I feel like I've been climbing a mountain with landscapes so interesting and different that it's hard to remember to watch my footing. Utah seems far away and long ago, even though it's only been a week.
Highlights: chicken nuggets in the kids meals, plenty of mini pillows, friendly flight attendants who called my little girls "Princess," and round of applause from the passengers when the airplane touched down in Tel Aviv. That was surprising and touching, like the time I heard applause after a baptism. It would have been nice if we had slept better on the plane, or if a full cup of orange juice had not slid off the tray table into my lap, or if we had remembered to find the booster seat before we left the baggage area. But at least we remembered the other 29 bags and bundles, and all the females could sit in an air conditioned shuttle bus while Frank navigated the security hurdles in reverse and retrieved the booster seat.
The heat was pretty intense on the way home, but we were assured that we had brought with us a cold front compared to the week before. During the drive to Jerusalem, we saw hills terraced with white rocks, contrasting with dark green coniferous trees. Frank pointed out old tank and plane parts from past wars, intentionally left along the highway as memorials of past wars. Talk about leaving behind a monument.
At one checkpoint an armed Israeli guard checked i.d.s of our Palestinian driver and guide. He climbed the steps and looked at us, and asked with an accent, "Is okay?" Or maybe he said, "It's okay." We nodded and tried to pull smiles on to our jet-lagged faces. He stepped out and waved us forward.
Our driver expertly navigated the crowded streets labelled in three languages. I've learned since that there is some kind of code to the honking, like three honks means, "I'm passing you on the right." Traffic signals come in the familiar green, and yellow, red, the green blinks before it turns yellow, and you'd better stop when it's yellow. After the red light comes another yellow light, which means your wheels had better be moving by the time green comes, or you'll hear a chorus of honks from behind you. According to Eran Hayet, the director of the Jerusalem Center, here in the Holy Land the speed of sound is faster than the speed of light, because you may hear impatient honks even before the light turns green.
At this point in the drive, it started to sink in that I was really in Jerusalem, that the months of planning and weeks of scrambling had brought us to our destination, and what was once an image on a post card to me is now my home.
(Care to comment on your best or worst travel experience?)
