On the plane from New York to San Francisco

Our last day in Jerusalem we toured the Shrine of the Book - this is the museum where the oldest scrolls found are kept. It was a truly thrilling experience. There was an incredible amount of history to read about the Essenes and the book of Isaiah, the most complete scroll discovered, is on display. The story of the Aleppo Codex, which is the oldest version identical to our Bible today, is also contained here. I could not help but think about Mom and how she used to always talk about the Essenes and the Dead Sea Scrolls. I appreciate the history of all these events and find it incredibly fascinating but the religiousity of all of it is lost on me, I must admit. Our experiences hiking to the Mediterranean Sea and rafting the Jordan River is where I really experienced the presence of God. The buildings, the icons, the statues, the monuments, even the Western Wall, although I appreciate them tremendously and the impact they have had on human history - this is simply not God to me.

After the Shrine of the Book, we went to the Holocaust Memorial - or Yad Vashem as it is said in Israel. This is the most incredible memorial you will ever see. Besides being the saddest thing you could ever read about and the most sobering depiction of human depravity, the way this memorial is set up is amazing. You wind in a zigzag fashion through history with hours and hours of reading, interviews, slide shows and movies about the Holocaust. It starts at the beginning to explain the development of anti-Semitism and actually walks you through the development of World War II and what happened in each country. I literally wanted to weep. We were there for many hours and all three of us were emotionally and physically exhausted when we left. It was really something to experience with Avi. He of course has heard about the Holocaust and studied it in school but he really did not understand what actually happened. None of us will ever be the same.

We had dinner with the Sagis, the family friends of the Grabers, one more night and the dinners with this family were some of the greatest highlights of the trip for me. I loved them so much. They are open, warm and intelligent and so boistrous and loving. I spent a long time talking to one of the young men, a son-in-law, who was raised on a Kibbutz in a completely secular fashion with the Zionist ideals of creating a strong, secular Jew, rather than the weak, religious Jew that was viewed to be the reason for the success of the Holocaust. I talked to him about EskDale and we had a wonderful time exchanging stories, ideas, beliefs and philosophies.

Our last couple of days we stayed at the Shefayim Kibbutz Hotel just north of Tel Aviv. This was intended to be a time to relax and enjoy but the hotel ended up being less than we had hoped. Our power went out the first night which was a good thing because the next morning, we discovered we were sharing our room with cockroaches and huge black ants. We were successfully moved to a bit nicer room the next day. Part of the "joy" of staying at this hotel was the water park the Kibbutz owns and runs which is part of the exorbitant fee you pay to stay there. We had fun but only because we were able to look past the SEA of people everywhere, this park is open to the public as well, and the cigarette butts and cockroaches that were literally floating on the waves of the wave pool. OK, you have to lower your expectations a bit in a foreign country to truly get the most out of it........and we did.

Getting on the plane yesterday in Tel Aviv was the most grueling traveling experience to date for me. It took us all of three hours to get through the never ending security measures of El Al Airlines. The flight was another 12 hours after all that. This flight was unlike any other! Half of the people were wearing keppas and probably 1/3 were extremely religious Jews. I decided if the plane went down that it would not be for lack of God being represented there! There were so many children everywhere we went and this plane was not an exception. I think the Jews are working hard to repopulate the earth! There were more toddlers and babies than you see in Utah. The plane literally hummed with noise the whole flight and the people all congregated around the middle of the plane asking for drinks and food like it was a short order restaurant! It was amazing. There is nothing organized like the American way of doing things. When we got to our hotel in New York, I wanted to kiss my bed. Clean sheets, clean bathroom, so wonderful!

Things I love about Israel: 1. The food. 2. The people are warm and intelligent almost everywhere you go. 3. The food. 4. God is everywhere and is part of everyday life in a very natural way for most of the people. 5. The food. 6. The place is rich with history everywhere you look. 7. The food. 8. The coffee. 9. The Sea - Mediterranean, Dead and Red - all marvelous and wonderful - warm and beautiful. 10. The desert landscapes feed your soul in a way nothing else can.
Things I don't like about Israel: 1. Cockroaches that are 3 inches long! 2. People smoke everywhere and there are cigarette butts everywhere. 3. They aren't nearly as clean as America with public places. 4. The hotels are exorbitantly expensive and dirty. 5. Swimming pools close at 5 p.m. even when it is 110 degrees outside. 6. Too many extremely religious people everywhere for my taste. 7. It is noisy all the time everywhere. People only know one volume and it is LOUD.


This will be my last blog. If you have been reading, I hope you have enjoyed! We are looking forward to being home and I am glad to be an American, truly! The dliverse and different cultures and beliefs of the Bay Area are something I absolutely love.

Shalom.

Cellphones and Cappucinos

We spent a couple of days in Eilat relaxing and EATING! If I haven't gained ten pounds when I get home, I won't know why. I can't run because I would literally die in the heat. It was incredibly hot the whole time we were there. The nights cooled down to about 105, you get the picture. We still had a great time. We went swimming and snorkeling in the Red Sea and saw the amazing Underwater Oceanarium that is famous in Eilat. We slept 12 hours both nights we were in Eilat - all of us were completely exhausted from the heat and touring 10-12 hours a day. We have put a whole new definition to shlepping - 7 hotels here in ten nights!

The drive from Eilat to Jerusalem is unlike any other. There are miles and miles of stark desert - you are driving through the Negev - with an amazing desert beauty but not a blade of grass or anything green in sight. We drove along the Dead Sea most of the way but sadly, we never got into the Dead Sea. Going down, we were so hot we couldn't even think about it - you could not even touch the windows on the car because of the heat - and coming back, it was dark. The mountains are craggy and very majestic and there are mountains made out of dirt (I know no other way to say that) everywhere - kind of like the movies you have seen made in the Middle East. The most amazing thing to me is that everywhere and I mean everywhere, you have full cell phone service - better than I have in the Bay Area at home. Of course, I don't dare use my cell phone because it costs $2.49 a minute for roaming charges here but it has amazed me that you never lose service. The other amazing thing is that you will come upon a remote gas station with nothing else civilized for as far as the eye can see and they make cappucinos - like our espressos at home. And I mean this guy knows how to make cappucinos! He foams the milk like a pro and makes a design in your coffee like you will see in a 5 star restaurant in Hawaii. They love their coffee over here and you can find it ANYWHERE you go. So I have decided I really am a Jew - somewhere somehow I agree with so many things here :).

We spent the night last night in Jerusalem and are headed to the Israeli Museum where the Dead Sea Scrolls are kept and then to the Holocaust Memorial. We are going back to Herzliya tonight to stay at a beautiful Kibbutz that has a water park attached to the hotel. We will spend our two final days there.

Doing laundry in the bathtub in a 5 star hotel in Eilat!

We toured Jerusalem on Wednesday. We started in the City of David. How can you speak what you feel when you step on the stones where King David lived? Stories I have heard all my life were echoing in my mind. In Jerusalem, cities were built on cities that were built on cities. The archaeological digs go deep and you can look down into caverns that show ancient rocks and buildings. We went down into the heart of the city and walked through the tunnel that King Hezekiah built to secure Israel's water supply thousands of years ago. There is still water in this tunnel and it is 1500 feet long. At one point, the water was up to our waist. The engineering feat of this tunnel boggles the mind. After this, we went to Old Jerusalem and visited the Western Wall. We had our moment of silence there - men and women separate of course - and tears came to my eyes at the Wall just thinking of all the people who have suffered so greatly for their Jewish faith and  heritage. This Wall is the holiest spot in the world for Jews - it is the closest spot to the Holy of Holies from the original Temple. The Holy of Holies is the spot where the gold mosque is built that you see in all the pictures and is under Moslem control now. But as our guide told us, Jews would not go there anyway - because this is the spot only the highest priests could enter. We went on the Western Wall tour and saw the incredible stones King Herod built the wall with - one stone weighed 570 tons - no exaggeration there. How in the world they moved it and built with these stones is more than incredible. Our guide put it so aptly - in Jerusalem there is too much holiness and not enough space. Every monotheistic faith in the world finds their holiest monuments here. I went into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Thinking of Jesus and the life he lived was quite a moment. I went by myself in here as I was the only one with a Christian background interested in this spot but David joined me later to experience it with me.  It is huge and a bit surreal, especially with all the Catholic statutes and emblems.

After our tour in Jerusalem, we got our own car and drove to Ein Gedi - a very small oasis in the middle of the desert where we spent the night. It is close to Masada where Avi's Bar Mitzvah was planned to take place.

Thursday morning, we got up bright and early and drove to Masada with the Rabbi. We were scheduled for the 8:00 a.m. Bar Mitzvah and it was probably only 95 degrees or so, thank God. It was 118 degrees when we got to Ein Gedi last night and only cooled slightly when the sun went down. Avi's Bar Mitzvah was incredible. We were in one of the rooms built by King Herod where they have placed a table and a few chairs. The Rabbi was wonderful and inspirational and we were in the open air, listening to the birds, and feeling all the emotion of the moment. Madasa is the heart of Jewish resistance and embodies their love of freedom as the Jews in the Masada took their own lives rather than to become Roman slaves in about 70 AD. It is beautiful there and there are ancient ruins everywhere. Everything we have seen that King Herod built is amazing from Caesarea to the city of Jerusalem to Masada. They say he was a genius and a crazy one, killing people close to him on a regular basis out of paranoia.

After Avi's Bar Mitzvah we drove to Eilat, clear down on the southern tip of Israel. It is so so so so hot here. It is a vacation spot for the Israelis and school starts next week so the place is crawling with children. It is so beautiful but you have to live in the water because you will melt quickly otherwise. I am doing laundry here in the bathtub because we are all out of clothes and I have given up on finding any place to do laundry.

Joanne would love the food here. You have never seen the spreads of vegetables, every kind and every preparation you have ever dreamed of and plenty you never knew existed! The flavors that happen in your mouth take eating to a whole new level. The food is wonderful, I don't know how to even describe it. Everything is fresh. White bread and processed foods don't exist. They just don't eat that way. I will miss the food. However, Avi does not agree. He misses his white bread and cheeseburgers. I told him we are going kosher when we get home. I think I like never mixing dairy and meat.

Jerusalem - the Heart of Israel

Today we started with a self guided rafting trip down the Jordan River with just the three of us. It was definitely one of the highlights of the trip thus far. It was not a thrill ride by any means. The Jordan is a gentle river and has only a couple of spots where you have any whitewater at all - and I don't know if could really call whitewater. But it was beautiful and we went swimming at one point and I think I have never felt anything more wonderful than that cool water. I didn't want to get out. Our next stop was the Golan Heights, an area that has been controlled by Israel since 1967 after the war. Prior to that period, the Syrians occupied this area and bombed all the kibbutzim in the valley on a regular basis. Itay told us that one night there were 1,000 bombs launched on the area. All of the kibbutzim in the valley lived in bomb shelters. Israel has been under pressure to relinquish this area back to Syria but you can certainly understand their reticence to do so. From the Golan Heights, you can see Mount Hermon and Syria. We went into the underground army base that is still there. We then had a much lighter stop, the Karina Chocolate Factory! This chocolate factory is run and operated by a kibbutz that has been privatized. We went on tour and tasted the most wonderful chocolate imaginable.

Now, we hit the road for Jerusalem with a stop on the way at a local mall to eat Sharma and Falafel. We traveled through the Jordan Valley and were alongside the Sea of Galilee for quite a distance. The Sea is much bigger than I thought remembering all the stories from my childhood about Jesus and the Galilee. It is a large body of water and supplies 1/3 of Israel's current water supply. The temperatures through the Jordan River Valley hit 115 degrees and it is absolute desert in much of the area. Coming in to Jerusalem was spine-tingling. There was the golden dome that you see in every picture. Bedouin shacks were alongside the freeway with their camels and goats complete with satellite dishes! Itay told us that it is pretty funny and an amazing blend of past and future to see the Bedouins on their camels talking on their cell phones. Internet is everywhere here and high-tech is part of Israeli society in a big way.

We are staying tonight in a local small hotel that is right in downtown Jerusalem. I love it. We went swimming in a Israeli public pool and ate in a local restaurant. Everything is kosher so we have become vegetarians because most everyone has cheese and you can't serve meat with cheese. I love the food here so much that I could eat it forever.

Tomorrow we tour Jerusalem!

Israel has a whole new definition for hot!

We are having a marvelous time. Last night, we had dinner with a family who has been friends with the Grabers for 40 years. They have 4 children (all adults) and they all came as well as their children. It was a big, NOISY gathering. I felt right at home. Everybody was talking and laughing all at once. It was just like the Conrad family. These people have not seen David for 15 years and of course, none of them had met me or Avi. It was great to be there and get to know everybody.

Today, we left Herzliya and began our tour of northern Israel. We first went to the old town of Caesarea where King Herod built the amazingly modern port about the time Jesus was born. We then traveled on to Acre (spoken Awk-o), the old Crusader fortress from the 12th century. These ruins were completely under ground before they were discovered and it is absolutely amazing how well preserved everything is. From there, we went to view some pool grottos from the Mediterranean Sea by a kibbutz. They have made a business out of selling tickets to these grottos and you have to take a cable car to see them. It is one of those awe-inspiring natural wonders of the Sea. Our day ended with a trip to Tzfat, an ancient Jewish village where some of the most noted Rabbis have lived. It has become a center for all kinds of Jewish art. We visited some very old synagogues and I had to wear a prayer shawl to enter. By that time, my internal body temperature was about 200 degrees, so wearing a shawl did not improve my disposition at that point! You get the picture. It was so so so so hot and humid. I was drenched with sweat the entire day. We ended the day at a lovely place called Villa Galilee and will spend the night here. It is simply beautiful.

Tomorrow will be another full day. We are touring with a man Reyla told us about named Itay. He is a walking encyclopedia and has been a wonderful tour guide for us. We will continue our tour in the morning with a raft ride down the Jordan River and hiking in the Dan wilderness. I hope I don't die of heat stroke. We will end the day in Jerusalem. I cannot express how amazing it is to see these places you have heard about your entire life. There are orthodox Jews everywhere and to be kosher and wear kippas is the normal thing here, not the unusual. Even in a modern hotel restaurant, milk is not served with meat and everybody gets it. I can see why you might want to live here if you were an observant Jew.

We are in the Hotel Tadmor in Herzilya

It was one of those marathon travel days. We flew from Cooperstown to JFK, from there to Zurich and from there to Tel Aviv. We spent a total of 14 hours on airplanes. We arrived yesterday at 2:30 p.m. which is 4:30 a.m. at home. We took a taxi to our place here in Herzilya, took a shower and then had dinner by the Mediterranean Sea at a lovely open air restaurant with some friends that the Grabers have known for many years. They are very nice people and actually first met David with his dad when he was 13 years old, exactly the age Avi is now. After dinner, we collapsed into bed and slept. All of us woke up through the night but amazingly enough, this morning, my body feels like it is morning and I think I will be OK.

Israel is very hot this time of year. We are staying at a hotel for the first two nights that would be completely unacceptable at home but it is fine here. The beds are fairly comfortable and it has a shower, what else do you need? An Israeli breakfast was included and it was awesome! I wish we ate like this at home. Everything is fresh; fresh fruits, fresh vegetables, fish, yogurt, cheeses and bread that was incredible. You make your own orange juice with a juice press. I was thinking about the disgusting breakfast you get at home in the hotels and there is literally no comparison. I will be spoiled.

We are going into Tel Aviv today to tour the city with a friend of David's. David got off the plane speaking fluent Hebrew with everyone like he never missed a beat. He wasn't sure if he remembered everything but he sounds like a native. He had told me everyone speaks English here but it isn't quite true and we are glad he speaks Hebrew.

The next fun thing!

We finished up the tournament today. We were real happy with how the team did overall. In the single elimination playoff, we won our first two and lost the third. Avi had a good day. He went 5 for 8 with a couple more home runs and caught a great game. Out of 103 teams, we probably will be ranked about 30. The team really came together. We were playing flawless defense and this team had offense like I have never seen. We ended up with 107 hits in 9 games, 28 home runs and a team batting average of .398. We had a kid who hit two grand slams in a row and tied a Cooperstown record. If we had a couple more dominating pitchers, we could have competed against the big boys. And I mean big boys!! The teams who win it over here are huge. It is amazing to me how important it is to some of these teams to win the whole thing in Cooperstown. Teams are put together picking from hundreds of kids. There was one team that had flown pitchers in from Puerto Rico! And all this to win in Cooperstown where the fences are at 200 ft. The crazy thing is that the base paths are 70 ft so 200 ft fences makes for a TINY outfield. The balls are wound tight and you use big barrels so if you are a big kid, you can hit it a long ways. It is not "real" baseball by any stretch of the imagination. But it was a lot of fun on our team, great kids, great coaches and lots of life memories.

We are definitely ready for the next fun thing. We have to find a place to do laundry today and get ready to leave the country tomorrow! Yippee.

Riding the baseball rollercoaster!

Tough game yesterday. We were playing a top team heading into the 5th inning with a 5-2 lead and their bats broke loose on us and they hit 10 home runs before we could stop the bleeding. Coach brought Avi in because he didn't want to use any starting pitching in the last game of pool play (saving arms for the playoffs) and they hit 4 more off Avi before he could get the final 2 outs. Added to that, Avi went 0-2 in the game, first hitless game in a long time. Baseball is like that. Sometimes you hit hard line drives into someone's glove and other times, you get cheesy hits that get you on base. Batting averages never tell the whole story.

We are all ready for a break from baseball and looking forward to the next fun thing. Today playoffs begin and it is a single game elimination. It will be interesting to see how we do.

Baseball teaches you a lot about yourself. Are you driven to be better than someone else? How well do you take a loss and keep on reaching for the best inside yourself? Are you proud because you did your best or because you look better than another player? Can you celebrate another player's success? Do you keep giving your best when a loss looks inevitable? We play a lot of baseball but we are learning a lot about life and the strength you develop in the face of failure in this game is something that is yours forever. As I tell Avi, the hits come and go, the wins come and go, but the courage is always yours.

What day is it anyway?!?!

Team Express played their second two games today - we won both of them after losing both of the games yesterday. Avi had three home runs yesterday and was quieter offensively today but still had two great hits. He played the first game behind the plate and did a stellar job and the last game at center field and made three great catches, the last one to end the game. We are having a great time watching all the kids play. Team Express has 14 home runs in four games!

I went running this evening to avoid the heat and it started raining while I was out. By the time I got back, I was soaked but it was so exhilarating to be running in the warm rain in the countryside. At one point, I ran across an old bridge that crossed a bubbling brook - if it sounds like a storybook, it looked like one too.

Daniel and Kevin drove all the way from Montreal to see us. They were here for last night's game and watched both games today too before heading home. They spent the night with us here in our cozy Bed and Breakfast room and we had a ball playing Trivial Pursuit and eating all kinds of crazy junk food. David is the only one that knew any of the answers in our game of Trivial Pursuit. I was strictly an ornament on our team. I knew the answers to nothing! Daniel said Cooperstown was American to the max because everywhere you look you see baseball stores, baseball memorabilia, ice cream stands and the American flag. So far, we haven't found anything that qualifies as real food. Every restaurant serves the same thing, greasy sandwiches and french fries. I feel like I cannot eat another sandwich! Thank God the woman that runs this bed and breakfast cooks a delicious breakfast here every morning.

Avi started the first game off right!

We had a great day yesterday - slept late trying to adjust to the new time zone - and then I went running. It is always great to experience a place by running. Everything is new and different - the smell of grass and green growing corn in the air and rolling green hills everywhere. It is so beautiful here. At one point in my run, a big dog came loping up out of nowhere and just starting running with me. It was an interesting moment for me - at first I wasn't sure if the dog was safe and then when I realized he was just fine - it was like I had a newfound friend. He ran for a while with me and then scooted off through a meadow just like he owned the land.

Avi spent the day in the barracks with the team getting oriented to Cooperstown Dreams Park and then we all met for opening ceremonies in the evening. Whenever you hear the word ceremony, run for your life, because it is always the same, LONG AND BORING. We sat for several hours on bleachers and some of it was interesting but much of it was extremely otherwise.

This morning, Avi's team played their first game. The team lost but Avi went 2-3 with two home runs! His first at bat, first pitch, he belted it and it was gone - I have no idea how far but over the fence into another stadium. After his second at bat and another home run, they intentionally walked him his third at bat. He got one more at bat and belted it again but the left fielder made an incredible diving catch. It was fun to watch.

We're off to the Hall of Fame! I just got a phone call from Daniel and they are driving 300 miles to visit us and see Avi's game tonight. YIPPEE. I'm excited to see him.

Cooperstown is beautiful!

We spent the night in Albany in a hotel room at the Comfort Inn that was just slightly better than a stereotypical "dive". But we survived the night to tell about it! Yikes. We drove from Albany to Cooperstown yesterday, about 60 miles. Upstate New York is breathtakingly beautiful. We drove through winding roads of amazing green with farms everywhere. It looked like a picture book, complete with clothes on the clotheslines. Avi informed me that he had never seen clothes on a clothesline before, which made me potently aware how different his childhood is than mine was.

We checked Avi into Cooperstown Dreams Park. This is one amazing place making somebody very rich. 104 baseball teams comprised of league age 12 boys compete here every week through the summer. The teams stay in barracks, one team in each barracks. The week is complete with a visit to the Hall of Fame. Each team is guaranteed 7 games and one team will win it all (it won't be ours). It is a tribute to baseball the way it used to be and the kids are required to wear their shirts tucked in at all times, wear their hats straight (not Griffey style) and their pants at the knee. Parents are not allowed in the park once you have delivered your kid to the barracks except to watch games and for a few other events. It is a week dedicated to the boys and a true baseball experience of a lifetime.

David and I are staying at a little bed and breakfast that has a bed hard as a board and yes, it really did have a piece of plywood under the mattress (we checked at 1 a.m. last night!). But it is very quaint and the food is awesome and I hope David doesn't tell the management that they have to buy a new mattress when he gets up today.

I mostly feel very lucky to be alive and experiencing everything I am. Life is good.

We just arrived in Albany

We flew 4 hours to Chicago and then 2 more hours to Albany. This morning, we are all feeling the time change and a bit tired. It was fun for Avi because we had three other teammates from Cooperstown on the same plane. It is interesting how different New York feels from California. The energy in the air is different. I have never been here and am looking forward to different experiences with different people.