I have spent the last two days asking myself, "what day is it?" Jet lag will do that to you, I guess. But finally I'm coherent enough to think back to my last day in Israel and fill in the last pieces of the puzzle for those of you who might still be reading.
Monday was the last day I spent in Israel. It was an early morning, but I still got to "sleep in" about half an hour longer than on a normal dig day. I waved goodbye to those who were heading up the mountain to dig, finished my last-minute packing and then got on the bus to Tel Aviv at 6am. The bus dropped us off at the airport and we scurried around to find the luggage storage place so we could leave our bags there for the day. It looked a little sketchy to me, but everything was still there when we got back, so it was okay. After stowing our stuff, we searched for the bus that would take us to Jerusalem. We eventually boarded it, but had one transfer to make. When we got on the transfer, there was no room for us...we had to stand all the way...and this bus was not designed for standing. Think Grey Hound bus with a tiny aisle and no handholds. Thankfully it was only 35 minutes.
Once we got to Jerusalem, we decided to take a taxi to the top of the Mount of Olives to save us hiking up. We had a limited amount of time before some of the churches closed for the afternoon. A deal was struck and our group climbed into three taxis. But, somewhere along the line someone must have felt we did something wrong. One cabbie kept trying to get some of our group to get into a different taxi. It took a while to get away from the curb. The first two cars took off, and we were about to follow when a fist fight broke out between two of the cabbies that had been arguing with our group! As if that wasn't scary enough, our driver stopped, got out, and went to break up the fight! At that moment I wondered if coming to Jerusalem was such a good idea after all. But thankfully we met up with the rest of our group all in one piece. I still have no idea exactly what went wrong, but I wasn't going to go back and find out.
Once we were all together at the top of the Mount of Olives, we flew through the church commemorating the ascension of Jesus, the church commemorating the place where He prayed the Lord's Prayer and Gethsemane. Thankfully the doorman at Gethsemane let us in as we were there just as the doors were about to close. Once those were done, the time crunch was over and we could slow down a bit.
We walked to the Old City and went to the Western Wall. Then we wound our way through the Souk (marketplace) to find the Church of St Anne and Bethesda. This is apparently the oldest surviving church in Jerusalem. I think of all the places we visited in Jerusalem, this was my favourite. It doesn't really hold any Biblical significance (although if this is the real pool of Bethesda, Jesus healed a man here.) Perhaps I liked it because it was quiet. There were few other visitors while we were there. It was also comparatively plain, which appeals to my western-church sensibilities. But my favourite part about it was the acoustics inside. Even a camera shutter seemed loud! I was almost afraid to breathe lest I disturb the others there. We sang the doxology inside as a group and it was amazing. I would love to sing in that church choir...Think of the sound you could make!
After St. Anne, it was the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. This is the place where Jesus was crucified and buried. I had expected a tiny little building packed to the brim with people, and decorated beyond recognition. I was pleasantly surprised. There were still a lot of bright and shiny decorations, but the church is huge! There were a lot of people there, but it wasn't crowded and we were able to see just about everything except the inside of "the building within the building" which is over the tomb of Jesus. That part of the church is very small and the line was very long. I opted to explore the rest of the church and then see the inside of that as time allowed. I never did make it inside, as our time there was limited, but I did crawl inside another tomb with Michelle and Carl. It was really dark!
Once we were done there, we had a short bit of time for shopping before we had to hike back to the bus station. I thought we would never get there! Who knew we had walked so far? But we did make it in time for the 6pm bus back to Tel Aviv. This time we were in the front of the line and so we got seats on the bus! Hooray! Then, we had to pick up our luggage and re-shuffle things into carry-ons. We weren't allowed to start the security process until close to 10pm, so we puttered around for a bit. Pretty soon we decided to get in the security line early since it seemed really long. It was good that we did. What a process! I think I had to show my passport to six different people. I also had to answer a ton of questions, have both pieces of checked luggage searched and then re-pack it all. We made it to our gate with only about 15 minutes to spare before boarding. I had been planning to blog in all our "extra" time...what extra time?
The flight was long, but I slept through most of it, thankfully. We landed in Toronto at 5:45 am. Then, once again, it was customs and line-ups. I love Canadian customs. It was so easy! Then it was time for me to leave the rest of the team. They all had connections to make and I had to go figure out how to get back to my car at Park N Fly. I managed to get to the right place and I have never breezed through Toronto traffic with such ease. I was to my doorstep in Fisherville by 8:45am. Just in time to go to work! Or not...I saved that for Wednesday. Even then I was still pretty out of it. Today, I finally know what day it is and hopefully tomorrow I won't be ready for bed by 8pm. What an amazing trip!
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