Friday February 10, 2006 – The Pilgrimage Continues
In order to continue with the “pilgrimage” theme and escape the evil clutches of the bird flu we made a last minute trip to Israel over the weekend. Just kidding about the bird flu – we haven’t seen any chickens or other birds since we’ve been here except for Tweety (which I ate) and annoying pigeons which occasionally roost on our balcony. Although in “Europe,” Cyprus really isn’t an easy gateway to mainland Europe. Besides being expensive and a sporadic schedule, the flights to Paris/Frankfurt/Vienna (the closest mainland European cities with regular flights) take 4 hours – add on airport time (an hour taxi ride to the airport + wait time) and it is difficult to make a long weekend trip out of it. So the closer (about an hour away) and not a whole lot cheaper options include Cairo, Amman (Jordan), Tel Aviv, Athens, Syria and Lebanon (both of whom won’t let you in if you’ve been to the “Zionist State” of Israel). Since the flights to Cairo and Amman required that "C" take both Friday and Monday off, and wanting for a change from Roman/Greek ruins and islands (Athens), we headed off on a 10:30 PM flight to Tel Aviv on Thursday.

We finally arrived to our small “Mom and Pop” hotel in Jerusalem at about 2 AM on Friday morning. We weren’t terribly impressed with the two single mattresses pushed together, the cramped “get the entire bathroom wet” shower, or the skid keepsake left in the toilet (sorry for the visual), but at 2:30 AM, we were happy to have a bed to sleep in. We were up and moving by 8:30 AM to partake in the “free” breakfast. Our perception of the “not 5 star” (we’ll leave it at that) hotel changed dramatically after our “endless cup” of coffee, huge non Euro carafe of fresh squeezed OJ, toast, cheese plate, vegetables, eggs…, chatting with the very friendly staff, and a room change. The front desk worker was able to sweet talk a tour guide into giving a walking tour of Jerusalem on his day off. The excellent and informative private walking/driving tour (just me, "C", and the guide) lasted a little over four hours and touched all the major sights in the city: Mount Scopus, Mount Zion, Via Dolorosa (“supposedly” the route Jesus dragged the cross along), Church of the Holy Sepulchre (giant church “supposedly” encompassing the spot where Jesus was crucified and entombed), Temple Mount, the Western/Wailing wall… The use of “supposedly” is because the exact locations of where the events took place were determined hundreds if not a thousand years later.

View Onto Jerusalem

The Western Wall

Since Israel closes up tight for Shabbat on Friday sundown, our options for dinner were somewhat limited. Like retirees, we had eaten dinner (pasta feed), drank cappuccinos, and were back in our hotel room by 7:30 PM. We had the greatest intentions of going to the movies at 10PM (one of the few things open) , but after our limited sleep, quick paced walking tour, 8:45 AM departure the next morning, and finding the mother load of over 20 stations in English, we called it a night.

Jerusalem at Night Near Our Hotel