An early wakeup Tuesday morning (I'm still in the past here, but I need to catch up) and a very long day overall. Not long in a boring way, though, because we viewed Jerusalem from three arms of an axis (positive and negative x-axes and also the negative y-axis, though the view from there was fairly dim to say the least).

We began with a small walk at the Haas Promenade. I can't for the life of me figure out how they get "Haas" when the sign very clearly stated that we were entering the "Richard and Rhoda Goldman" Promenade, but some questions aren't worth asking; if I weren't limited in computer time I might spend the 0.41 seconds it takes on google to answer it. One of the Keshet staff, Yitzchak, has been giving how-this-place-is-religiously-important speeches, and his second (Scopus was the first) was about this ridge that overlooks Jerusalem from the south. Since Avraham came north from Be'er Sheva with Isaac and two youth in tow, and this ridge lies where it does, Abe's first view of Moriah is said to have been from the point from which we heard the story. It was slightly hazier a view than would be desired but it was a very pretty overlook.



Pictures...you'll have to wait because we're leaving for Tzfat tomorrow early in the morning.

Can I briefly back up? They asked who knew readings for Rosh Chodesh, so I said I thought I could do 1 and 2 and Jacob said he thought he could do 3 and 4. He glanced; I glanced. He decided against; I called on practice from seventh and eighth grades. It was quite an experience reading about these sacrifices from a spot with a view of the Temple Mount.


Israel doesn't want anyone to know, but it's excavating a spot that is thought to have been David's chambers/house/Batsheva-periscope. We went there and poked around for a bit above David's City (no: עיר דוד). But a view like that one was hardly enough, so we then went underground. In preparation for the Assyrian invasion of 701BCE, King Hezekiah ordered that the Jerusalem water supply be secured. So as any ruler would do, he decided against building a 533 meter long tunnel in favor of importing Evian from France. Since such a tunnel does not exist (and I don't have pictures to prove it) no LHIYS groups could have walked through it with only the light from three flashlights to illuminate the path for three dozen people. And so we didn't, I suppose, really see Jerusalem from the negative y-axis but it was close enough. That is, if the tunnel were to be created and we could see through rock, we would have seen Jerusalem from below. The water wasn't mostly ankle deep, except for the time when it wasn't knee-deep just as we didn't enter the channel.

We ended the evening holding hands and blindly following the leader to the high spot just west of the Kotel. In this way, everyone would have a first view at the same time. That view really isn't anything compared to walking up to the wall. I looked up, then down. Some people do it the other way. Everyone does it one of the two. You can't just stare blankly at the Kotel. It wasn't without its faults, though: the commercialization (selling kippahs just outside the courtyard) and the schnorring (takes a lot of chutzpah to demand why someone doesn't have tzedakah to give). We're going back to the Kotel in about a month and it will be interesting to note the differences as we continue to make new ties with Israel. [Also, as a side note: if anyone wants notes put in the wall, feel free to send them here or, if you're willing, to email them. I'll handwrite them if you choose the latter.]

I'm still two days behind, but I think I'll be about nine by the time I write any more. We're emptying our rooms here at Beit Bretter and reloading our bags for a combination of storage and a weeklong hike/trip to Tzfat/night on the beach, etc. So I'll try to remember everything from yesteday (Wednesday) through next Thursday.

The frisbee's been fun. Decent water, good meat, unripe fruits, watery-on-top-and-thick-on-the-bottom hot chocolate. We also started the science parts. David Eisenberg is my grad student. Hakimi, he knows you. I've gotta run.

The Flights and Day One (two?)

We have arrived in Israel. I suppose the first section should deal with the earliest part of the trip (that is, the flights and the first few hours in Israel).

The flight to Atlanta was fine until about Tennessee when the stormy skies caused turbulence. The entire descent was two-steps-down-and-one-step-up, though in the end we landed firmly. The storms were a fluke, full of sound and fury and signifying nothing, because there was less rain than comes out of one of those garden-hose mister settings. But the lighting displays were impressive. Jonathan and I found the group fairly quickly and we went to the Atlanta convention center a mile away from the airport to meet with the group (a ten-hour layover means that we can hike out for meeting, food, drink, general merriment). Naturally they wanted us back at Hartsfield three hours before our Israel flight, so a quick game of four-player scrabble used the time quite well.

An interesting social situation occurs when strangers are thrown together (granted, we're not entirely "strangers" because we'd read bios of the other 29 kids on the trip beforehand). There were no cliques (not even sub-cliques) and no inhibitions, either. Talk for a few minutes, find someone else, then go back to the first and ask the same questions because you'd forgotten in the meantime. It wasn't quite like the setting on the plane, beacuse our seats weren't all in the same few rows. I guess it's like the distinction they always drew between AP and IB: broad and shallow or narrow and deep. But I'll leave the psych to the experts.

I'd love to talk about flying to Israel. I'll say that it only really hit me that I was going to Israel when we took off from Atlanta on Sunday night. But by the time we hit Virginia (and until 500 miles past Halifax) I was asleep. And from well-before-England to Marseille, too. How do I know? Because Delta has this little screen in front of each seat on which the most interesting function is the map. It shows the orientation of the plane, where it's come from, its speed, the wind, temperature...everything you really didn't need to knowa bout your flight. But it was very entertaining (more so, probably, because of the hour of day and because I had the window seat with the best view: right over the wing) to watch the names of local cities show up and then disappear as we crossed borders. As I said, though, I turned it off after the North Carolina area. Sleeping was easy: headphones under sunglasses under black bandana under hat under blanket under airsteam.

I was awake entering Italy, though, and that's when the flight started getting exciting. (Skip a few, 99, 100). A blind man would have known when Tel-Aviv came into view because the noise level on the plame suddenly increased. A slight anti-climax as we flew over the city and then past and around the airport; all airports are the same, anyway. Only in this one, everything was in Hebrew! Baggage, cell phones, customs, cash conversions, phonecalls home, meeting the Israeli staff (probably more about them later): the usual touristy stuff.

There really isn't anything going on along the road we took from Ben-Gurion out to הר הצופים. At Scopus we had the view overlooking Jerusalem from the north. Also said Shehecheyanu (can I please do these in Hebrew: שהחינו) over a cup of grape juice there as a point of officially welcoming us into Israel. Back at Givat Ram (our campus) we unpacked and went to bed.

So that gets me caught up to the first few hours here. I have to head out now; a not-too-distant posting may include pictures and will be about the Jewish Quartet and Kotel, the Hezekiah tunnel (decided not to bring the camera...shades of Gamla, though, because the water only got thigh-deep once and it was really really amazing to walk in), the science part. More later.

להיתראות

The Introductory Post

I am/was/will be in Israel for ten-and-a-half of the next twelve months. Looking at it now, this is quite a long time. In order to stay in semi-regular/mass-communication touch with friends and family, I have started this blog. I do not know where it is going or whether I will update it enough to be worth saving a spot for on your homepage. I'll try.

What I do know is that I leave early in the morning just over six days from today. This means I must cleanandpack and all that othergoodstuff; I must also wave goodbye to four years' enemies and friends. Some waving has already begun, and each one is a little harder than the previous. At the same time each brings next week and the beginning of LHIYS a little closer.