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.