Welcome Home try number 3

Our tour guide, Gershon, who is a Chilean non-observant Jew greeted by saying "Welcome home,"as we got settled on the bus today after a day and a half of travel. And then he told us his story of how he left Chile against his parents' wishes at the age of thirteen and his school teacher in Israel renamed him Gershon, which means exile. It really hasn't sunk in yet where I am but home sure sounds nice.

 Our plane ride was somewhat uneventful (only one person lost their passport and will be here tomorrow) and I found again what I usually do when traveling: It is less about the stuff you see when you travel and more about the people you meet. I often contemplate not talking at all to the person sitting next to me on the plane (like I did on the MSP to JFK leg of our journey), but the woman sitting next to me was reading the same book as me (!ikr?!), The Source, by Michener, and of course, we had to talk. She was traveling for the first time to Israel with her mom and daughter just "to look around" for 10 days, because it was something her mom wanted to do. She is an speech therapist who just came back a couple of months ago from SouthEast Asia where she worked with kids recovering from cleft palate repair surgery...so interesting. The couple behind me were from Texas but the wife had grown up in Israel and they had a granddaughter at Harvard and a son who spoke a million languages...or something like that.

 When we got to Tel Aviv, Gershon showed us around Jaffa and Tel Aviv and explained the historical significance of each place (Jaffa was a way station on the way to/from Egypt for centuries and Tel Aviv has no historical significance, and they want it that way, apparently as they wanted to create a new city).

Jaffa/Joppa

 The architecture looks in Jaffa to be hundreds of years old and the architecture in Tel Aviv is very industrial and looks sturdy for obvious reasons. The two cities but up right next to each other and the Mediterranean is the back drop to both. I am currently in our hotel two blocks from the Mediterranean.

Tel Aviv out our window, the Mediterranean in the background

 Woah. I had promised myself that when I got to Israel I would try to stay up the first night as late as I could and so when my roommate Julie, told me she was going on a walk, I joined her and we walked a bit around the city in hurricane force wind, down by the Sea and met up with Judy, another woman on the trip and we all went to a little cafe down the street and had a perfect cappuccino and I got to hear their stories of their many trips around the world which is sort of making me feel like my life pales in comparison but is really good because it makes me LISTEN MORE AND TALK LESS, which is my goal in life and so far on this trip has resulted in significantly interesting conversations. Tomorrow will be a big day with lots of cities to visit and more stories to hear. I will post more then, and post pictures, too.

In Tel Aviv

Sunset over the Mediterranean in Tel Aviv