 6 and 7PM we heard a lot of commotion and noise in the street in front of the Commodore - there were fireworks blasting off - it was a Muslim wedding. At this point Elin and I were also trying to figure out what we were going to do for dinner. The both of us really didn't want to make that thirty minute walk into the city center, and the only food spot closest was a pizza place a few blocks away. I jokingly said to Elin that it would be crazy if we went downstairs and got invited to the wedding dinner. We just figured on going to that pizza place. When we got down in the hotel lobby the hotel manager stopped us and asked us if we had eaten dinner yet, we told him that's what we were going to do - go get dinner, he and some of the others from the wedding told us we could join them, that there was plenty of food. My joke to Elin turned out to actually happen. There was a real nice buffet set up. So our last night in Jerusalem we had a nice free dinner at a Muslim wedding. After dinner we went back up to our room to sleep for a few more hours. We were back up at 11PM, took showers, packed up our luggage, and by midnight we checked out of the Commodore, leaving Jerusalem to head back to Tel Aviv. By the route of highway 1, it took us about forty minutes to get to Tel Aviv and the airport. We gassed up the rental car and took it back. By 1:30AM we were at the airport and all checked in. Our flight to Zurich was scheduled for 5:30AM, so we had about four hours to wait. We sat down and fall asleep for some time.

   Around 8AM we landed in Zurich. We took the train from the airport to the main station - we had booked a room at the Ibis hotel which was suppose to be right in Zurich - in the city, but it turned out to be in a smaller town called Adliswil which was a bit outside of Zurich. We had to take another train from the main station to Adliswil. So we get into Adliswil, and now we had to find the Ibis hotel, at the station we found a map of the town and by the look of the map, the hotel was still kind of far away. I had to call the hotel. The woman I talked to from the Ibis told me that we had to take a bus. This created a major problem. Our flight home from Zurich to Oslo was early the next morning - Sunday the 23rd at 6:55AM. We found out from the info counter at the main station that the first earliest train from Adliswil to Zurich main was at 5:30AM, and by the time we would make the connecting train from the main station back to the airport, we would be at the airport at 6:15AM. This would not work at all. By now Elin and I were very over tired and very hungry. We skipped out on the Ibis and took the train back into Zurich. Now we were back at the main station. We went to the tourist info center at the station, they helped us find and book another hotel - the Hotel Alexander - which was only about a couple of blocks away from the station in the old town center area. I think by now it was sometime between 12PM noon and 1PM. We checked into the Alexander then went out to get something to eat. We ended up at a restaurant right across the street from our hotel, and had pizza and wine. After we ate we walked around the old town area for a bit - shot a few photos, then went to a grocery store and bought some beer, and went back to the hotel to rest. Later on that Saturday night it poured rain. We slept. We were up at 4AM Sunday morning, checked out of the Alexander, and walked the couple of blocks to the train station. It was cold and still raining. The very first train to the airport was at 5AM, we had about a half an hour to wait. For money, we only had some coins left - I think it was around 1.20 or 1.30 Swiss Francs, we hit up a little vendor stand to get a cup of coffee but we were some change short - didn't quite have enough. We told the guy exactly how much we had and he hooked us up, selling us a small cup of coffee for what coins we had left. Elin and I shared the small cup of coffee. The train only took fifteen minutes from the main station to the airport, so by 5:15AM we were at the airport. We had a good amount of time to check in and make the flight. It all started out on schedule, we boarded the plane, but ended up getting delayed for a half an hour.