feldmanlarry

I’m sitting in my hotel room looking at the Parthenon reliving in my mind what I think is the perfect Greek moment I had a couple of hours ago.

Tolis, my taxi driver friend who I met through Michael V. in Indiana took me to Sounio to see the Temple of Poseidon. I was blown away by the beauty of the temple and the beauty of the location. We went to a restaurant just below the temple. My moment was when Tolis was filling me wonderful stories from Greek Mythology while eating Moussaka and looking at the Temple of Poseidon. I hope a snapshot of that moment stays with me for a long time, I’m sure it will.

Tolis relating the Greek mythology of the Temple of Poseidon (left), while I eat moussaka with Greek coffee (right)

 

 

I offered to buy him lunch but he said this is not the time of day (1 PM) when he would eat. He said he would maybe have a snack around now then eat at 5 or so. I told him I often eat at 5 but then I realized it’s lunch he has at 5, then dinner at 10 or so after the children go to bed. Strangely enough this almost matches 2 of the 3 meals I would have when not teaching. I would have a meal at noon or so when I get up, then have dinner at 5 with Margaret (same time as Tolis), then a snack around 10 PM to midnight (same again as Tolis). Margaret and I share 2 meals too — the noon meal and the 5 PM one.

 

Backtracking now to 10 AM, Tolis picked me up in his taxi and we drove out of Athens through some very wealthy suburbs. I had to do my usual touching the water and this time didn’t fall or get my shoes soaked. Maybe I really do have something for Aphrodite. When I told that story to Tolis, he simply responded that many people throughout history have had a thing for Aphrodite.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beaches along the road from Athens to the Temple of Poseidon at Sounio

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My first view of the Temple of Poseidon from the road (left), view before the climb (right)

It’s becoming hard for me to concentrate on this because as we speak, the sky over the Parthenon from where I’m sitting keeps changing every minute. This is the first time I really wished I had a heavy duty multi-faceted camera along with the knowledge of how to fully use it.

 

Amazing sky over the Parthenon from my hotel room while I’m trying to write about what happened earlier

Getting back to my story. As I said earlier, not only is the Temple magnificent, but so is the setting. It’s located at the very tip of the Greek Peninsula and the views are great. Of course, the Ancient Greeks did not choose its location by chance.

 

That top picture almost looks perfect, like from a post card. The other two have something in the way that makes them far from perfect.

 

View from the Temple of the end point of the Greek peninsula

A story Tolis told me is as follows. There was a competition between the gods Athena and Poseidon for naming the city of Athens. Athena offered olive trees and Poseidon horses for war. They chose Athena’s olive trees over the horses. They named the city Athens after Athena but dedicated this temple at Sonio to Poseidon as a consolation prize.

Another story Tolis told me is as follows. Thiseas was sent to Mineas to be sacrificed but instead he killed the Minotaur (half bull, half man). He was supposed to change his sail from black to white if he killed the minotaur and was not killed. He forgot to change the sail to white because he had partied too much. His father, Aegeas, saw that the sail had not changed to white when Mineas was returning and Aegeas threw himself into the sea in grief.

Tolis’ 8-year old son, Thodoris, told his father to be sure that Tolis told me this story. Thodoris loves Greek mythology. I wrote the following email through his mother’s email.

Dear Thodoris,

I want to thank you for getting your father to tell me the story of Thiseas and Aegeas when we were at Sounio. It made my trip much better to hear this story while having lunch near the Temple. I hope you keep your interest in the Ancient Greek stories for the rest of your life. I very much enjoyed my time with your father. He is a wonderful man and from how he described your mother and brother, I’m sure they are quite wonderful also. Maybe next time I come to Greece I will be able to meet you.

 

 

More views of the Mediterranean from the Temple of Poseidon at Sounio

 

Our last stop was at Panathinaiko Stadium, which was used for the first modern Olympic Games in 1896 and was the finish line for the Marathon atthe 2004 Athens Olympics. It was remade out of marble in 329 BCE then enlarged and renovated by Herodes Atticus in 140 AD to a seated capacity of 50,000. Other renovations followed including for the 1896 games. They have had rare concerts there like Bob Dylan and “Big Wheel Keeps On Turnin'” Tina Turner. It’s in the area of Athens that Tolis’ lives in and he plays soccer once a week in the grounds behind the stadium.

 

Panathinaiko, the Ancient Olympic Stadium

From the 2004 Olympics (Wikipedia)

 

View of the Parthenon from the Olympic Stadium

 

Many people had told me that Athens usually has some kind of protest that disrupts daily life. We did indeed have a transit strike today, which was a good reason to be out of town. When we came back, Tolis talked of taking me somewhere but the traffic was bad due to the strike and I was also burnt out.

 

I was really impressed with Tolis. He’s a great father and a fun and warm person. I very much enjoyed my time with him. It was great to have someone that I could trust and knew where to go in these places. His charges were quite reasonable. If you or someone you know is planning to go to Athens, please contact me and I’ll give you his contact info.

My plan was to go out again later to the Plaka or Monasteraki areas where I was last night. Now I’m feeling like today was such a great ending to my trip (besides the little detail of 22 hours to get home tomorrow, starting at 6 AM), that I’ll just stay here and post this even though the day is not done.  I’m sure you’ve had the experience of feeling that something is done and that there’s no need to do anything else. My brain is filled.

Am I becoming a morning person? I went to bed last night around 9-10 PM, planning to oversleep like I did a couple of nights ago. I didn’t have to be anywhere until noon for the first time in a very long time. However, I woke up at 8:30, same as the other days in Istanbul. This is almost normal sleeping times. Will I start doing that when I get home? Of course, 8:30 AM local time is the same as 1:30 AM back home. Maybe I’ll sleep the equivalent times where 10 PM here is 3 PM at home and 8:30 AM is 1:30 AM. That would be almost a 12 hour switch for me.

After breakfast, I planned to go to the ATM to get exactly the money I’d need to give a good tip to Erdinc and the driver and then go back to work on my blog. While I was out, I decided to take the 5 minute walk to the Grand Bazaar. On the way there, an obnoxious guy trying to get me to look at his carpets accosted me. He showed me business cards from Americans who he had harassed in the past and just as I was getting ready to go, I saw George Bieger’s IUP card in the mix. I’ve been on doctoral committees with George. He helped me with info about Egypt since he went there just before the problems there. I was so startled by this that I went into his carpet store just to find out more about his contact with George and ended up sitting through another (but much shorter) carpet presentation. It’s all your fault, George.

Not sure that the Turkish slogan here for McDonalds would work well in the US  — “Efsane Tatlar, Sahane Fiyatlar.” I think it means “Go to one of the amazing local restaurants right around here instead of eating this crap.I’d go nuts trying to get the angles right on the street bricks near the Grand Bazaar

The Grand Bazaar is so massive that within a few minutes I had no clue where I was. I decided to just enjoy the sights and worry about how to get out later. Eventually I saw a map and located the gate I came in at but the map had no “you are here” so I asked a friendly shopkeeper. It would have been fun to be found years later with all my money gone, still trying to find my way out of the Grand Bazaar.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Distracting way to display jeans (right) and I’m not sure who the audience is for the dolls (left)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You see many people delivering food and tea to shopkeepers (left). More colorful than the lights section of Lowe’s (right)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Typical covered street scene from the Grand bazaar (left). Atypical toilet (only one I’ve seen in this style on the trip), right

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The map I used to get out of the Grand Bazaar. My Gate was #1 of 21 (on the bottom right corner of the map and the picture on the right)

 

Maybe my last freshly squeezed pomegranate juice for a while. I think I’ve had one every day for the last 12 days. It’s kept me healthy. Does Giant Eagle sell it back home, (unfortunately not freshly squeezed)?

 

Erdinc called around noon and asked if I wanted to hang out for a while before the driver came at 1. I almost said no but fortunately my more adventurous instincts cut in. He took me to a tiny hole in the wall that was a restaurant for Grand Bazaar shopkeepers and rarely sees tourists. He said there’s normally a line to get in but the Friday noon prayers were blaring over the loudspeakers and many people were praying. I guess my “prayer” not to have to stand in line was met by real prayers.

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The restaurant for shopkeepers (left) and the alley we took to get from the restaurant (right)

He then took me to another place for shopkeepers that specialized in desserts and coffee. I finally had a food that I really didn’t like. It was a sweet dish made out of chicken breast. It looked like yogurt but had a tough and sticky consistency that made it hard to cut into. I don’t think the concept of sweet sticky chicken breast bothered me but the taste and consistency did. I got the name from Tolis in Greece later, it’s called Tavuk Gogsu. From Wikipedia — “white chicken breast meat is softened by boiling and separated the meat fibers into very fine threads. The meat is mixed with milk, sugar, cracked rice and/or other thickeners, and often some sort flavoring such as cinnamon. The result is a thick pudding.” I agreed with Erdinc that even when you don’t like a food it’s an experience to try it. I won’t soon forget it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Disgusting dessert of sweetened gelled chicken breast (left). My driver — as always impeccably dressed, impeccably on time, impeccably parked in the perfect spot.

The three of us headed to the airport. Erdinc came into the airport with me even though he had to go through the security. This is part of his job but seems unnecessary. I met two interesting Pakistani guys in the Business Class lounge. The older guy was the factory owner and they were on their monthly trip for their denim jean business. They told me how they felt Pakistan gets an undeserved bad image because of the fighting in the Western part near Afghanistan. He said Karachi, where they are, is just a normal Asian city. We exchanged business cards and I now know where to get my jeans manufactured. They seemed like fun-loving guys.

The lunch on the plane from Istanbul to Athens was fava beans salad with a greek dressing, cheeses, and Greek pastry with several fruits and vegetables on the side, along with a Heineken. Then came the main course of veal and rice. All this in a one-hour flight. I only had one hour to change planes for the flight from Athens to Larnaca, Cyprus. The meal on that flight was grilled eggplant salad with tomatoes, perch fillet with tomato sauce on a bed of spinach and potatoes, and two cheeses with another Heineken. Then they came with desert of a delicious shortbread cookie with custard on top along with a piece of baklava and coffee. This was after a lunch at the Grand Bazaar and breakfast. Of course, I couldn’t eat it all. When I got to Larnaca, I was not hungry.

The Business Class seats on this plane had the same 3 seats as Coach but the middle one has an extra table on it so that no one can sit there. There was also a lot of extra leg room. The guy who sat in my row was an interesting mix. He:

• Grew up in Yugoslavia until it broke up and his part is now Serbia
• Moved to Cyprus 20 years ago
• Is a bank manager in Minsk, Belarus (former Soviet republic)
• Works for a Swiss bank.

I got  a chance to speak some Russian with him.

His 8-year old son:

• Speaks Serbian at home
• Plays with kids in Greek
• Goes to an English-language school

Very different life from people who have always lived and worked in the same place.

It was nice to see my name on a card as soon as I got through Cyprus customs. George’s brother Christos has a taxi service and besides taking me on the 40 minute drive from Larnaca to Limassol, he’ll be taking me on a 3-4 hour trip to Paphos Saturday, then taking me again to the airport Sunday. My first act in Cyprus was to try to get in the van on the wrong side. I’d forgotten about driving on the left.

One amazing thing for me is that his son goes to IUP, following in his uncle’s footsteps. He’s a flute major and really likes it at IUP. His brother might be going there next year too. I can’t tell you (I guess I am telling you) how much Irene and George like IUP and Indiana, PA. I’m going to try to get their son to come to our house in Indiana, maybe sometime when Keith is home.

 

I’m splurging even more than usual and staying at the 4 Seasons in Limassol. I have a room with a large balcony looking over the Mediterranean. I got decent internet for the first time in weeks but only wired so I could only use my laptop, not my iPhone or iPod and it costs 25 euros or $33 per day. My 100 MB data plan that I’m using for my iPhone in the other countries doesn’t apply in Cyprus so it costs $10 for 1 MB, which is ridiculous.

I had a nice iChat with Margaret. In the last day or two, it’s occurred to me more than usual that being home is a wonderful thing. I don’t want to cut my trip short but when I get home in 4 days, it will feel very good.

This is one of the few posts that I’m writing on the day it happened and it’s now 2:42 AM. So much for reforming myself into going to bed at normal hours. I’m leaving the balcony door open a crack so I can hear the waves.

Erdinc picked me up at 10 AM, which was a welcome relief from 6:30 AM yesterday. I love the slick Mercedes van with the smooth and classy driver (can something be slick, smooth, and classy all at once?). We drove to the pier to catch a 10:30 cruise along the Bosphorus. As Erdinc pointed out the reason for Istanbul’s size (about 12.5 million) and crucial importance in world history can be summarized by the real estate slogan “location, location, location”. The narrow passageway called the Bosphorus ultimately connects the Mediterranean with Russia, Romaina, Bulgaria, Georgia, and the Ukraine. To get to Istanbul from Italy you pass through Athens and the Adriatic Sea, then to the Sea of Marmara, which meets the Bosphorus at Istanbul.

Istanbul is where the annoying “A” is on the map. Athens is on the bottom in the center and you can see Rome on the left. The Crimean peninsula and the Ukraine are north of Istanbul on the other side of the Black Sea.

Leaving the Old Town area of Istanbul.

The seagull ate the tower just after I took the picture.

While we were on the boat, Erdinc gave me the quick overview of the very complicated Istanbul history. Before being called Istanbul, it was called Constantinople, after Constantine the Great. Here is a list of who has been in control.

 

• Greeks, 7th century BCE to 5th century BCE
• Persians, for 50 years in the 5th century BCE
• Greeks again, 5th century BCE to 2nd century BCE
• Romans, 2nd century BCE to 3rd century CE
• Byzantine Empire, 325 CE to 1453
• Ottoman Empire, 1453 to 1923
• Turkey, 1923 to today

Each of these groups left a very strong impact on today’s Istanbul.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Dolmabahce palace (top) and the Ortakoy mosque (bottom), beautiful buildings from just a couple of days ago in Turkish historical terms (mid-19th century)

 

They consider the Western part of Istanbul to be in Europe and the Eastern side to be in Asia. The dividing line is the Bosphorus that we were on. There are two bridges that cross the continents here.

 

 

The European side of the bridge

 

The Asian side of the bridge

 

Too cold for a swim

 

 

Servers brought foods from some of the towns after a stop of the boat. The town of Kanlica was famous for its yogurt. Not a fan of plain yogurt but I had to try it and it was good with a little sugar.

 

Restaurants on the Bosphorus

As soon as we got off the boat our driver was right there with the Mercedes van to whisk us away back to Istanbul through the crowded streets of the towns we had had passed on the boat, with a few stops on the way.

The boat we had been on in the front and the Black Sea gate in the back (the end of the Bosphorus)

The Rumeli fortress was built by the sultan Mehmet the Conqueror in four months only and is directly opposite another fort. They were built in 1452 in preparation for the final attack on Constantinople, which led to the downfall of the Christian Byzantine Empire by the Moslem Ottoman Empire. The fortress is located at the narrowest section of the Bosphorus Strait (about 600 meters – 1970 feet). Erdinc said that they put a chain between the two forts to stop ships and then shot at them from both sides.

The Rumeli Fortress from the boat

Erdinc said he would go with me to the top of the wall but he warned me that it was dangerous, then really discouraged me. He was absolutely right. It was a cold, rainy day and the stone walkways were quite slippery. My shoulder is still bad from the surgery last year and if I fell it might have been the end of my trip and maybe led to the cancellation of my upcoming trip to Korea, China, and India.

 

 

Fortress walls

 

Erdinc at the fortress theater

We had an amazing lunch on the waterfront, with appetizers, salad, sardines from the Black Sea, and Bluefish from the Bosphorus. I ate too much but it was worth it.

View from the restaurant

After we got back to Istanbul, we went to a series of attractions. Our driver weaved his way through traffic, found a place to let us off right where we wanted to go, and was waiting for us with a warm car as soon as we were ready. I mentioned to Erdinc that I had been to Israel and he added on to the tour a trip to the Jewish Museum. Apparently the Jewish community created this museum and the overwhelming message was that Turkey had treated its Jews well. For Jews the year 1492 is not remembered for “Columbus sailed the ocean blue” but as the year Spain kicked them out of the country. Many ended up in Turkey. There are 20,000 Jews still here, which is about 20,000 more than in most other Islamic countries. He said there used to be many more but he feels they voluntarily left for Israel or the US or other countries, not that they felt oppression. I’m including a bunch of pictures that state this. You have to look for the English part of each sign. You might need to double click on the picture to be able to read it.

 

I hate it when people send a mass email and say in the header something like “please delete if not interested”. It seems like we could figure that out on our own. I bring that up because I’m going to do something similar. If these displays from the Jewish Museum don’t interest you, just go ahead to the next part. You didn’t need me to say that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We then were driven to a restaurant that had the best baclava in Istanbul according to Erdinc.

Turkish coffee and the best baklava in town

We then went to another of Erdinc’s amazing coterie of buddies. This time it was a friend that he hung out with whom when he was in London. He and his brother are the third generation that own a relatively large spice business. This is just their showroom and a small part of the overall business. I had a “meaning of life” conversation with the brother on the left below and he gave me some cold press almond oil and natural bath soap as a present. Great guy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the real highlights of Istanbul to me was the Spice Market. The building itself is beautiful architecturally, look at the ceiling and the floor. It used to be just for spice but now you can get almost anything there. I hope that Wal-Mart never comes to Istanbul and if it does, that people will continue to go to the Spice Market and places like this instead. Wal-Mart has killed off many of the local retailers and a great deal of the uniqueness of individual towns. While I’m at it, I’m shocked to see Starbucks here. Why anyone would go to a drab Starbucks in Indiana, PA over our handful of unique coffee shops is beyond me. Why anyone would go to Starbucks in Istanbul with hundreds of beautiful coffee shops is               (that empty space was supposed to stand for “beyond words”, but I’ve ruined it with these words right here).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beautiful floor and ceiling of the Spice Market

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Scenes from the real all-purpose market (not Wal-Mart)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Give me this day my daily pomegranite juice (left). Turkish Viagra (right)

Not sure why the shop is recommended by Obama

We also went to a mosque but since I’ve forgotten which one it was, I’ll include it in the next day’s blog after I ask Erdinc. After they left me off at the hotel, I realized how tired and sleepy I was. I grazed my email and thought about writing the blog, then had a nice Chat on Apple iChat with Margaret. The hotel brought me a complimentary fruit basket and two beers. I suspect Erdinc had something to do with this. I decided to take a brief nap before going out to eat around 8. Next I knew it was 10:30 and I gave some not very serious thought to getting up. In no time it was 9 AM and time to get ready for the next day. The banana I had from the fruit basket turned out to be my dinner.

I can’t tell you how good it felt to oversleep. I had been undersleeping for close to 3 weeks. My ecosystem requires an occasional oversleep and it had been too long. Now I’m hopefully OK for my remaining 2 full days in Istanbul, 2 days in Cyprus, 2 days in Athens, and one long day home, at last.

 

Today is the day I was supposed to be in Cairo but due to the incredible political events that began the day I left, had to be cancelled. Much as I enjoy thinking about planning trips, I am incredibly sick of making plans, changing, and rechanging them. You would be very bored to hear the full story. I had made plans to skip returning to Cyprus, which got changed when I made the “easy switch” only to discover that if I don’t return to Cyprus, I’ll lose my whole trip back. So my itinerary is Cyprus to Israel to Jordan to Istanbul to Cyprus (changing planes in Athens) to Athens, then home changing planes in Munich and Philadelphia. This will be on the final exam.

I’m starting to worry about my blog. I’m way behind. Fortunately, I just got the most difficult day done (Day 15 in Jerusalem) and maybe I can get caught up one day at a time.

I left at 6:30 AM with Raed the driver and Khalid my guide from the truly amazing carved rock city of Petra, Jordan to the Amman airport. I gave them what I thought was a very good tip, then added a little more. They truly deserved it. They had a representative of the tour company there to assist me in the airport, which turned out to be not needed. I was in the business class check in, which had comfortable seats while they went through my documents. I was with him for about 5 minutes.

It was nice being in the business class lounge at Amman. For the first time since Frankfurt, I had free fast internet that could be used on multiple devices. I saw that the flight to Cairo I was planning to take was cancelled.

The meal on board was very good, shrimp with cream cheese for appetizer, salad, French cheese, a Jordanian Lamb dish, and a fig pastry for desert. They had small screens with movies and music. I started watching the movie “The Social Network” but got sleepy and also didn’t like that it was edited for content.

We flew right over Cyprus and I could clearly see Limassol where I had spent a week and would be back to at the end of this week.

On arrival at Istanbul, fortunately I saw a line for getting a visa. If I had skipped this, I would have had to wait twice in the long line coming up. I asked about getting in the VIP line but Royal Jordanian didn’t have a pass for me so I got in the line with hundreds of others for a change.

Some Russian women were yelling at people including me telling us to push forward further even though there was no place to push. Later on they had pushed themselves in front of others. Quite obnoxious.

I had a interesting conversation with a Palestinian woman in Muslim gear who was in Turkey for a flood management conference. She gave a totally different perspective on the Palestine experience from my Israeli guide. She  said she’s not old enough to go to the mosques in the Old City of Jerusalem. She seemed to be in her 20’s so I didn’t understand when she said the age requirement is 48. She said that’s how old they feel you need to be to be no longer a potential terrorist. So all of those under 48, realize that you could be a terrorist, while if you’re over 48 you’re safe.

I texted my guide to let him know bout the long wait. I had noticed that they had the wrong arrival time for me on the tour info. He got to the airport an hour early at noon, my flight was supposed to get in at 2:20 but was a little late. We finally met up at 3.

My guide’s name is Erdinc (pronounced Erdinch) Canberk and is a young looking 41. He has a masters in Economics from the London School of Economics and has been a tour guide since 1991. He just came back from a 3 day trip to Budapest. His English is excellent and he’s going to be an excellent companion. I’ll have him and a driver to myself for the next few days. We have a Mercedes minivan with the seats turned to create a living room feel, with a small refrigerator. Nice.

The schedule had a day of rest but we stopped at a fish market and I was very happy to see I could get a freshly squeezed pomegranite juice like I had every day in Israel.

A fish market in Istanbul

The hotel is just off a very busy pedestrian / tram only street with many shops and restaurants. I’m going to enjoy this a lot. I went out to eat and couldn’t resist buying a pistachio bachlava at a bakery along with water bottles. Erdinc warned me to be sure not to drink the water. It’s now 1 AM and I’ve been working on the blog for several hours so it’s time for bed.

It is hard to imagine a more mind-blowing day than today. I became Jewish for a few minutes after leaving a “prayer” in a crack at the Western Wall then was in my first Bar Mitzvah service. I got the blessing from touching the stone where Jesus was anointed and got “protected” by a posse of 19-year old gun-toting young women. I crossed over to the Palestinian-controlled city of Bethlehem to see the spot where Jesus was born. It’s hard to keep track of everything else I did today.

I called Margaret at 5 PM after returning to my hotel to let her know that for once I did more by 10 AM (her time) than she did. Usually by 10 AM she’s run 10 miles, shoveled snow, and graded papers while all I’ve done is sleep.

President Obama was one of the millions who has left a note / prayer in the crack of the Western Wall, as maybe the most holy Jewish site. My cousin Mike suggested that I thank my ancestors for leaving the pogroms of Romania to come to Minneapolis in 1908. Here’s what I came up with along with a picture of me putting that note in the wall.

“Prayer” to my Jewish ancestors left at the Western Wall

Afterwards I was taking pictures when a Rabbi motioned repeatedly to me to come back to the men’s area of the Wall. I came down and he wanted me to join in the Bar Mitzvah that was taking place. He put a prayer shawl on me and got me to join the group of men around the Bar Mitzvah boy. We went inside to put the Torah and goblet into the cabinet (help me out Jewish friends). He almost pushed my head in to kiss the goblet, which I did. The Bar Mitzvah ended and I gave some money and congratulated the boy. This happened so fast with so little decision time for me that I didn’t think to say that as someone who has not had a Bar Mitzvah myself, I maybe shouldn’t have the right to do some of those things. That doesn’t stop the fact that this will forever be one of the most memorable experiences of my life. To follow putting a “prayer” in maybe the most sacred place in Judaism with being part of a Bar Mitzvah at the same spot did shake me up. All this followed going through the intense emotional experience of Yad Vashem (the Holocaust museum) the night before. I have never been anywhere near as close to feeling Jewish as I did at that moment. I either had to convert to Judaism or eat some pork chops with shrimp and a cheeseburger. Sorry for the sacrilege.

 

My First Bar Mitzvah as a participant

No clue what I’m supposed to do

Before having my face put right up to the urn to kiss

Western Wall from a walkway above. Men on the left, small area for the women

Before I had time to compose myself from the Western Wall, we took the 5-minute walk to the stunningly beautiful third most important spot in the Muslim religion. Then we took another 5-minute walk to the Via Dolorosa, with the 14 stages of the cross. All this in an hour. In a typical hour at home, I may read the paper and watch an instantly forgettable TV show (not that there’s anything wrong with that).

 

The Muslim Dome of the Rock just minutes from the Western Wall

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No, that’s not me holding the cross on the right

I tried to get pictures of all the stations of the cross. I have this obsession at times with completeness. If there are 14 things and I have pictures of the first and second ones, I’ll want to get every single one, even if there’s really no need to have all of them. Why not just take the ones that look especially interesting? So what if I never got #9? Now I have to come back to Israel just to get #9. #10-14 are in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, maybe the holiest location in Christianity. There are seven denominations that own parts of the church. Apparently there was nasty fighting until about 100 years ago when the British negotiated a peace treaty between the Christian groups. So just a few steps from an Armenian Chapel might be a Catholic one and so on.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7th station (left), Church of the Holy Sepulchre, stations 10-14 (right)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Where Jesus died (left). Where he was said to have been anointed for burial (right), said to be good luck to touch the stone. I just wish they’d allow me to wear my hat. That might keep me more healthy than touching a stone but who’s to say.

I decided I’ll stop saying things like “supposedly” or “according to legend”. Birte would occasionally say “this is not really where it happened” or “this might have happened here” or even sometimes “this really happened here”. I don’t remember which was which and I’m not sure it matters. If a religion believes something happened, they need to find a place to celebrate it. Sometimes they actually know the spot but other times they need to find a good location. I don’t think it matters that much, a location is needed to enhance the celebration and why not use a likely spot. And maybe it is the real spot.

 

Had a great chat with this Franciscan Priest from Argentina in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Guess which religion the souvenir shop (left) caters to. Great mural of what this area looked like in ancient times (right). Besides me, there’s one other person that doesn’t belong. See the kid with the backpack in the bottom right?

 

We ran into these 19-year old women on vacation from their compulsory service in the Israeli army. They seemed to be having a good time hanging out carrying their weapons around. No one was going to mess with them. Amazing that they’re the same age as Keith. Hard to picture the women his age walking around Indiana, PA with guns but the point of traveling is to see something different.

 

My posse, I hope the guns don’t go off by accident

 

We ran into a bar mitzvah with people singing and dancing. Birte told me that one reason she moved to Israel was the joyfulness she feels from the celebrations and from the people themselves. They were definitely having more fun than you would think people have in religious celebrations. It makes you wonder why most religious services I’ve been to have been solemn and even drab. I suppose the argument can be made that they are dealing with serious issues.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A street Bar Mitzvah

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the Jewish site of King David’s Tomb (left) and in typical Jerusalem fashion, the location of the Last Supper is just a few steps away (right, where Birte is standing)

Next Birte brought me over the border to the Palestinian-controlled city of Bethlehem by 2 PM. She is not allowed in the Palestinian Authority areas. Bethlehem is one of several small islands that have full-blown border crossings with metal detectors and customs and immigration. She explained to me that although the way we came in seemed less stressful than the way I left later in the day, it was just as tightly controlled. Cars with Israeli license plates and those with Palestinian license places have carefully controlled access. Certain roads allow both, others just one or the other.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The wall separating Israel from the Palestine Authority from the Israeli side (left) and the Palestinian side (right)

Next Birte brought me over the border to the Palestinian-controlled city of Bethlehem by 2 PM. She is not allowed in the Palestinian Authority areas. Bethlehem is one of several small islands that have full-blown border crossings with metal detectors and customs and immigration. She explained to me that although the way we came in seemed less stressful than the way I left later in the day, it was just as tightly controlled. Cars with Israeli license plates and those with Palestinian license places have carefully controlled access. Certain roads allow both, others just one or the other.

My Palestinian guide was very good. He stated that Christians and Muslims lived well together in Bethlehem and that he just wished for peace. While I was taking a picture with my iPhone 4 the driver said that I could sell it for $1000-1200 in Bethlehem. Seems like it’s not available there. The guide said more than once that you do not take anything with you when you die. I never found out exactly what he meant the implications of that to be, but I liked him and that sentiment.

I did not get a good feeling from Bethlehem. The image that came to mind was that the Palestinians were like children being grounded for being bad. I sensed a claustrophobia of being locked in a land-locked island. I feel unable to judge the wrongs piled on wrongs over the centuries to assign blame. Clearly we have a failure to communicate that has gone very wrong. Maybe this is the only solution. The joy of Israel I just mentioned deserves to be protected. Whether this can be done in a better way I leave to others. On the other hand, maybe my bad feeling about Bethlehem is based more on something like indigestion or the need for a nap. Just possibly it takes more than 2 hours to get the fundamental sense of a place.

The church was another in a intense day of major religious sites. I was really glad to have been there.

The spot where Jesus was born in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Palestinian school girls (left) in the Church of the Nativity and my guide (right)

The return to Israeli controlled area was a little confusing. It was a fairly long process and a couple of times I really didn’t know where to go. I followed an exit sign, which of course was a bad idea. I had asked Birte to be able to go through the more complicated border just to experience it, and it was a worthwhile experience.

Birte went out of her way many times to show me places that she could have gotten away without going to. She is very professional in her work. I love seeing people who are not at all going through the motions but have a driving internal motivation to be the best they can be. Beyond that, she’s very proud of her nation and what it has to offer. It’s a driving force for her to make sure that I understood the amazing sights of Israel. I had heard from my US travel agent that Birte is outstanding and I wholeheartedly agree.

She took me to a site called Geshsemane, beyond what was in the itinerary because she felt I should see it. It’s supposedly the campground area where Jesus was found by the Romans with the aid of Judas. These olive trees are possibly from Jesus’ time. I listened to some beautiful music as part of a mass in the church there. Once again, an amazing place on an amazing day.

2000 year old Olive Trees at Geshemene where Jesus was betrayed (left), the Church of Geshemane during a service (right)

For dinner, I decided to go to the hotel bar, which served dairy-only kosher food. The main restaurant served non-dairy kosher food. I brought my laptop to keep me from being bored but I started talking to the people at the bar next to me. After a while, I decided to play a game to see if I could talk to every single person who came to the bar. In about one hour, I met the following.

• A Pastor and his wife from Charlottesville, VA who were here to plan out a future trip for his congregation. I ended up running in to them many other times the next day in Masada and back at the hotel for breakfast, riding the elevator, etc.
• A guy from Norway with a group from his country with a Swedish guide since there were no Norwegian guides
• A couple from the Basque country in Spain
• A Hassidic Jew who just came in a reached behind the bar to get what he wanted
• A German tour group
• My favorite was the bartender who was an young Arab guy from the Old City of Jerusalem. Very interesting guy and very polished in his work

Off to a late sleep after an intense day!

 

My personal guide for the next several days, Birte, met me at the hotel and we drove off in the comfort of a Hyundai mini-van. Today we were off to Caesarea and Acre then she was to leave me off at my hotel in Tiberius on the Sea of Galilee. She had a case of bottled water for me and the travel would be tailored to what I wanted to spend more or less time with. I feel like we hit it off well from the very start. I tried to share as much as possible about where I was coming from and we were able to quickly break the ice. Her most important question was about my religious interests since most of the clients focus on either the Christian or the Jewish sites. I explained my mixed Christian and Jewish background with equal disbelief in both, along with strong interest in history and in current cultural trends. I agreed with her that history in Israel in particular is extremely closely linked with religion. I do want to see the religious sites.

Our first stop was at Caesarea that was built by Harrod the Great, who died in 4 BCE. I like how they use “Before the Common Era” (BCE) instead of “Before Christ”, along with “Common Era” (CE) instead of AD. She spoke of what a genius Harrod was and how much he contributed to the architecture of the region and much more. His three sons divided up his area after his death, including the Herrod Antipas involved in the crucifixion of Jesus. Caesarea was a very impressive archaeological site and was the capital of the Roman province. The theater was spectacular. I had never understood the difference between a theater and an amphitheater. Apparently, an amphitheater was designed for battles with animals and had a sunken stage so that the animals couldn’t attack the spectators. The area in the front of a Greek theater was designed for the singers who told the story that was being acted out. These singers were called (what else) the chorus. In the Roman theater that area is called the orchestra for the musicians.

So, if I’m a size 13, this foot is a size???

 

Finally, someone with less hair (and less brains), than me

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The theater at Caesarea

Harrod built a harbor that withstood everything except earthquakes and of course, had a massive palace built for his family. The ruins are impressive. In what she warned me will be crucial dates for much of the sites in Israel, Caesarea was impacted by the Muslim invasions of 636 and the Crusades from 1099 to 1280.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We then were off to Acre or Acco with a stop to overlook Haifa, the third largest city after Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and the Bahai Gardens. The Bahai have a fascinating concept that all the major religions just added new prophets to the same god. So Moses, Jesus, Mohamed, and Buddha are basically working for the same guy. Of course they add their own prophet to the mix. Seems like not such a bad idea that all the religions are talking about the same thing, each with their own twist. Of course, I have issues with some of their beliefs too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Bahai Gardens in Haifa

One of my favorite places in Acre was the prison that Paul Newman escaped from in the movie Exodus. One of the many great true stories Birta told me was of when the British decided to hang a Jewish freedom fighter and the resistance captured two British officers in retaliation. They told the British to spare the lives of their people and just give them life imprisonment. When the British hanged the Jewish fighters, they did indeed retaliate by hanging the British officers. That ended the death penalty for Jewish freedom fighters.

Paul Newman’s prison from Exodus

Acre is dominated by the 12^th century Crusader castle. The architecture is a mix of Gothic and Arab styles with their own twist added on. Twenty-first century people sometimes believe that our technology and ability to create is superior to all that came before. So much of what I saw in Acre and in Caesarea and I’m sure in what is to come in the next few days puts me in awe of the ancients. The fact that we could not create today what they created many centuries ago and that they did not have electricity or motorized vehicles should destroy the myth of our superiority over the ancients. I especially enjoyed the Templar’s Tunnel, even though it got a little claustrophobic when I had to bend way over at times.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Templar’s Tunnel at Acre Castle

I’m going to try every day to have a freshly squeezed pomegranate juice, maybe mixed with orange juice. Massive Pomegranates.

I wish I remember which comedian did the Marriage Makes You Stupid routine. Things that you used to be able to do before you were married become lost arts, since you rely on your spouse to do it. I used to be able to wash my clothes and pack myself. While travelling, I can’t imagine now trying to go to a coin laundry. I’m relying on the expensive hotel cleaning service or as it turned out my guide has a service I can go to in Jerusalem that will be much cheaper. (Margaret – please don’t read the next part, of course, I know you will) My bag was well packed before leaving under close supervision by Margaret. Now that I’ve been gone a week and a half, it’s in shambles. I haven’t even really looked at what’s in there. I just grab stuff and throw things back in when it’s time to pack up. Unfortunately, I now need to actually figure out what’s left to wear and what needs to be put in for cleaning. The one day I did send items for cleaning in Cyprus, after I had everything ready I realized I hadn’t left me any pants. Fortunately for the hotel staff I pulled some pants out of the dirty clothes before going down to the lobby.

Now that I think about it, this is how I dealt with packing and cleaning in the past. Maybe it’s not marriage that made me stupid, I did that on my own.

 

 

I finally got my iPhone 4 back. The power switch now works, a little differently from before, but it works. I went for a long walk after picking it up and the poor thing was in sad shape. I forgot Baby Bear’s clothes (the case) and it was malnourished (it ran out of charge). When I got back to the hotel, it got fully refreshed. Unfortunately, there is an element of truth to me jokingly describing the machine as a pet.

I wonder if when I get home I’ll start walking more. It’s so healthy and feels good but my excuse to Mickey and Orly was that it’s not part of our culture to walk places when we have a car. It’s a poor excuse but unfortunately, I’ll probably use it.

I got to a very old area called Neve Zedek (Neve means oasis), with narrow streets. I had an ice cream from a place that had many more toppings than any place I’ve ever seen before. I couldn’t get all the toppings in one picture. There were only two people ahead of me in line but it took a long time for them to choose from all these options. I was feeling a little annoyed by how long it took them but after I got mine I realized that I had taken just as long.

Too many choices for ice cream toppings

Go ahead and solve this puzzle. Children in Israel can do it, why can’t you?

 

I then had a beautiful walk along the Mediterranean to Jaffa.

 

The tower of St. Peter’s Church in Jaffe in the back

 

Sunday services at St. Peter’s

 

If you have some friends who you have not been in contact with for many years, I strongly urge you to contact them. Look them up in Facebook, Google them, ask others if they know where they are, do what it takes. In the past few years, my high school gang has set it up so that we have been meeting every year at a city where someone lives. We started in our home town of Ithaca, NY, then to New Orleans, then to San Francisco, and this year we’ll be in Washington, DC. Maybe some day we’ll go to the amazing Indiana, PA. I’ll be seeing an old roommate at a train stop in Winnipeg, I spent several days in Montreal getting caught up with several college friends, and I’ve been contacting others from Facebook that I hadn’t heard from in years.

 

Seeing Mickey after over 30 years was a real treat. He was and is a good friend. Besides just the good times we had these few days, I got to relive a little a very important time of my life. It was a little scary but wonderful to figure out what that time meant.

 

As I was walking around the back streets of Jaffe, I realized I was around competing soccer fans for a big match that night. Ironically, this was Super Bowl night in the US.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Food and drink from my last night with Mickey and Orly

 

A big decision I had to make was whether to go to an American bar near the US Embassy to watch the Super Bowl or just go to sleep. The bar had a bombing in 2003 that killed 3 but that didn’t bother me in 2011. The game started about 1:30 AM and would end probably around 5 AM. I was meeting my guide who was going to take me through Israel at 8:30 AM. No question what I would have done in the 1970’s and a little question of what I would do in 2011. I made the right decision. I woke briefly from at around 6 AM and checked Baby Bear for the New York Times alert. Of course, there was the sad news that my team had lost.

This morning I was suffering from no Baby Bear and hung out on the rooftop patio at the hotel writing a blog. I prefer writing using the computer science algorithm of “first in, first out” meaning that I would not skip any days. Unfortunately, I have postponed writing about the last day in Cyprus so that I can keep up with the Israel trip. I’m two days behind on that now too.

Here are a couple of what I found unusual trivial items from the Melody Hotel. Apparently, it used to be the Canadian embassy until they decided to move to a larger and more secure place. Mickey jokingly (I hope) asked if I found any spy devices in the room.

The toilet flush handle in many places is this half circle cut into two unequal parts. It took me a little while to find it at first.

I don’t think this shower is typical. It consisted of a vertical strip of water at the top and 4 lower sprays. It took some getting used to.

I’ve promised myself to try salad for breakfast. Mike from the humus place feels that it’s unnatural to eat a salad for breakfast. I like to try almost any food but some sensibility I have makes me rebel against salad for breakfast. My Israeli guide and Mickey think it’s a great idea. They also had hard boiled eggs, cereal, and many types of breads.

My hotel was just a 3 minute walk to the Mediterranean. Since it was Saturday, Israelis were treating it as a Sunday in the US. Lots of people walking around with kids, just taking in the shops and the breeze. As always, I had to touch the water.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Site of an almost 3 millenium old fort along the beach in Tel Aviv

Finally figured out who was supposed to clean back in our apartment in Montreal in 1971

We had a deli sandwich and when Mickey mentioned that we would be comparing it to the famous “smoked meat” sandwich from Montreal, the owner jumped at the chance to get more details from us. Unfortunately neither he nor I are experts in the finer points of deli meat but that is something I miss from Montreal. The sandwich and the “smoked hamburger” were delicious though. I like this picture with Mickey and Orly.

After the walk and a nap, Mickey and I got together for a beer. I had a breakfast item for dinner (just to spite the salad for breakfast), which was two poached eggs floating in a sea of pasta then baked. Sounds disgusting but it was good. Add some Palestinian beer and I was happy.

Mickey and I talked about the old days in the late 1960’s and the early 1970’s. We both made choices that were very destructive and could have lead to permanent damage. We felt as though the world was in such profound chaos that there would never be a stable functioning society again. I wouldn’t have believed back then that in 2011, I would have a very good steady job, an outstanding steady relationship with a wife, a great son, and so on. I started making good choices in 1977 when I decided to get into teaching math. I think a lot of people don’t have it figured out until their late 20’s like me. Many figure it out after high school and others are still working on it in their 60’s.

 

Mickey found this picture of me from the McGill student newspaper. I’m the guy with the beard and darkish glasses second from the left just above the white fold line.

I’m actually writing this in the airport lounge in Cyprus just before leaving for Tel Aviv. I thought it would be fun to give my impressions of Israel before actually getting there and then looking back at what I wrote after I leave. Mary Beth has told me repeatedly that no one in Israel will believe that I’m not Jewish when in Israel. I certainly have the name and the nose but most likely beyond that too. My father gave up the religion a few years after his bar mitzvah. He stayed involved for a few years because he told me it was a good place to meet girls. My mother’s mother was a Protestant of various kinds and my mother’s father would sit in the car and wait for her to get out of church. They had two weddings, one in a Rabbi’s study that my mother’s parents never knew about and one Unitarian that my father’s parents never knew about. They became nominally Unitarian but I refused to go when I was six years old. I felt that if Santa Claus didn’t exist, neither did any of the other stuff or maybe it was that I just didn’t want to get up for a boring church session.

My parents became Humanists and I grew up non-religious but feeling a definite connection to my Jewish half roots. I love the passion for learning and the outspokenness, the love of the arts and politics and so on. These are shared by many, if not all other groups but there is something unique about the Jewish culture that I can’t figure out. So I’m actually quite baffled by what Israelis will be like. Will they be like some of the brash New York City people I’ve known in college? Will they be like the Hassidic Jews that were my neighbors in Montreal? Will they be like my college roommate, one of my favorite people, who I’ll be seeing in a few hours? Now I’m disappoionted. I was hoping that I would have some real guesses but I don’t. I’m excited to be going there.

I’m picking this up after a couple of days now in Israel, sitting in my hotel rooftop overlooking the Mediterranean. Since what I wrote above, I feel like I have some beginning insights into who I am (at least into one of the halves of who I am). I’ll describe more about my Tel Aviv “10K” in Part 2 but while my college roommate Mickey and his wife Orly and I were walking through a crowded market, we ran into their friend Mike. Mike left Los Angeles to live in Tel Aviv  and has a very strong feeling of anti-semitism in the US. When I told him about my background, he asked me to describe anti-semitic incidents I had experienced. Surprisingly to him, I couldn’t think of any. All I could come up with is that many people don’t understand the concept that I’m not of 100% Jewish ancestry even after I explain it well. Maybe I have experienced anti-semitism but if people criticized something I said I assumed it was because I probably said something stupid or they just didn’t understand.

Mike’s Jewishness is not at all based on the religion. He claims to be totally non-religious but his Jewish  identity is very strong. I need to get back to him because he explained what Jewishness was to him in incomplete terms. He described the feeling of not fitting in in the US, of people not respecting him for who he was, of a world that disliked him without knowing him. Israel represents a haven for him.

The feeling of alienation from society is something I’ve felt all my life. I went to Kindergarten in Sri Lanka (off India) and dropped out of 3 schools because I couldn’t fit in. I went to a working class public school in Ithaca and was the only child of university parents. I was with a group of friends in high school that were toatlly alienated from the high school world of proms, football games, and school clubs. For the first half of ninth grade I was the only European in a school in Ghana (West Africa).  At McGill University, I was a foriegn student. I worked in a factory with all French-speaking workers. In Buffalo, I was the Canadian who worked in a can factory. In Indiana, PA, I feel at home but it’s not the place I’m really from. Perhaps my 1/2 Jewishness is part of this alienation, like Mike experinced.

What I got from Mike was part of the story. It’s the history of alienation from society that has always been part of the Jewish tradition. What I didn’t get from Mike in the few minutes we talked while eating the best humus I’ve ever had, was what it is to be Jewish besides the religion and the alienation. Maybe I’ll get this sometime in the next week or so in Israel or maybe someone reading this can help.

Mickey picked me up at my hotel at 10 AM for what turned out to be an amazing walking tour of Tel Aviv. He and his wife walk or bike much more than they use their car. This was a Friday, which means it’s equivalent to our Saturday. Just like our Saturday, Friday is a day that most people have off but the stores are very busy. Saturday in Israel is like our Sunday and most stores are closed and is the least busy day of the week. Sunday in Israel is like our Monday, the first day of the work week. So the song in Israel should be “Thank God it’s Thursday” since Thursday is the last work day. Somehow TGIT doesn’t have the same ring to it as TGIF.

We walked along a busy shopping street on our way to the open air markets but had  to make a very sad stop first. One of my “3 bears” was sick. Papa Bear, my Mac Book Air is my workhorse (is it a horse or a bear?). Mama Bear is my iPad, good for reading while lying in bed checking emails, reading a book, or playing a game. Baby Bear is my iPhone 4 that is also my security blanket. It’s either in my pocket, right next to my bedside while sleeping, or no more than a couple of feet away when showering. I reach for it constantly for just about everything and it keeps me grounded. By the way, the gender of the Bears is not relevant, just the size. Baby Bear’s power switch had become defective. I could just barely (sorry) turn it off and it was even harder to get it back on. Fortunately, there was an authorized Apple dealer nearby. They could fix it for 300 Shekels or about $80. I reluctantly gave my farewells to it. They said it was possible but unlikely to be ready that afternoon. They were closed on Saturday and should have it on Sunday.

All that afternoon, I was reaching for Baby Bear to take pictures. Here is just some of what I saw.

A packed market with open stalls selling fruits, fish, nuts, junk toys, spices, etc., including by far the largest carrots I’ve ever seen

A young long-haired Jewish “guru” occasionally letting out words of wisdom with about 20-30 people crowded around.

Bearded Jews coming up to people asking them to put bands around their arms as part of a Jewsih ritual. Mickey asked one of them if he thought I was Jewish. The response was “of course”

Hebrew was everywhere of course, but English was almost everywhere. Also, Arabic was on the road signs and you could see a lot of Russian. All in all it was an assault on the senses. It’s exactly what I love the most about travelling. I love the “museum of the streets” even more than the museums in the buildings. We basically walked from one end of the heart of Tel Aviv and then back to see if Baby Bear had been healed. Unfortunately, he would be away  from where he belongs until Sunday.

We met up with Mickey’s wife Orly as she was getting out of her half day teaching art to first graders. She teaches at one of the most interesting schools I’ve ever heard about. It’s called the Democratic School and is part of an international movement (see http://adhd.htmlplanet.com/democraticschools.htm). Stuidents get to choose what to study and how they want to work. Teachers are given a great deal of freedom and much less emphasis is placed on grades and testing. There are two schools affilaited with this movement in my hometown of Ithaca, NY, two in Pennsylvania and many in Israel. It sounds like a wonderful place to work and a school that must be heaven for students whose personality fits (which probably fits many children).

I told her about the two main trends in education in math in the US. There’s the stimulus-response behaviorist advocates who start with children being a blank slate that needs to be filled with the correct way of thinking about the clearly defined thousands of small bits of information. On the opposite end, there’s the constructivists who believe that children come with experiences and needs that are unique. Each person needs to work within social settings to explore and discover concepts with strong adult assistance. She responded that that conflict is indeed the same in Israel. The conflict is everywhere and in every subject, not just math.

The Democratic Schools obviously advocate in a strong way the second, constructivist approach. The US testing movement that currently dominates is a movement towards the behaviorists and at least partially away from the constructivist approaches in the math standards of 1989 and 2000. However, it is still possible to keep a solid constructivist approach within the shell we have in the US.

Mickey estimated we walked about 10 kilometers. I had a needed nap back at the hotel and woke up groggy to go to Mickey’s house for dinner. His mother is in a stage of memory loss and has a full-time woman from the Philippines who takes care of her at his mother’s house. This is an excellent arrangement, you can feel how much she cares and is effective with her.

Mickey and Orly had two of their three children home and they were very impressive people. They have a 24-year old son in a 12-year program to become a pilot. Their daughter is 22 and studying bio-medical engineering. I would study bio-medical engineering just for the name but needless to say it sounds like incredibly hard work. I didn’t get to meet their 18-year old. Mickey cooked a great meal, soup, several vegetables cooked just right and chicken. I don’t remember him cooking like that when we shared an apartment in 1972 in Montreal.