HEADING FOR THE MIDDLE EAST
This is a great moment, when you see,
however distant, the goal of your wandering. The thing which has been living in
your imagination suddenly becomes a part of the tangible world." ~Feya
Stark
May 17th, 2005
Another beautiful day here in Western Kentucky. Temperatures are
in the 60s are noon! Amazing for this time of the year. Cool weather
should continue for awhile. Not sure when the weather patterns will return
to normal. Maybe in a few weeks. :)
I am packing for Israel and Jordan. It should be a fascinating trip. Going to Israel is on my "to do" list! I am excited already. I will leave out of Nashville at 6 p.m. tomorrow. I will leave Toronto at 11 p.m. tomorrow night. I should arrive in Israel on Thursday Afternoon. It will be a long flight...but fun I am sure! As always.
June is fast approaching! Red Cross Training and my sisters wedding is coming up. I plan on being back for my sisters wedding. I will have to see how things go as far as the Red Cross Training.
Everything else is running smoothly around here. Always something going on...nothing that can't be handled though.
More later!
-----------------------------------------------
BREAKING - BREAKING :)
Kristy is alive and well in Alabama. After weeks of waiting to hear from her :) she sent me this photo (I ASSUME that it is a recent photo of the long lost Lucy).
I think that I speak on behalf of everyone when I say "WE MISSED YOU LUCY!"
Lucy makes a rare May appearance.
Ok well maybe it wasn't WEEKS...but still
Is it me or did Lucy lose some weight?????
----ok well it was nice to get a new picture of Lucy. I had almost forgotten what she looked like. I see that she has had some surgery. Hmmm - I don't think Kristy told me exactly what that was for. I will have to get an update from her.
Went out to eat this evening with mother and grandmother and some friends.
Had a good time...as always. Now I have to finish packing.
MAP OF THE MIDDLE EAST
Israel and Jordan are in the middle of
the map to the left. You can see the
Mediterranean Sea to their west.
WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON - AT THE NASHVILLE AIRPORT - TENNESSEE
COMMERCIAL WEATHER COMPANIES ARE TRYING TO STEAL AWAY WHAT THE NATIONAL WEATHER
SERVICE DOES BEST! WE ARE FIGHTING HARD TO STOP THIS. WE NEED THE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE TO CONTINUE TO FORECAST AND ISSUE WARNINGS. THERE
ARE SEVERAL PIECES OF LEGISLATURE THAT NEED WATCHING.
I THOUGHT THIS ABOUT SUMS IT UP!
---------------------------------
I am at the Nashville Airport. I arrived a bit early. I have about 2 hours to kill. The security line was extremely long. One of the longer lines I have seen in some time. Anyhoo I have internet here so that is kewl! I should be in Toronto by 9 p.m. or so. I will then be leaving Toronto at 11 p.m. I will arrive in Tel Aviv on Thursday Evening. Should be an interesting plane ride! LONG but fun.
---------------------------------
TORONTO!
I arrived in Toronto around 9 p.m. It was a nice flight. There were a few problems at the beginning of the journey. The ground crew apparently left a door open under the plane. That was fun. Anyway we made it to Toronto. My next flight leaves at 11:55 p.m. I have a bit of time to kill. ::)
It will be a long flight to Israel! I am excited as can be!!!!!!
I smiled when I was able to see the big city of Toronto out of my window on the plane. I always love to see my second home! The city looks pretty much the same as always. Hopefully I will be able to see my friends once I return at the beginning of June. I won't be staying more than a day or so.
Anyway - lots of adventure awaits me in the Middle East! I can't wait to start exploring and create a few photographs.
I wonder if Israel is going to have "The Family
Guy" on television. Somehow I doubt it! I guess I will go
through withdrawal. :) I love that show.
Leaving for the plane now!
THE NEXT POST WILL BE FROM TEL AVIV OR JERUSALEM!!!!!
------THURSDAY
EVENING - ARRIVED IN ISRAEL-----
I have arrived in Israel. Security is as tight as it can possibly be. I went through a number of checkpoints just to get past the airport :) The first checkpoint was immediately at the end of the walkway from the plane. I had someone pick me up at that point to get me to the person that was driving us back to Jerusalem. The lady at the first point asked me about 20 minutes worth of questions. She would ask me the same questions over and over again. I guess they want to see if you change your story. :) Anyway I eventually got into Tel Aviv! No problems.
It was a nice flight over the Atlantic. I slept most of the night. With all of the time changes it was evening upon arriving in Tel Aviv.
There is no way I am going to be able to put everything on the web page about this trip! Should be an adventure - that is for sure. We are going scuba diving in the Red Sea...camping out in the desert in Jordan and Egypt. The camping in Egypt will not be in a tent!!!! We will be camping out under the stars. Cobra anyone?
This evening there was a wonderful sunset and the moon hung over the city of Jerusalem. I was able to check into the hotel before the sun went down!
We went to eat in Eastern Jerusalem. This is near the West Bank in the Palestinian area of Jerusalem. Apparently Jewish people really do not go into this area. I didn't feel unsafe though. We ate at a restaurant called "Philadelphia." We started out with salads (all of those plates are part of the salad). Salads here are NOT like the salads in the States of in Canada. Salad here is something that you put onto a pita type of bread. You can mix and match everything that you see below. You can also just mix all of it into a dish and make your own little "salad." The food was good and the atmosphere was great. Pretty much everyone in the restaurant was Palestinian.
The cab ride over and back was interested. We passed by "Old Jerusalem." This is an area that is surrounded by a great wall. The wall is hundreds of years old. We will be going into that area tomorrow. I was able to see the Temple Mount from the roadside.
I only saw one IDF (Israeli Defense Force) guy with a machine gun. That soldier in the East part of Jerusalem (not far from the restaurant.)
I will post pictures as I am able to. The internet here is sketchy. I am not sure if this will stop me from posting or not. I will also be away for a few days as we go to Jordan and Egypt.
Here are a few photos from this evening
JERUSALEM - CITY ON A HILL! NOW I
KNOW WHY THEY CALL IT THAT!!!!!
Taken from inside the cab - not the best picture BUT you get the idea! All
of the building have
the same stone on the outside of them. This is a law/rule in that city.
There are a ton of rocks along the hillsides as you travel into
the city. There are also cemeteries that cover some of the sides
of the hills. Thousands of people are buried in these hills.
SUNSET OVER JERUSALEM - Thursday Night
MOON RISING OVER THE CITY
BEAU IN ISRAEL!!!!!
Tomorrow we are going to Old Jerusalem.
We will be able to see a number of the holy sites. I am sure that I will
learn a lot! We will be at the Temple Mount. I don't believe that we
are allowed in though. This is now a Muslim site. This is where the
Jewish people believe that the ten commandments were held (the Ark of the
Covenant.) This would also be within a few blocks of where Jesus was
crucified. Amazing all of that history in a small area.
FRIDAY...MORNING :) EARLY!
May 19, 2005
It is 5 a.m. here. I didn't sleep very well. I guess I am still
trying to adjust the big time difference. Hopefully that will work itself
out over the next few days. If is a nice morning. The sun is just
now starting to rise above the horizon. It is mild outside. Not warm
and not cool. Just right. :)
We are going into the Old part of Jerusalem today. It should be an exciting trip.
No word yet on the big storms back home. I will have to wait a bit till I get information on how bad they were. Hopefully nothing too major.
I forgot to post that photo from the restaurant last night :) SOOOO here it is!
The Philadelphia Restaurant in Eastern Jerusalem.
This is what happens when you order a "salad" :) You
then put all of this stuff on bread. The bread is similiar to
"pita-bread."
I am getting excited about the idea of scuba diving in the Red Sea and sleeping without a tent in the dessert. The scuba diving is supposed to be some of the best in the world. I can't wait. We will be doing that on Sunday and into next week.
More later
-------------------------------------
Friday, May 20, 2005
IF YOU GET A RED X THEN JUST KEEP
HITTING REFRESH UNTIL EVERYTHING LOADS! TON OF PHOTOS BELOW!
Wow what a day in Israel! I don't know if I can list all of the places we visited today. I will try though :)
We first went to Bethlehem. Security was tight at this location. It is controlled by the Palestinians and is inside of the West Bank. I assume that most people know what the West Bank is and have heard about it on the news. To cross in and out of Bethlehem you have to go through security. They do a lot of profiling. It seems to work for them! Inside of that city we were shown around all of the major sites. We visited the Church of the Nativity. This is where Jesus was born. I got a wonderful nativity scene made of Olive Wood. It is being shipped back to the states. I used to have a large collecting of manger scenes. I have a few now.
The next area that we visited was Old Jerusalem. This is located behind a great wall. This wall has been built and destroyed several times. Of course one of the times that is was destroyed was after Jesus died. He prophesied that not one stone would be left on top of one another.
Inside of Old Jerusalem we were able to go up to the wailing wall. This is where people go and pray. The Jewish people believe that this is a very holy site. They pray at this wall (sometimes for hours). There are thousands of little pieces of paper stuck inside the cracks in the wall. On each paper is a prayer. They believe whatever is written on those pieces of paper will become answered prayer.
After seeing the Wailing wall we walked the Via Dolorosa. The Via Dolorosa is the path the Jesus was forced to walk on his way to being crucified on the cross. I didn't take a lot of photographs of this area. It was interesting to hear the story and walk through the old streets of Jerusalem. It is just what one might imagine in their mind. Very old buildings and structures. You almost felt as if you had walked back in time.
After we finished walking the Via Dolorosa we went to eat. This afternoon we had Italian/Israeli food. :) It was very nice. Our tour guide told us more about himself. Our tour guides name was Avi. He used to by a hydrologist :) We talked about the Israeli cloud seeding program. I was pretty interested in all of that - being a weather fanatic that I am!
After eating Lunch we headed over to the Mount of Olives. This is where the Garden of Gethsemane. This is where Jesus prayed in the garden while his disciples fell asleep. Jesus was then betrayed by Judas. Jesus was arrested in this garden. There is also a church at this location. The church is called the Church of the Lord's Prayer. This is where it was believed that Jesus taught the Lord's Prayer to his followers.
To try and sum all of this up would be impossible. There is no way to explain everything we were able to see today. It is something one has to experience. There are so many different religions in an extremely small area. It is amazing listening to all of the stories about one war after another war and another war and another war and another war. I finally asked Avi if the people here EVER got along. He said no. It is amazing how many wars we have had over religion. Hmmm - not a good thing. One would think that religious people might actually get along and set an example for everyone else. I would imagine almost every war can be traced back to religion. Pretty sad.
While we were in Bethlehem the tour
guide said that the people were very sad. Nobody is really happy about the
new wall that is being built. You will see pictures of this below.
The irony is that all day long we were shown the ruins of old walls. Walls
have never helped solve the problems in the past so i am not sure why people
think it will solve anything now. Our tour guide (who is from Israel) says
that he believes that peace will come before the wall is finished. That
would be nice.
Anyway - I am exhausted. It was an extremely long day. I didn't
sleep well last night. Jet lag :) lalalalalala I am having a blast
though. Wouldn't trade the experience for anything in the world. Definitely
worth the trip to come and see all of this history!
I prob took hundreds of photographs :) It will be difficult to pick out the ones that I really believe represent the day. I will do my best though ;)
Jerusalem - this is about five minutes from
our hotel. We went walking this morning to see the Parliament Building.
There was a large rose garden just past the parliament
building. Hundreds of roses were in bloom. You
could smell them throughout the park! There were even some purple
roses. I don't recall ever seeing
some of these colors before.
Bethlehem check point. This is where there have
been a number of attacks over the years by
suicide bombers. The IDF stops everyone coming and going into this region.
Going into Bethlehem. Barb wire surrounds the
area. They are also building a great wall.
The wall is going to be similar to the Berlin Wall.
Arab man walking out of Bethlehem - surrounded
completely by IDF security in the background and the wall to
the right. The left is barb-wire.
This is the wall that they are building/ Basically this is supposed to
surround or wall in the West
Bank. In THEORY this will help solve some of the problems. It won't
work - obviously - but who
cares - right? Sigh
This is one of the towers that call Muslims to prayer five times per day.
You can
hear the speakers and the call to prayer throughout Israel. Minnerett is
what they
are called.
This is the top of that tower. You can see the loud
speakers that call everyone to prayer. The symbol
on top is one of the Muslim Religious Symbols.
Church of the Nativity - light shines through the window onto the cross and to
the floor. Beautiful
to stand there. The light only lasted about 10 minutes.
One of the many stained glass
There was a lot of art-work and I took a lot more photos than I am
posting. It would take me forever to post them all :) I am trying to
capture a bit of what we saw today. Hopefully it represents at least a
glimpse into what I am seeing here.
OK WAY TOO MANY PHOTOS SO TURN THE PAGE CLICK
HERE
See PADUCAH Live View Web-Cam Below
------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------
LIVE: VIEW
FROM DOWNTOWN PADUCAH
...VIA WEB CAM FROM WPSD NEWS CHANNEL 6
------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------
MAILING ADDRESS
BEAU DODSON
465 Ashcreek Road
Paducah, Kentucky
42001
Phone Number
Home 270-554-6715
Cell 270-970-1202
Email beaudodson@hotmail.com
