Christmas and Jerusalem Photos

We are safe and at home in Be'er Sheva. Apologies for the very long journal entry about Christmas and our trip to Jerusalem. You may view the photos from our trip online at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/airzoojosh/ChristmasDayAndJerusalem2008#

I recommend following along with the blog while looking at the pictures of the trip (See entry immediately prior to this one). We hope everyone is enjoying the holidays back home!

Josh and Dawn

Christmas Day Brunch and Trip to Jerusalem

By now, everyone has heard of the Israeli airstrikes against Hamas government and military targets in the Gaza Strip. We are relatively safe in Be'er Sheva, on the very outer edge of the 40 km. range of Hamas rockets. Be'er Sheva has NEVER been hit by a Hamas rocket, and we both hope this trend continues! All the same, I have never experienced the feeling of being near a war zone before, and it is not one I relish, needless to say. Security has increased at the university. They now check everyone's bags by hand.

On Christmas Day, last Thursday, we enjoyed a wonderful brunch at the apartment of David and Daria Byron, with eggs, waffles, pancakes, and real bacon, bought at a large Russian supermarket in the BIG (yes, that's its name) shopping complex. There were also hashbrowns, scones, and the stollen (German Christmas bread), which Dawn made. Afterwards, we enjoyed the first half of It's a Wonderful Life, with James Stewart. We left to go to campus to make several phone calls to our parents and grandparents back home via Skype. We also purchased tickets for our parents (OK, they paid for it, but I found a great price and did the booking!) to come visit us at the end of March! We are looking forward to it already!

Friday morning, Dec. 26th, we left for 3 nights in Jerusalem, expecting our water-leaking, wall dampening bathroom to be all fixed upon our return. Well, it turns out our landlord got the date wrong and now we have to make plans to be away from our apartment for 2 days at the end of this week. We won't be able to use the toilet, shower, or sink, while the tile floor is torn out and replaced. Anyway, back to Jerusalem... We arrived at 11:30 am at the Central Bus Station and took Bus #18 towards Yoav and Hilla's house. Yoav had forgotten his cell phone, and we were on the bus and he was not answering his phone! But he retrieved it and told us where to get off and picked us up in their car about 12:30. Lunch was not on the menu, as it turned out, so Dawn and I each had a falafel outside the Lion's Gate, one of 7 gates to Jerusalem's Old City, and made it to the meeting point in time for the weekly tour by priests of the 14 Stations of the Cross. It turns out, however, that they take the week of Christmas off, so there was no tour on Dec. 26th! I had bought a guide booklet in Be'er Sheva and we found most of the Stations on our own, except several at the end in the Church of the Holy Sepelchur and Station 8, but we were close! Yoav picked us up and we had a veritable Hannukah feast put on by Hilla (pronounced He-la) for us and 3 friends, one a couple with a 3 year old boy. And this was just Friday!

Saturday, December 27th (Happy Birthday Mom!), Yoav and Hilla slept late as it was the Sabbath, and we had breakfast around 10 am. Then, Yoav put Imri, their 11 month old son, and us in the car and drove us (minus Hilla, who had to do revisions to her MA thesis) out to the Mt. of Olives and the Garden of Gethsemane. Some places were not open between the hours of 12 and 2 pm, but we still saw quite a lot. I was especially moved by the Grotto of Gethsemane, the very spot where Jesus was betrayed by Judas. The Basilica of the Garden of Gethsemane also had a very holy aura surrounding it. We also saw what is reputed to be the burial site of Mary, and we climbed up the Mt. of Olives for a wonderful overlook of Jerusalem's walled Old City and the Dome of the Rock. I can imagine how beautiful it is at sunrise and sunset, as the guidebooks say. We got back to Yoav and Hillas around 4 pm, and Hilla was nearly in tears. The Israeli offensive had begun shortly after 12 pm, and Arabs were protesting in and around the Old City, parts of which we passed through on our way back from East Jerusalem. Yoav had had his cell phone on silent and thus did not hear the repeated phone calls. After everyone had calmed down, we enjoyed a relaxing evening at home, while keeping abreast of the news on the Israeli offensive on TV.

Due to the Arab protests, Yoav suggested we visit the Israel Museum and avoid the Old City on Sunday. He dropped us off and went to go study. The main exhibition halls of the museum were closed for renovation, but we still saw the HUGE model of Jerusalem as depicted just before the Jewish Revolt in 66 CE, complete with the Second Temple and individual houses, palaces, everything. The model took a team the model builder and an archealogist 4 years to build. It was completed in 1965, two years before Israel regained control of East Jerusalem and the Old City, where the Temple had stood. Then, after surveying the modernist Sculpture Garden, we went inside the Shrine of the Book, where the Dead Sea Scrolls and other ancient Biblical texts are on display, as well as artifacts from the 1st century BCE - 1st century CE from the Qum'ram site, where the Essenes lived (the writers of the Dead Sea Scrolls). Next at about 1 pm, we took a taxi to Yad Vashem, the Israel Holocaust Museum. Admission is free, and it was PACKED. But first we had a nice lunch in the Museum cafeteria.

After lunch, we spent the next two and a half hours going through the Museum. No pictures were allowed inside. I have visited the Berlin (Germany) Holocaust Museum, but the Israel Holocaust Museum was much more disturbing, much more powerful. We sped past the last 2 years of the war (there was that much to read), in order to see the Hall of Remembrance and some of the other exhibits not in the Historical Museum. Picture multitudes of Nazi propaganda memorabilia, Jewish artifacts, furniture, photos, and numerous audio-visual stations with first-hand survivor accounts. Seeing the bodies being thrown into pits upon the liberation of the camps, and the emaciated survivors, thousands of whom did not survive in spite of the Allied liberation, was overwhelming. If you are not choked up upon exiting, something is not quite right.

Yoav and Hilla had arranged for us to go on a Hannukiot (a Tour of the Hannukah Lights) in the Old City, and judged it was calm enough to do so. The tour was in Hebrew, technically only for students of Hebrew University, but Hilla had gained permission for all 4 of us. Yoav translated for us here and there, but we all left the tour early as they judged the guide not to be very good. We were all very hungry also. (The tour started at 5:30 pm). Sunday was also Yoav's 30th birthday. We treated them to dinner out at a restaurant at the Cinemataque art theater that Yoav's friend Hanan and his girlfriend had chosen. There was quite a mix up with our orders, but the food was good. Monday we came back to Be'er Sheva on the 11:30 am bus, arriving around 1:15 pm at the downtown station.

Christmas Cookies and Caroling

Once again, it has been 2 weeks since I last wrote. I have been very busy, among other things, considering beginning a PhD in Foreign Languages and Literatures, struggling onward in my Ivrit (Hebrew) bakitah (class), reading and attending for Prof. Gelber's Current Topics in Literature Seminar, researching for the Stefan Zweig annotation project for the German Studies Center, which Prof. Gelber heads, and of course, tutoring English. Add to that the Young Voices Magazine proposed project, and, well, you get the idea!

Tonight is Christmas Eve, but as we are in Israel, it is of course a regular work day, though we are in the midst of Hannukah, there's no sign of outward festivities here in Be'er Sheva. Once again, I must emphasize that we are in the Jewish State. Christmas is only evident in cities that are holy to Christians (Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth, etc.) It is thus not "a wonderful experience to be in the Holy Land at Christmas", not unless one is in one of the cities where pilgrims frequent. The observed holiday for the 8 day Hannukah holiday is Sunday,December 28th, when we don't have my Hebrew class for a change. There is a Christmas Eve service tonight at the Catholic Church, but my Hebrew Ulpan meets from 5-8 pm. There is another service on Christmas Day, but I don't know if we will go. David and Daria, another med student and his wife, are hosting a Christmas Day brunch at their apartment tomorrow. (The American med school students get Christmas Day off, but ONLY Christmas Day).

A week and a half ago (Saturday, Dec. 13th), Sonja, from Austria, and Nadine, from Germany, came over to our apartment for some Christmas cookie baking. After about 4 hours of prep work and baking, everyone was ready to call it a day (we took a break for dinner... I think we had spaghetti and salad). The Christmas music of the King's Choir of Cambridge which I had downloaded from ITunes was playing, and I even found some German Christmas songs on YouTube and other sites, including our favorite of the day, "In the Weihnachtsbaeckerei" (In the Christmas Bakery).

Last Friday night, December 19th, we made our weekly trek to the med school student-led Bible Study, (a 40 minute walk... There are no buses on Shabbat) for a couple hours of Christmas Caroling, food, fun, and fellowship. Jacob looked like the Fonz from Happy Days, with his hair slicked back, as he led with the piano, while Ryan and David accompanied him with their guitars to all the favorites: O Come All Ye Faithful, Joy to the World, Hark the Herald Angels Sing, and some fun songs, like Rudolph and Walking in a Winter Wonderland, just to name a few. Spiced hot wine, similar to Gluehwein, hot apple cider, and prayer in 2 and 3 person groups served to round out a wonderful evening. I'll attach pictures of the cookie making and baking, and of the Christmas Caroling.

Christmas is Near

It's been almost 2 weeks since my last post. I've been keeping busy with my various projects. Last week on Wednesday when I returned home from my Hebrew class, Dawn had a surprise waiting for me... a 4 ft. tall Christmas tree! She found it at a Russian store downtown. (Be'er Sheva is home to a large Russian-speaking population from the former Soviet Union). Being in the Jewish State, there are no outward signs of Christmas here. For that, one must travel to Nazareth, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, or one of the other Christian Holy Sites. So, for those of you who wrote me saying, "What a wonderful thing to be in the Holy Land at Christmastime!," well that's not how it is unless we make our way up to Jerusalem or Bethlehem, etc. On the contrary, the lack of decorations and festivities makes me all the more homesick, for Christmas, for family, for some wonderful Michigan snow. (Yes, I know it's a pain to drive in sometimes, but I'll take a White Christmas over others any time!).

We are considering visiting Bethlehem around the holidays. We'll have to see what the current security situation is in the West Bank, where Bethlehem is. Here, I must emphasize that Israel is quite safe. It is the border towns on the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, and those communities WITHIN the West Bank, that are unstable. Be'er Sheva, on the other hand, is far from either the West Bank or the Gaza Strip.

Last Friday after our weekly Bible Study with the American med school students from Columbia University, Yuri and Kiong (two of the guys) hosted a Christmas Party complete with champagne, hot cider, cookies, cakes, and other yummy food. Yuri's parents also sent him an assortment of classic Christmas films on DVD: A Charlie Brown Christmas, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and Burl Ives' Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. A fun time, and the first time (other than the Christmas tree Dawn brought home) that I was reminded that Christmas is near. Tree and Party pictures attached...

Thanksgiving in Be'er Sheva, Israel

Thanksgiving, of course, is a purely American holiday, but as we are far from friends and family back home, it was important to Dawn to have Thanksgiving here. So, each of us invited a few people. I invited three friends from the German Studies Center, and Dawn invited our next door neighbors, math department advisor, another professor, and Zach, another post-doc. A few people weren't able to make it. Including Dawn and myself, there were seven of us: Ilan, Daniel, Sonja, Nadine, Zach, Dawn, and me. We had trouble finding turkey, so instead we had chicken. Also, Dawn was afraid that if we did have turkey, it wouldn't fit in our rather small oven. Rather than pumpkin pie, we had squash pie, but I couldn't tell the difference myself. We had stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, chicken, and deviled eggs as an appetizer. Nadine brought a yummy tuna salad-tomato appetizer, and Sonja brought an amazing Greek salad. Unfortunately, none of the pictures really show good close-ups of the food. Daniel is pictured in the left-most photo, followed by Ilan. Zach is in the bottom photo. Everyone seemed to have a good time, with lots of laughing and talking. Even without music, fun was had by all. Dawn also made an apple pie, so we had both apple and "pumpkin" (squash) pie! Yumm!!

Hebrew Ulpan at BGU

An "ulpan" is the Hebrew word for an intensive course in Hebrew to bring prospective immigrants or long term residents up to speed on the official language of Israel. Actually, Israel has two official languages, Hebrew and Arabic, but according to our teacher, and according to what I've seen, most non-Arabs do not take learning Arabic all that seriously. She told us that young people are much more likely to know English than they are to know Arabic.

Our first class was Sunday, November 16th. Classes meet on Sunday and Wednesday evenings from 5-8 pm. This is less than a traditional ulpan outside the university, which generally meets 5 days a week, for 4 to 5 hours a day. I was very impressed with our teacher, "Mrs. Hannah". She was born in Argentina, and moved to Israel 41 years ago. I would guess she's somewhere in her low to mid 60s, and I believe her claim that she has lots of experience teaching non-natives Hebrew. She is fluent in Spanish, English, and Hebrew, and also knows some Russian. I was quite impressed. She didn't do anything fancy, but the 3 hours went by quite quickly. We learned how to say Hello, my name is.., what's your name, etc.., as well as the expression for to like or not like something, that we are learning Hebrew, and that we speak any number of languages. In my case, that would be Anglit (English) and Germanit (German). The class has about 20 students, many from Russia or Ukraine, and also from Thailand, China, Canada, Peru, and of course, the U.S. We did not have class Wednesday evening, as Hannah told us that her grandson had just been born 4 days ago, and the 8th day is the traditional day for the circumcision ceremony, barring any medical complications that postpone the circumcision. Wednesday happened to be that day.

In a future post, I'll try to list some Hebrew phrases. The hard part is going to be not the speaking, but the writing, as not only do they write from right to left, instead of left to right like Europeans, Americans, and many others, but the Hebrew alphabet is a series of lines, dots, curves, and dashes. The alphabet has 22 letters. I have my work cut out from me, but it will be great if I can say something other than "Anglit??" or "Shalom" (Hello) or "Todah!" (Thanks!).

Update on Life in Be'er Sheva

Most of our time is spent here in Be'er Sheva, not on the go, as previous posts might suggest. On a daily basis, Dawn works diligently to solve vexing theoretical mathematical problems, while I do several things such as tutor English, volunteer in the German Studies Center on the BGU campus, and work as a volunteer on promoting a magazine called Young Voices, which is the idea of an 83 year old American-Israeli Jew, Sam Silver, to be written in English by teenagers in Israel. In the German Studies Center, I am helping with the preparations involved in annotating a German-language European edition of Stefan Zweig's Die Welt von Gestern (The World of Yesterday).

Next week, when the semester finally starts (a strike by the faculty last year delayed both the end of the previous academic year and the start of this year), I begin a twice-weekly, three hour per class, Hebrew course on the campus of Ben Gurion University. Dawn and I also had the good fortune to recently find a Bible Study group, largely made up of med school students here at BGU, and all native speakers of English. Slowly but surely, we are coming into our own.

Pictures of Mitzpe Romon Crater

Pictures of Mitzpe Romon Crater (See post titled "Ben Gurion's home, Avdat, Mitzpe Romon Crater)...

Ben Gurion's home, Avdat, Mitzpe Romon Crater

Monday, November 3rd, was our last full day with our rental car. Once again, we headed out about 8:30 am, heading south on Highway 40, the highway that winds its way through the desert from Be'er Sheva to Eilat on the southern coast. Highway 90 (See Dead Sea and Masada Post) is straighter, but that requires driving 1 hour east before turning south, and we weren't going all the way to Eilat anyway, just about half way, to Mitzpe Romon. First, we stopped after about 60 km. at Ben Gurion's home in Sde Boker. It is here that he "retired" to this kibbutz in the middle of the Negev desert. Even at nearly 80 years old in 1963, he insisted on working beside the laborers for 4 hours every morning. David Ben Gurion is the namesake of Ben Gurion University, among other things. He was both Israel's first prime minister, and also Defense Minister, serving from 1949-1953, and after a 2 year self-imposed sabbatical to recuperate from the stress of the job, came back, serving for another 8 years, from 1955-1963. He died at the age of 87 in 1973. His dream was that Israel's future lies in the Negev, which covers 2/3 or more of Israel's land area, yet comprises less than 10% of Israel's population. His read voraciously, as his library on his homestead demonstrates. He and his wife also lived very modestly. No pictures were allowed inside the house, unfortunately, so I can't show what it looked like. There was a living room, 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, only one of which had a bathtub, and his library/office. He and his wife slept in separate rooms. His will decreed that the house remain exactly as he had left it, but Israel has added an adjacent museum, and, further away, a very small gift shop and wine tasting room. Surrounding the homestead is the active Kibbutz.

Next, we stopped at Ben Gurion and his wife's tomb, less than 5 km. further south, which afforded magnificent views of the surrounding countryside, as well as numerous ibexes, antelope-like animals. Then, we continued another 20 km. or so to Avdat National Park, the ancient Nabotean town, taken over in the 3rd century CE by the Romans, and repopulated briefly by the Byzantines from the 5th-7th centuries. It is an amazing site, one of several inscribed as an UNESCO World Heritage Site which mark the ancient Spice Route from Arabia to the Mediterranean Sea at Gaza. It includes ruins of 2 Byzantine era churches, which have been determined to have been monostaries as well, a Roman fortress, remains of foundations of houses, a Roman watch tower, and several caves, as well as a burial ground, and the ruins of a Roman villa. Seeing everything requires the better part of a day. We were there about 2 hours.

Finally, we drove another 20 km. or so south to the Crater at Mitzpe Romon. This crater is an ancient inland sea, now dry, that is some 35 km. long by 25 km. wide. I imagine it is similar to the Grand Canyon, though I've never been there. An excellent Visitors Center offers outstanding views of the crater, as well as displays and a short film in English. After leaving the Visitors Center, we drove another 5 km. down into the crater and climbed up for another vantage point from the Carpenter's Trail, so named because the stones sort of look like 2x4 pieces of wood sticking straight up. Dawn's goal was to watch the sun setting, which we achieved, setting out for our return trip to Be'er Sheva at 5 pm, which was now 100 km. to the north and a 1 hr. 15 minute drive back.

Back in Be'er Sheva, we enjoyed excellent hamburgers at an American style hamburger place at BIG, the local strip mall of gigantic proportions. (Black's Burgers is not fast food, but premium burgers, a little like Fuddrucker's, but without the do-it-yourself toppings. We had a choice of 5 or so sauces to put on our burgers (ketchup, mustard, BBQ, Thousand Island, Chipotle), and added fried onions to our burgers as well as the standard fixins. No cheeseburgers, of course, though! I had a spinach-walnut-beef burger called a Green Burger. Huge!

Bedouin Museum and Tel Be'er Sheva National Park

On Sunday, November 2, 2008, after heading downtown to pay my 100 NIS ($28) parking ticket (See "Driving in Israel is an Adventure"), we packed a picnic lunch and drove north 18 km. to the turnoff for Lahav and the Joe Alon Center (Bedouin Museum). Joe Alon was an Israeli Air Force colonel and the Israeli military's attache in Washington, D.C. when he was mysteriously murdered outside his Annapolis home in 1973. He was a pilot of great renown, and was instrumental in founding Hatzerim Air Force Base, just outside Be'er Sheva, though he was not a Bedouin at all, but immigrated to Israel from Czechoslovakia. The complex has several small museums, but only the introductory film, main museum building, and the Jewish National Fund exhibit were open, which was a disappointment, as there was no discount in admission, which was 25 NIS ($7) per person. The gift shop, art museum, and cave museum were all closed, or in the case of the cave museum, did not have the lights on. The Bedouin Museum however, was extremely interesting, and displays were described in Hebrew, Arabic, and English. There were displays showing a traditional Bedouin camp, Bedouin home, Bedouin dress, and Bedouin camels, among other things.

Next, we stopped at Tel Be'er Sheva National Park on our way back home. We were both tired, but I thought it might be tough to get there with the bus. Highway 60 that the bus takes to Metar is 3 km. from the national park. As it turns out, touring the ruins of Tel Be'er Sheva, the ancient town prior to the current Be'er Sheva, and the disputed site of Abraham's well (Some claim it is the well in downtown Be'er Sheva, while others claim it was the one at Tel Be'er Sheva, 4-6 km. to the north), only took about an hour. The 70 m. deep well and the accompanying passages that served as cisterns were very impressive. The settlement there stretches back many thousands of years.

Masada and the Dead Sea

On Saturday, November 1st (after a day to "recuperate" from the Sea of Galilee and Nazareth adventures), we left Be'er Sheva around 9 am and drove towards the Dead Sea. At Highway 90, which borders the Dead Sea and runs from Jerusalem all the way down to Eilat, Israel's southernmost city, we turned south for 10 km., to the site of Lot's Wife, a pillar of salt (or several pillars) just off the highway. Next, we made our way to Masada, the legendary fortress palace built by King Herod (reigned 37 BCE-4 BCE), and inhabited by the Jewish Zealots during their last stand against a Roman legion some 15,000 strong in 73 AD. The mountaintop is much larger than one first expects. We only covered about half of the area (but 2/3 to 3/4 of the sites) in the 2 hours or so we were on the mountaintop. I thought it was fantastic, but to Dawn, all the ruins started to look the same after an hour or so. Most impressive were the elaborate cool, tepid, and hot bathhouses Herod had constructed. It was amazing to stand at the point were the Romans breached the nearly impenetrable fortress, and imagine that yes, at this point the slope wasn't quite as steep, and they could put their ramp up to the gates. At first, however, the wind blew the fire the Romans were trying to set to the gates towards the Romans, but as fate would have it, the wind switched from a northerly (hurting the Romans) to a southerly direction and the Zealots knew that the next morning at daybreak, the fortress would be breached. It was then that they committed mass suicide, rather than submit to a life of slavery under the Romans. Some 970 Zealots perished. The last 10 men left drew lots to see who would kill the other nine first, before turning the sword on himself. The men had already killed their wives and children. Pottery shards with their names have been found and are thought to be the "lots." Today, the newest inductees into the IDF (Israeli Defense Force) swear an oath here that, "Masada shall not fall again."

I can also say that I too "fell" at Masada, as I fell and skinned a knee on the concrete at the top of the mountain. Later, at En Gedi, where Dawn tried her hand at swimming in the Dead Sea, I realized that I had forgotten my bathing suit, and reflected that that was OK, because I did not want the Dead Sea water with a 30% salinity (instead of the normal 3% salinity of ocean water) to touch my cut knee or my cut fingers (from chopping vegetables earlier in the week). I entertained myself watching Dawn and a large group of 20 something German tourists float in the Dead Sea, and looking through the pictures of the last several days.

An amazing fact about Masada: The Roman legion, 15,000 strong, laid siege to Masada for 8 months before determining that the Zealots had too much food and water to wait it out any longer, and they would instead attempt to attack. Evidently, the supply lines fortifying the Roman legion took a great amount of resources!

Nazareth, Thursday, October 30, 2008

We checked out and left our hotel at about 9 am on Thursday. When we got into Nazareth, it was difficult to find our way to the downtown area without a map of the city, at 70-80,000, about the size of Kalamazoo, Michigan, my hometown. But with Dawn's navigational help, we found our way to the Church of the Annunciation. The murals, from countries all over the world, were the most impressive for me. Also, we saw part of a Mass taking place when we were there. The Church of the Annunciation is built over the site where the Angel Gabriel visited Mary and told her that she would give birth to Jesus. One hundred yards or so from the Church of the Annunciatin is the Church of St. Joseph. This small church was also a moving experience for me, as there were paintings of Jesus with Joseph and Mary as a boy of about 11 or 12 years old, and of Joseph as he lay dying with Mary and Jesus at his side. After a stop at a couple shops to get (guess what?) more postcards and a gift for Hector, as well as the Tourist Info, where we got the long sought after Nazareth map, we made our way back to the car and had a hodge podge lunch from our snack foods and leftovers from our previous day's meal. At 2 pm, we headed for home, not thinking how bad Tel Aviv would be at 4 pm, but wanting to get through Tel Aviv before dark. Suffice to say, we arrived safely back in Be'er Sheva around 6 pm.

Circling the Sea of Galilee

On Tuesday, October 28th, I picked up our rental car in Be'er Sheva and we headed for Tiberias. It was after 11:30 am when we left Be'er Sheva. Dawn's supervisor had told her there were 2 options to get to Tiberias after leaving Tel Aviv, one way by going part way up the coast and cutting across on a diagonal to Nazareth, and one by staying on the expressway along the Mediterranean as far as Haifa, and then going east to Nazareth from Haifa. We chose to go through Haifa, which was a mistake, because the expressway turned into the main street through Haifa (not apparent from the map) and became a very slow affair. By the time we got to Nazareth, I just wanted to find our hotel in Tiberias and save the Church of the Annunciation for our return trip to Be'er Sheva on Thursday. This, in fact, is what we did, although we did drive past the church going through town. Nazareth is not built for the amount of tourist traffic it has, which made it almost as stressful as Tel Aviv during Rush Hour on Thursday. (In fairness, I did not think about Rush Hour when we left Nazareth Thursday at 2 pm, because I wanted to find our way through Tel Aviv before it got dark at 5 pm). I think I'll choose the darkness next time.

In any case, we found our hotel, the Berger, in Tiberias, just before it was completely dark on Tuesday. The owner of the hotel showed us to a large room with a balcony on the 3rd (top) floor of the hotel. This is a budget hotel recommendation of Frommer's and we recommend it to anyone not wishing to spend $300 per night at the hotels on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, or the Waterfront Promenade, as it is called in Tiberias. We paid 250 NIS per night, including breakfast (about $65 per night). The owner said the best restaurants were a 15-20 minute walk down to the waterfront, but as we were tired, he recommended a very good pizza place 2 blocks from the hotel. It was great, as cheese, milk, and dairy products are expensive here, and we seem to crave cheese and milk. When I get back to the U.S., I'm going to have lots of milk and ice cream!

On Wednesday, we drove around the circumference of the Sea of Galilee beginning in the north, stopping at the Mt. of Beatitudes, where Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount, first. It was very beautiful, but filled with tourists, especially Germans. We kept pace with a German tour group throughout the first part of our day, and I was able to listen in once in a while. Prices at the gift shop were in U.S. dollars, and they gave us a poor exchange rate for our schekels. I had some dollars in Be'er Sheva, but who knew I would need them in Israel? Recommendation: Buy only a couple postcards here. Souvenirs are cheapest at Taghba (Church of the Loaves and Fishes Miracle).

The mosaics at the Church of the Loaves and Fishes are really cool. After stopping there, we drove to Capernaum, where Peter lived, and Jesus attended synagogue there. The church in Capernaum has seating in the round, with a glass floor in the center with the ruins of Peter's house directly below it. Then, we stopped at Kursi National Park, were Jesus made the demons go into the swine, who then drowned themselves in the Sea of Galilee. Next, we stopped at En Gev Kibbutz and Fish Restaurant for the famous St. Peter's Fish, caught fresh in the Sea of Galilee. Even though we asked for our fish without the head, Dawn was still turned off by the appearance. (It looked like a fish, with skin and tail). It was expensive (about $20), but the fish and the sides were excellent. Our meal came with cole slaw, pita bread, and potato or sweet potato. We even had a seat next to the water!

After lunch, we continued driving around the lake after buying yet more postcards. After a brief stop at the Tourist Information on the south side of the Sea, we stopped at Yardenit, where Jesus was baptized by John. For me, this stop was the most spiritually moving of all the stops we made. The water was calm, the trees and the Jordan River were beautiful. The rain had stopped. People were entering the water to bless or baptize themselves with the white, nightgown length T-shirts provided for rent for $10 from the gift shop. We did not rent shirts, but Dawn went in the water up to her ankles, and I dipped my hands in. After leaving, we returned to Tiberias and walked along the Waterfront Promenade just before sunset. Dawn made her way down to the shore to touch the (dirty) waters of the Sea of Galilee.

Driving in Israel is an Adventure

During our recent trip, we rented a car for one week. In an effort to keep this blog appropriate and family friendly, I will just say that, upon reflection, Israeli drivers are aggressive and self-centered. Fortunately, I upgraded to a car with automatic transmission, so I did not have to simultaneously master a manual transmission and drive safely. With this post, I will include a couple pictures of our car, a Peugeot 206. The seats were not comfortable for several hours of driving, but the gas mileage was outstanding, and the trunk area was roomier than the pictures suggest.

Back to Israeli drivers: 1. They love to honk! If they think you are not leaving the stoplight fast enough, not driving fast enough, or just feel like you're in their way, they honk. 2. They tailgate. Some of this can be attributed to the short areas in which to pass on a 2 lane road. If you move to one side or the other to show them the line of cars in front of you, they are somewhat appeased, but even when I could see 12 cars ahead of me on a straightaway, a car or two would pull out to pass and get past me and perhaps the car in front of me, before darting in again. 3. Police and ambulances with sirens on and lights flashing are paid almost no heed. One example that really got my blood boiling: I was waiting to turn left (actually, to make a U-Turn to head back to the highway I had missed) and an ambulance was weaving its way through cars stopped at the light in the other direction. If I had turned left OR made a U-Turn when the green arrow came, I would have driven directly in front of the ambulance. So, I waited, and got honked at for not moving when the light turned green. I motioned my arm towards the ambulance less than 100 yards away and the driver put 2+2 together. Another time, during Rush Hour in Tel Aviv, I let a car zipper onto the highway in front of me, but the car behind him tried to get in as well, even though he was even or a little bit behind my car!

So, my advice is this: 1. Don't get bent out of shape 2. Show the other driver why you are not driving faster than you are (e.g. by pulling slightly to the right to let them see the traffic), or 3. Let them pass. The problem with letting them pass though, is that there are always more cars, so as long as I was traveling as fast as the vehicles in front of me, I usually stayed put. 4. Pay attention to signs noting curves ahead, especially yellow signs that say "dangerous curves." Israelis are serious with their switchback curves, especially on the road from Be'er Sheva to the Dead Sea. 5. Never drive faster because of someone behind you. There is always a crazy trying to pass you and the 11 cars in front of you on the short straight aways. 6. Always pay the parking meter! It doesn't matter if it's broken or not. If it is broken, find another place to park where the meter does work. Fortunately, my Be'er Sheva parking ticket was only 100 NIS ($28).

My Kiwi Torte for 8 NIS (about $2.25)

I'm limited to 5 pictures per post, so here's the close-up of the kiwi torte I bought at the bakery. It can also be seen in the glass case of the bakery with the other tortes on the previous post.

Our neighborhood in northeast Be'er Sheva, Dalet

I haven't written for a while, one, because I've been quite busy with a German-English translation of a dissertation summary, tutoring, and other projects, and two, because I thought that since we haven't been traveling outside Be'er Sheva recently, there wasn't much of interest to friends and family back home to write about. Turns out, I was wrong on that last count. With this post, I'll include some pictures of the immediate 2 block area around our apartment, directly east of the the BGU campus. There are at least three supermarkets, a great bakery for my friend Paul to visit should he come to Israel, a fruit and vegetable market, a florist, a post office, and a school supply store. I splurged on a Kiwi torte at the bakery after I had waited 20 minutes for hot out of the oven (and they were HOT!) pitas for our taco pita dinner the other night.

We have also found the only Christian church we know about in Be'er Sheva (or know where it is, anyway) and have been twice now. It is a Catholic church, and 98% of the service is in Hebrew (everything except for the Gospel reading), but they have Order of Mass books in English that help us follow along more or less. I do not have pictures to show, as I did not think it was appropriate to take pictures, but maybe if I arrive early one Sunday, I will. The congregation meets in a converted house, about 30-40 people, and it is completely full. As Sunday is a workday/weekday in Israel, church begins at 6:15 pm, which barely gives Dawn enough time to come there from the University. By bus and foot, it takes about 35-45 minutes to get there from our apartment, about 20 minutes from the University.

This week's pictures include the grocery store across the street from us, the produce market, and the bakery on the corner. My next post will detail next week's trip to the region around the Sea of Galilee, including Tiberias and Nazareth. I'm looking forward to having a rental car for a week and the freedom that will bring. Though it's a bit unnerving to know that more Israelis have died in traffic accidents than have died in fighting all of Israel's wars combined.

Ben Gurion University

Ben Gurion University (BGU) is where Dawn is completing her post-doc in mathematics. It is named after Israel's first prime minister, David Ben Gurion, who proclaimed that the Negev region (this area) held the key to Israel's future prosperity. Today, BGU is home to about 18,000 students and is one of the most prestigious universities in Israel, and the pride of Be'er Sheva.

Here, finally, are some pictures to let everyone at home know what the campus looks like where Dawn and Josh spend much of their time. The space-age, large, boxy, stair-step building is the university's central library. The small creek, palm-like trees, and grasses are some of the landscaping, though, this being desert, there is more concrete than anything else. The Student Center (entrance pictured) is where the bookstore, cafeteria, and several university services are located. Adjacent to and part of the larger Student Center is our bank.

Heading east across the next driveway is the long, seemingly continuous building that houses physics (near end) and mathematics (far end), though they are actually two separate, but connected buildings. When it is hot, and often at other times too, we duck inside at the far end of the physics building and walk the rest of the way to the Deichmann Building (math) indoors. The Deichmanns are German benefactors of the university who donated the money to build the mathematics complex in 1997-98. BGU is a relatively small campus area-wise, about 1/3 the size of the UO's campus, yet has almost as many students. The buildings are concrete and glass structures that average four stories tall and are spaced close to one another. The large amount of sidewalks, concrete, and pavement cuts down on the need for expensive watering and landscaping. This is my hypothesis, anyway. We always appreciate hearing from friends and family back home!