On The Ride Home

Being in a confined space is torture for anyone. Being stuck in a middle seat on an eleven hour flight for someone like me is worse than being at a faculty conference. I didn’t even know that anything could beat that torture. The teenage girl next to me is a snotty little bitch with a real attitude. I’ve been restricting my walks to only one in two hours but you would think I am getting up every five minutes every time the little princess has to swing her legs over the side to allow me to climb over her. We were supposed to have aisle seats, we booked them early enough but something got screwed up and they were not in the computer when we went to print our boarding passes.

I loved all of Israel and although Tel Aviv was not my favorite city there, it would become my new vacation favorite if the flight was not so long, First, the beaches are magnificent. The blue Mediterranean, with its soft white sand is wonderful. The water is warm and the waves, while rough in spots are gentle enough for me. I can spend hours in the sea and never get cold. The sand is so wonderful we walked from our hotel to Jaffa and back on it, a walk that would have been 2,7 miles each way, had we stayed on the Promenade but was much longer on the beach. The refreshing water enabled us to make the trip, in the heat, in the middle of the day.

While I am killing time, writing in Word (EL AL has no Internet connection), I’ll describe our day. Saturday was the only day the tour had nothing planned for us to do. As it was Shabbat, everything was closed. I remembered Jaffa, from a previous tip as being a magnificent city and wanted to see it a again and knew from reading the itinerary of our trip that we would only be driving through. Surprisingly, I convinced my husband to walk. (We could not convince any of the other 18 people on the tour to walk with us,) The beaches on Saturday are mobbed. While Tel Aviv is not the religious city Jerusalem is, it is still a day when families get together and do things as families. It was good to see so many people out with their families, enjoying the day, celebrating the end of the week together. There was only a short time we could not be on the beach so for that time, we walked on the Promenade and found a great children’s sprinkler to walk through.

After quite a while, we made it to Jaffa where we explored the port and then climbed the stairs and the hills to explore the Old City. Normally, we would have had many artsy stores to visit and spend money in but since it was Shabbat, most were closed We did find a few to browse in and one to leave some money in but that didn’t stop us from enjoying the views and from making our wishes holding our Zodiac signs on the Wishing Bridge. It was too hot to eat so we passed on the restaurants that were opened, had several drinks and made our way back to the beach. On the walk back, a nice bar owner refilled our water bottle with ice. We thanked her by purchasing some Goldstar beer (one of my new favorites) and drank it on the walk back.

We didn’t hear any history and background stories on the trip to Jaffa, but it was definitely one of our favorite days of the trip. It was good exploring on our own, going to the “mooz” (tour guide’s word for bathroom) when we needed to go, not on a schedule and being able to spend as much time as we wanted doing what we wanted to do. In Jerusalem, I spend some time at the Great Synagogue on the sabbath and loved the religious feelings I felt there. Here, I loved the sense of family that shabbat gives.
We were exhausted when we got back to the hotel. Our friends thought we were out of our minds as we figured the entire day’s walk was probably close to 10 miles, but it was worth it. And, I only needed a half our rest before I walked again and found a free hot spot to use the Internet (.7 mile walk).

Only two hours left on this flight of torture. We have friends from the trip sitting in first class who we did manage to visit for a while. There really is a difference in the luxury they are traveling in compared to the cramped quarters of steerage. But, they paid $6000 more for their tickets so I can’t complain. (At the airport we could have upgraded for at $250 a seat but that $500 but that money will go towards another trip.) I’ve eaten, I’ve walked, I looked at and erased some of the over 3000 pictures I’ve taken but even writing this for the blog is not making the time pass any quicker. I will never complain about another Florida flight again.

As soon as they collect these meal trays it will be time for me to walk again, time to disturb the little queen beside me.

(Picture--Jerusalem from my hotel window)