Journal

Our Journals

Adam's Journal	Tami's Journal
Wednesday, March 27th: We arrived at the airport about two hours before we took off. After standing in line for more than an hour at the ticket counter we finally got our boarding pass. No problem, just 400 some people trying to get on one flight with only five people registering them. There was no delay at all through security, just walked through. The flight was pretty good. The food wasn't bad. But the flight was pretty full and we didn't have much room to get up and stretch. neither of us slept much. The movies on the flight were K-Pax and The Musketeer.	Wednesday, March 27th: Today we left for Amsterdam. We'll land at 12:30am tomorrow.
Thursday, March 28th: Public transportation in Amersterdam was pretty good. Most everything has both English and Dutch on the signs. Although the street signs were only in Dutch, so we had to figure out how to say the street names if we asked for directions. We rode the train into the city (no one ever asked for our tickets). Then we bought tickets for the tram and took it to Anne Frank's house. We didn't know how to get on the tram, so we illegally got on the tram because we didn't know how to pay. We figured it out the second time when we watched someone else pay. We had to be very careful when we walked in Amsterdam because there were tram lanes with tracks, lanes for the cars, lanes for the bikes and a small area for pedestrians. Crossing the street was a bit tough because we had to look for so many different types of vehicles. There were also several streets that were pedestrian only, or tram and pedestrian only. My biggest frustration of the day was getting on the computer at an internet cafe at the airport. We got 15 minutes and were writing email to update people. All around us other people were hearing audible warnings about how much time they had left before they had to buy more time. Our computer just turned off and we weren't able to send the email and the whole computer turned off. We lost the message and would have had to pay again to send anything. So we just left. Sorry for all who wanted email, we were out of Euros. The plane was very empty, less than 1/2 of the seats were used, so most people were stretched out over several seats sleeping. I have not been all that tired and only napped for about 45 minutes.	Thursday, March 28th: This was a very long day. We landed in Amsterdam with only about 2hours of sleep and tried to be good tourists. I was VERY tired and wasn't really wanting to do much sightseeing, but once we got out I was OK, although it was quite chilly getting up to 40 degrees by late afternoon. We quickly found the Anne Frank house and took pictures for the 6th grade class that is going to be reading the Diary Of Anne Frank soon. We made it to a flower market to see and smell the wonderful tulips but there wasn't anything in bloom so we didn't pay the extra $10 per person to go to a garden or anything. By the time we walked around a bit more I was so tired so we decided to go on a canal tour and sit in a warm place. After the tour we just went back to the airport and relaxed until our flight. After a short interrogation by the Israeli Airport Security, we boarded our plane for Tel Aviv. We both slept a little on the plane and got to watch Ocean's Eleven. The food was OK and the flight was actually short compared to Wednesday's flight. We landed in Tel Aviv at 11:20 local time and after having our passports stamped, gathering our luggage and finding a sherut it was 12:15am. Unfortunately, we were the first to board the sherut (which holds 10 people) so we waited until 1:00am before we left the airport.We arrived at Rob and Rachel's at 2:00am and Rob was waiting up for us.
Friday, March 29th: The model from the second temple period was interesting. Rob said that it showed much more than what could really be known and that some areas were either known to be wrong, or were debated. But with the model it was easier to see the growth of the city. Jerusalem in David's era was tiny. Solomon, Hezekiah, and Herod all practically doubled the size of the city with building programs. It is interesting to talk to cabbies and listen to other people talk about troubles here. Tonight out cab driver had just been called up from reserves (probably within the last hour) to report for military service. He was supposed to report about an hour after he dropped us off. He was very worried about the area. He said that he was not worried about the military service, that is what he trained for and he knew what to do, but he was worried about his wife and children and his normal work as a cabbie, because the whole area had become dangerous. Our return cabbie was Arab. He was happy to see Abigail (Rob and Rachael's daughter). He had recently become a grandfather and was happy to talk about his children and grandchild. Neither was happy about the problems, or saw an end to them, and both were primarily worried about how things would affect their families.	Friday, March 29th: After a good night's rest we got up at 9:00 this morning to find out that we "sprang forward" last night so it was really 10:00. We got ready and went to the Holyland Hotel to see the Model of Jerusalem in the Second Temple Period. I will let Adam talk about that, he understood much more than I did. While we were there we heard today's suicide bomb going off in the distance. We heard the sirens going to the seen but didn't actually see anything at all. It was about 1 km away with several hills between us. Tonight we had dinner at a place called Foccacia and had wonderful, you guessed it, Foccacia bread. It was a nice place and good food. We are mostly traveling by taxi as it is just as cheap to share a taxi between the 4 of us as it is for us all to ride a bus. Tomorrow Rob's Israeli friend is going to take us around the Via Dolorosa.
Saturday, March 30th: Today has been a fun day. We went on a tour of the Via Dolorosa (stations of the cross). A friend of Rob's, Doran, guided us around. He is a Historical Geographer. He really knows his stuff. We walked all over the Old City in Jerusalem. The Old City covers an area of about 1 square km. It is incredibly dense, people build on top of buildings, sharing walls, etc. Today the area was pretty empty. There was a general strike, so many of the shops were closed. It was shabbat, so the Jew areas were empty. There were tourists walking around, very few Americans, most tourists seemed to be Asian or European. The shops that were open for tourist were desperate for customers. The funniest line that they gave us trying to get us into their shop was, "Give us a chance to rip you off today." We felt very safe today in the Old City. Most people that we talked to said that it was a very safe area to be in. Doran said that on a normal Easter time, we would have a hard time even getting into the courtyard around the Church of the Holy Seplichre. We had no problem getting in and we only waited for 3 or 4 minutes to get into the tomb. We walked through the stations of the cross (backwards). Many of them are marked only with a small sign, others have a chapel attached to them. We are getting ready to go to dinner now.	Saturday, March 30th: Today was very nice. The weather started out cloudy and chilly but it ended up being a little sunny and warmer than yesterday (at least no hail today). We were very fortunate that Rob has an Israeli friend that offered to guide us through the Old City. It was a wonderful tour especially to have a guide who knew all the nooks and crannies and out of the way places of significance. He took us backwards through the 15 stations on the Via Dolorosa and explained lost more on the way. The city was pretty empty today so we were able to take LOTS of pictures and take our time. I can't imagine doing this walk with hundreds of other people...it would loose so much history not to have a great guide like Doron. We had pizza at a very strange little place...check out the pictures for that. Tonight we had a nice Middle Eastern dinner at one of Rachel's favorite restaurants. We shared a chicken salad (mostly chicken on a few pieces of lettuce- much unlike the US) and some feta cheese filled sweet pastry. It was all very good. Adam and I have learned our first and important Hebrew word- Toda which means Thank You. It always makes the people smile to hear Americans make an attempt to thank them in their own language. Adam quickly figured out the shekel system and has mostly ridden in the front of the cabs and paid for our rides. It's a great learning experience!!! We're having so much fun!
Sunday, March 31st: Today was a pretty easy day. While Tami went to the gym I worked a little bit on web pages and read. We went down to the old city and went shopping. All shopping in the Old City is done with bartering. So we have to negotiate prices. But most of the shops were closed early (about 2:00PM) in the Muslim and Christian Quarters (both predominately Arab shop keepers). There was another general strike. So after lunch, we went to the Jewish Quarter for the first time. A very different area. Most of the Jewish quarter has been reconstructed since the 1960s so it is much more modern looking. It still still stone and the streets are not much wider than the other quarters of the city, but definitely more modern. Today is the First Fruits celebration, where Jews are supposed to bring their first fruits to God. There were many charities collecting money, but mostly it was pretty celebratory. The baptism service was interesting. Rob and Rachel have made friends with a Danish Pastor and he did the baptism. So we attended a Danish Easter service (a woman whispered the translations of the sermon and the pastor made a special English liturgy guide for us so we knew what was going on) and the Baptism was in English. Everyone there spoke English, but the liturgy was in Danish and the English liturgy was very different. Our late nights with the web page and early mornings are starting to catch up with us. So we didn't do as much today.	Sunday, March 31st: Today was very nice. We got up at 5:00am...not so nice...to go to the Garden Tomb. It was a very special service and gave me a feeling of what the garden tomb may have looked like. And since I LOVE plants and flowers it was a perfect setting! The Calla Lilies were BEAUTIFUL!!! The service lasted only about a hour which was good because it was quite cold sitting on the bench with a cloud covered sky. After the service I got to go as Rachel's guest to the Hyatt Hotel where she is a member of the gym (it was her big splurge for their time here). It was really nice. I even got to sit in a hot tub all by myself for a while. It was a nice relaxing morning. Around noon we went back to the Old City to do some shopping and prepare for Abigail and Rachel's baptism. They were both baptized at a 4:00 service in the Old City. It was a nice service and very special to be able to share this special day with Rob, Rachel and little Abigail (Ah-v-gile).
Monday, April 1st: It is late and I am trying to go to bed before 12:30 so this is a bit short. We went to the Mt of Olives today and what could be the upper room (probably not, too new of a building) and Caiaphis' house. The church (St Peters) had beautiful mosaics all over the place. It was incredible. Then we walked down the hill and up the Kidron Valley to Gathsemene. We finished the day by going to a birthday party for the daughter of Pastor that baptized Rachel and Abigail.	Monday, April 1st: Today was good. We walked where Jesus may have had the Last Supper to where he was betrayed in Gethsemane. It was a beautiful day so walking around was actually warm and we acutally got some pictures with blue skies! We even got to go to a Danish birthday party for Katja. Lots of food and stuff, the only difference from an American 1st birthday party is that little Katja was clean throughout the party...she didn't cream her cake on her face (kind of disappointing).
Tuesday, April 2nd: Since Tami left Masada to me here is my hand at it. Masada was built as a winter palace for Herod the Great. It was built as not only as a winter palace, but as safe haven just in case Cleopatra and Mark Anthony decided to invade. This fortace is virtually impeneratable because it is on a mountain about 500 meters above the surrounding land. After Herod died it was used as a military base for a while before being abandoned. It was later used by the remenants of the Jewish rebelion. About 1000 people defended the mountain against thousands of roman soldiers. When the Romans finally broke through all but one woman and two children had commited suicide. This is a very big Jewish Nationalist site. Many of the Israeli military graduation cerimonies are held here. We also read that a common rallying cry for modern Israeli military is "Masada shall not fall again.	Tuesday, April 2nd: In just a little bit we are going to take the rental car and drive down to the Dead Sea. I am very excited to get to float in the lowest place in the world. We'll write more when we return. Today was not good weather in Jerusalem. We woke to clouds and by the time we walked over to get some water to drink on our trip Adam and I got hailed on. It has been very strange weather here. We left for the Dead Sea around 12:00 and stopped at a rest stop to do some shopping before the stores closed and then drove down to Masada.The weather there was pretty dry but very windy. I'm sure Adam will explain Masada in his Journal but it was beautiful!!! It is amazing to drive down the West side of the Dead Sea and see the HUGE "mountains" on your right and the low Dead Sea on your left! Masada was VERY windy so we took a quick hour tour after a cable car ride up. Rob is very knowledgeable about things so he guided us through. After Masada we went and floated in the Dead Sea. Other than having a wave splash in my face and tasing the salt and getting a little in my eye...it was Wonderful!!! I really enjoyed the experience of floating and not having to hold myself up at all and enjoying the beautiful surroundings. Tomorrow we are going to Tel Aviv and depending on weather we may even get to swim in the Mediterranean as well. Can't Wait!
Wednesday, April 3rd: Our trip is close to the end. We don't really want to go home. Rob and Rachael are leaving next thursday. They are ready to go home after being here for eight months and being away from family, but we would be glad to stay, if we didn't have to make money and have jobs, Israel would be nice for a couple more weeks. But we have seen a good bit of the sites. Tel Aviv, today, was our first major city, besides Jerusalem. It is very different from Jerusalem, much more modern, lots of skyscrapers. The ocean is nice. But if I had to pick a place to spend my time I would pick Jerusalem. The Old City was my favorite part of the trip. I think I would like to spend a good bit of time learning all of the old folklore and history behind the buildings and city. That is my interest. I am not a good langugage person, so that would be the difficulty. One thing that I forgot to add about Sunday. I was walking down a street in the old city, the Muslim Quarter, and a shop keeper saw me and said, "Nice hair, Oh, my God!" For anyone that hasn't noticed in the pictures, I haven't had a hair cut in about 9 or 10 month and it is pretty long. I realized that virtually none of the males in Israel have long hair. It was pretty funny. I guess it is time to get a hair cut.	Wednesday, April 3rd: Today started cloudy and foggy with lots of rain. By the time we left Jerusalem around 12:00 it was raining here. We headed west to Tel Aviv hoping the weather would be better there and it was! What a beautiful day! It was still a little chilly, but the sun came out and we were comfortable touring around and walking the beach. It was amazing just to be standing in the Medeterranean knowing that tomorrow we will be back in Chicago on what seems like the other side of the world!!! We have had a wonderful trip and have lots of things to remind us of our amazing vacation to Israel. I even found an anniversary band (which I have been begging Adam to get me for our 5 year anniversary this summer) in Tel Aviv. This trip will always be remembered. We are very confident that this is where we were supposed to be at this time in our lives! We are so thankful to all who have prayed for our safety and journeied with us! We have an early morning ( 2am ) to drive to the airport for out 5:30am flight. We land in Chicago around 11:30 am and will update our page for the last time from home! We love you all!!!
Thursday, April 4th: Hopefully we will be spending the day touring around Amsterdam, but we won't up-date the web page until we get back to the US.	Thursday, April 4th: Today we fly out at 5:30 am and will be home around 11:30. We only have an hour layover in Amsterdam on this side...although Adam is hopeful our plane will be late so we have more time to tour there. We'll see.