Back Up Next

This was a travel day so there’s not much to report.

We left JFK right on time at 6:45 PM yesterday afternoon. Had a nice dinner on the plane, then tried unsuccessfully to sleep, Then watched the sun come up behind the Alps near Zürich.

 

Nights pass quickly when you’re on a jetliner flying east.

 

Sunrise!

 

Is that Amsterdam?  I think that's Amsterdam.

 

I looked hard for windmills but never spotted one.

 

The flight from New York to Zürich was uneventful, and so was the flight from Zürich to Tel Aviv. So, even, was the drive from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which is where I am now

.

I probably shouldn’t have been surprised that the view from my hotel window features a church. (I know it’s a church because the guy on top has a halo.) Something tells me that tomorrow I will see a few mosques and synagogues too.

 

The sun that came up much too early today is now going back where it came from.

 

This is one of my new friends, Paul Totah.  We were chatting about this and that and when he learned I'd worked at NASA HQ he asked if I knew Jim Stofan. Well, yeah, we worked together in the same office for maybe, what, eight years?  Small world.

 

That’s Shari Satran, our Road Scholar guide for Israel and Jordan except not for Bethlehem because that’s in Palestine and she’s an Israeli citizen and they don’t really want her there so we will get a Palestinian guide for that excursion. And of course we will have an Egyptian guide when we visit the pyramids. This could get complicated. Shari was born in Jerusalem and I can tell already she’s going to be a terrific asset to our trip. The tour really begins tomorrow.

 

Here are more of my new friends -- not all, just about half the group.  Road Scholars every one.  And now I'm truly realizing why it's so important to put my trip websites together immediately after returning home.  I know these people, learned to admire and respect them, but now in December 2020 I can't remember many of their names. I am so ashamed.  My old brain is mush.

 

This is going to be good.

 

Back Up Next

billanderson601@yahoo.com