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Jerusalem
I arrived in Israel's Ben Gurion Airport on Saturday night, and by now I'm mostly recovered from the combined jet lag and Paris hiking fatigue. I sit at the moment in Ben Yehuda Street, the cobblestoned shopping plaza in the center of Jerusalem. I am connected to Unwire Jerusalem, the city's free public Wifi network. The smell of falafel is making me very hungry, but I'm waiting for my next stop to eat.
Last night I went bowling with my sisters, followed by a humus plate for dinner, billiards and ice cream. A good way to celebrate New Years even if I was in bed at midnight.
The ride into Jerusalem followed a route I took almost every day for the last two years of high school. Bus from Beit Shemesh (where my family lives) to the Jerusalem central bus station; through the airport-like security into the station, where everything is as I remember it except one burger shop that used to be falafel; out of the station, onto a city bus to the center of town. Everything along the route was exactly the same. At the security line one guy tried to get through the soldiers-only line, then tried to cut his way into the main line right ahead of me; I told him politely that there was a line and blocked his way. Israelis will always be Israelis.
On the last bus, I looked from the window across the aisle for a moment, and sitting there is a good friend from high school! We have since lost touch but we recognized each other immediately. What a small world.
Reading the Jerusalem Post in the mornings is an interesting experience. The bus security guards that operated for years since the 2nd Intifada, trying to stop suicide bombers from boarding buses, shut down operations this week, their work no longer deemed necessary. The walls separating Palestinians from Israelis in the West Bank and Gaza seem to have stopped suicide bombings, and the conflict is back to a "low-intensity" mode, with soldiers taking the brunt of the sporadic violence (the exception being the southern towns bordering Gaza, where frequent rockets and mortars continue). The front page on Sunday carried photos of two off-duty soldiers who had come under fire in the West Bank while hiking; they had their rifles with them (as is common for hiking there) and engaged the attackers; they killed one of the four attackers and wounded another (if I remember correctly) and were then fatally wounded themselves. Also in the paper were reports of Egypt lashing out diplomatically for Israel's handing to some Congressmen videos showing Egyptian troops aiding weapons smuggling into Gaza, which I had heard nothing about in the US.
The family dog, Fudgie, recognized me as soon as I arrived, and has been sleeping in my room every night, the result being that my clothes are now covered in fur. She's still spoiled as always, but cute.
I think I will get a falafel after all. But first I'll change some more dollars to shekels. The exchange rate - 4.7 when I left but now 3.3 - is another reminder of the declining dollar. And the rising shekel: today's paper reported a 5-point-something GDP increase over last year, not too shabby.
Last night I went bowling with my sisters, followed by a humus plate for dinner, billiards and ice cream. A good way to celebrate New Years even if I was in bed at midnight.
The ride into Jerusalem followed a route I took almost every day for the last two years of high school. Bus from Beit Shemesh (where my family lives) to the Jerusalem central bus station; through the airport-like security into the station, where everything is as I remember it except one burger shop that used to be falafel; out of the station, onto a city bus to the center of town. Everything along the route was exactly the same. At the security line one guy tried to get through the soldiers-only line, then tried to cut his way into the main line right ahead of me; I told him politely that there was a line and blocked his way. Israelis will always be Israelis.
On the last bus, I looked from the window across the aisle for a moment, and sitting there is a good friend from high school! We have since lost touch but we recognized each other immediately. What a small world.
Reading the Jerusalem Post in the mornings is an interesting experience. The bus security guards that operated for years since the 2nd Intifada, trying to stop suicide bombers from boarding buses, shut down operations this week, their work no longer deemed necessary. The walls separating Palestinians from Israelis in the West Bank and Gaza seem to have stopped suicide bombings, and the conflict is back to a "low-intensity" mode, with soldiers taking the brunt of the sporadic violence (the exception being the southern towns bordering Gaza, where frequent rockets and mortars continue). The front page on Sunday carried photos of two off-duty soldiers who had come under fire in the West Bank while hiking; they had their rifles with them (as is common for hiking there) and engaged the attackers; they killed one of the four attackers and wounded another (if I remember correctly) and were then fatally wounded themselves. Also in the paper were reports of Egypt lashing out diplomatically for Israel's handing to some Congressmen videos showing Egyptian troops aiding weapons smuggling into Gaza, which I had heard nothing about in the US.
The family dog, Fudgie, recognized me as soon as I arrived, and has been sleeping in my room every night, the result being that my clothes are now covered in fur. She's still spoiled as always, but cute.
I think I will get a falafel after all. But first I'll change some more dollars to shekels. The exchange rate - 4.7 when I left but now 3.3 - is another reminder of the declining dollar. And the rising shekel: today's paper reported a 5-point-something GDP increase over last year, not too shabby.