Promised Light Festival + fireworks

We walked the Blue Route of the Light Festival on Tuesday night (7/2/19).  Here are the photos:

 

 

Yes, that's me

These mirrored people have amazingly articulated faces

The mirrored lady

a mirrored monster?

close-up

down the old city wall

So as we were returned home and stepped off the light rail at the bus stop, there were fireworks.

What was really odd for me was the reports from the gunpowder of the fireworks.  Hearing that in the middle of Jerusalem was really weird, but the fireworks were great.  I don't know why there fireworks.

Coming home

My landlord wasn't able to store my suitcase, so there were no extracurricular activities on Monday.  I headed to the airport around noon because that was my deadline to get out of the apartment.  Spending ~12 hours at Ben Gurion Airport wasn't the most exciting thing, but it's safe, has coffee and bathrooms.  The excitement was not in walking down Rothschild Boulevard with my suitcase, nor getting on the #204 bus with it. Getting out at the train station involved negotiating around a baby stroller before the bus took off, but that was accomplished.  But in the train station, one of the wheels on my suitcase broke, so from that point forward, it was more dragging than rolling. And, mind you, 23.5 kg of dragging.  I'm just so grateful it didn't happen on Rothschild Boulevard. But the floors in the train station and the airport are smooth, so the coefficient of friction was minimized.

View of the side of Ben Gurion Airport-the circular roof is over the big duty-free area behind security

The El Al flight was on a Boeing 787 Dreamliner. A little smaller than a 747,  but still big.  The little screens at each seat are like a tablet (full color, touch screen), and there were 130 movies, and about as many tv shows available.  And the seats in Economy were articulated, and more comfortable (a little) than usual.

The flight was fine as was passport control. But Newark`s floors are carpeted which foiled my dragging strategy.  I pried open my wallet and got one of those airport carts (not before I was convinced of the folly of dragging my suitcase).  Ahh, wheels.  So now I'm all checked in for my Southwest flights home.

I still owe you photos from the light show but I need access to my laptop.

Final prep to come home

The coolish, dry weather continued through Shabbat, so it was nice to have the windows open and hear the minion in a nearby apartment do the prayers. BTW, those roses didn't even make it through Shabbat.

My friend Pat sent me her photos, so here's a photo of us with Anton at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Today the humidity returned with a vengeance, so it's in the air conditioning for me.  I went and got halvah to bring home (cinnamon and coffee), and got cleaned up for my lunch with Yeshai Boasson, who is head of the MIT Alumni Club here in Israel. He came in from Modiin to meet with me.

Tonight, I will get the suitcase packed and checked for weight.  Tomorrow I fly.

Shabbat prep

I made another mango/apricot/mint salad - got to enjoy fresh apricots while I can.  Shabbat shalom, everybody.

Thursday and Friday were cool enough to keep the windows open during the day (mid 80°s).

The NIS 10 flowers of the week

Trip to Ariel???

The first order of business was to get Pat to the airport for her flight home. Mission accomplished. Then I returned home, did some laundry and washed my hair. It was already hot at 0900.

I planned to meet my friend, Prof. Rivka Gilat for supper. I went up to the bus station and caught a #486 express bus to Ariel (NIS 9.5).  My RavKav card didn't work. But Rivka called - she's not at the university, she's home in Petach Tikvah! There is a stop in Petach Tikvah, but I asked the bus driver (in Hebrew) and he said not on this route.  Well darn.  It was stopping to pick people up, but I had no idea where we were.  And it was hot and I didn't have water.  So I decided to go all the way and wait for a better return. Ariel is a safe community.  I did get to gaze upon the biblical heartland.  I got off in Ariel at a known location near the university.  Still hot without water.  I saw a #86 bus with Petach Tikvah as the destination, but I wasn't at the right bus stop, but it was right around the corner (I had never taken the bus back before). The fare was NIS 7.5.  I asked Rivka where to get off (at the mall) and asked her to bring a bottle of water.  My GPS wasn't keeping up with the bus, so it got dicey at the end, but I guessed we were at the mall, and Rivka was right there.

The job update is that Ariel University still doesn't have its hydraulic track set up. So, no news is good news.  They may start teaching some undergraduate classes in English to prepare the students for engineering practice.  Hmm.

We went to a marvelous kosher Italian restaurant, Alfredo.  Rivka always orders a ton of food and sends me home with a huge doggy bag. Tonight was no exception.  We got three appetizers (paper-thin beets, eggplant with quinoa, risotto balls), a salad with haloomi cheese and sweet potatoes, cheese ravioli with a perfect olive oil sauce, a focaccia with amazing spreads (one tomato and one olive), an apple crumble and a piece of NY cheesecake with a wonderful bitter orange sauce, and two cappuccinos.  That's the foodie report.  Positively great leftovers.

P.S. I was in the right city on the right day, but I wasn't at this: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/265472

Light Festival part 2 and transportation woes

We went to Jerusalem in the early afternoon. Pat wanted to see the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and I promised that I could get her to its front door,  but then I would be useless.  We did, indeed, find it easily, but it's a really big place and it seemed that all the visitors were in tour groups.  As luck would have it, an employee of the church, Anton, asked if he could show us around. He's Russian Orthodox, and perfectly charming (I'll post a photo later).  It was great - we never would have found our way to the Byzantine alcove 60 m below the street, or up to the Catholic chapel (which Pat wanted to go find).  Damn treacherous stone steps, but slow worked.

Then we tried to take the light rail, but there were protests blocking it, so we changed our dinner plan.  We went to the Light Festival around sunset (early), and got on the blue line ahead of the crowds.   I don't have photos to share right now (later), but our favorite exhibit was this: http://www.lightinjerusalem.org.il/index.php?dir=site&page=arts&op=item&cs=607  These mirrored costumes were AMAZING.

The light rail did, in fact, get us back to the bus station, where there were....fireworks!  I don't know why.  But there were hundreds of people waiting in the bus station because the buses couldn't get through the protests. We luckily got on the second bus to Tel Aviv (had to get back because her flight was in the morning). Pushing and shoving was the order of the moment. And we were able to get a local bus, too.

Light Festival - part 1 and Jaffa

We went over to Jaffa on the #10 bus, and I bought a necklace from the Yemenite jeweller that matches my earrings. We ate lunch at the colorful "Dr. Shakshuka" (guess what we had??). Our trip back was confusing because of some construction, but we prevailed on the #54 to the #204.

We went to Jerusalem in the evening to see the Light Festival. We did the red line and the green line, and caught a late bus back to Tel Aviv and the last #18 bus home (with a surly driver).

Damascus Gate

Inside the old city

This is entirely an inflated piece, but it really looks like part of the architecture.

We really liked the Octopus Garden in Zedekiah`s Cave, but the 25+ pieces were very difficult to photograph: http://www.lightinjerusalem.org.il/index.php?dir=site&page=arts&op=item&cs=657

These two videos show a starting office football formation and where everyone goes on a play:

Dead Sea Extravaganza

Pat wanted to go to the Dead Sea (a perfectly reasonable request) and I was able to book a great tour through the Abraham Hostel organization. The hostel is a few blocks from this apartment and we needed to be there by 0630. We packed our lunches the night before, and carefully packed the things needed for the day.  The little bus stopped at the Abraham Hostel in Jerusalem on the way.  We just had an hour or two at each, which was perfect.

Pat at the Northern Palace

The national park service flag

The first stop was Masada.  We walked down to the Northern Palace and a little on the top, but our time was limited. We were there early and the tour groups were just starting to arrive en masse.

My feet in Ein Gedi water

View of the Dead Sea from Ein Gedi

Next was Ein Gedi. I hadn't been there in 15 years, and did not remember the trek up (or is it because I'm 62 now?).  We only went about halfway up because I wanted to be careful coming down the stone steps (why am I reminded of The Lord of the Rings?).  The base had a nice shaded picnic spot from palm fronds.

We went into the Dead Sea on one of the north beaches, Kalia Beach. The coast is much steeper than down by the hotels, and the entrance into and out of the water was quite rocky and difficult to negotiate. Of course, the water is the water which is great. The air temperature was 40C (104F), and the water temperature seemed very close to the air.

Back home for needed showers and laundry. A quick supper of whatever was in my fridge, and a quiet evening followed.