Tuesday 21 October – Jaffa & Tel Aviv

We were tired, fully fed, and had several glasses of wine with dinner last night so I figured I’d sleep like a rock all night.  Didn’t have any trouble falling asleep, but woke up around 12:30AM, and seemed wide awake.  Didn’t get back to sleep until 2AM, but then DID sleep like a rock until the alarm went off at 7AM.  We showered and went down to the ‘complimentary’ breakfast which had started at 6:30 AM.  It was NOT like a Holiday Inn Express…..  It was more like a Sunday Brunch at a nice restaurant back home.  Luckily, we’re here for two nights so tomorrow I’ll be there at 6:30!

We boarded our bus at 8:15AM.  Usually these tours are limited to 16 people and in the past most of them have been full.  When they used 16 passenger ‘vans’ it sometimes felt a little ‘cozy’ so the tour company changed to 35 passenger mini-busses last year.  Our tour is only 8 people (because a bunch of folks recently cancelled due to common sense as a result of the conflict) but the company who was supposed to provide the 35 passenger van didn’t have any so we have a 56 passenger bus with all the trimmings to use for the next two weeks…… (It’s not a problem finding a window seat!)

Our guide:  David

We drove to old Jaffa, which is s just south of Tel Aviv.  It’s been occupied for over 4,000 years by just about every major civilization and religion that’s ever been in power.  Our guide pointed out that this was the place where the Holy Spirit appeared to St. Peter to help convince him that Christianity would accept ‘all’ people, and not just the Jews.  It was turning point for Peter……..

In old Jaffa with Tel Aviv in the background

We had an ‘in home’ visit in the home of an “Arab, Christian, Israeli” woman which makes her a minority of a minority.  She served a great middle-eastern lunch and told us of her background which included an ‘arranged’ marriage. 

I wish the olive bar at Piggly Wiggly looked like this.....

They have 'Ellen Clothes' in Israel!

In the afternoon we returned to Tel Aviv for a bus tour of the area, a walk through a huge flea market, and a visit to the area where a right wing fanatic murdered Yitzhak Rabin in 1995.  He was the Prime Minister at the time and was on track to grant the occupied territories back to the Palestinians, which might have achieved peace.  Some people still mourn his loss.

We got back to the hotel about 4PM and were on our own for the rest of the day.

There was a ‘cocktail hour’ that started at 5PM and we didn’t want to miss that.  Ellen went out to get some postcards to mail back to one of our neighbor boys who is doing the ‘flat stanley’ project.  We’ve been taking Stanley on a wild ride so far and wanted to make sure that Jackson was keeping up……

On the veranda with "Stanley"

We went to a street café and got a “Sabih” sandwich which was every bit as good as our guide recommended.  After that we took a walk down along the beach and got back to the hotel by 9PM.

The Sabih