Tales from the Towers: Three days in Jerusalem

It was quite good that our bus driver couldn't find the way to our hotel. We were riding through the exciting narrow and traffic-plagued streets of Jerusalem while everybody shouted instructions to our driver: "Take it to the right!," "you can't go in here, it's a one way street," "let me guide you, I've been to this hotel before!" or "go back to where you were before, and then take a turn to the left!"

While the poor driver was sweating, we enjoyed sightseeing in urban Jerusalem, majestic new buildings side by side with small, picturesque shops badly neglected now but still retaining their character and charm.

Jerusalem is a jewel and Nizza is a very talented organizer. We had marvelous three days in our capital, but I don't intend to sound like a tourist's guide book. I'm sure that by now everybody has heard of or seen the magnificent Sound and Light Performance in the King David's Tower. Thousands of years of Jerusalem's history compressed into 45 minutes of great technical achievement. We all sat there wrapped in sweaters and even rain coats because we had been warned of Jerusalem's cold, cold nights, but God decided to send us mild weather, which pleased us. We were less pleased with the terrible daytime heat during our three days in Jerusalem.

One morning we rode to Ein Gedi. Stark, barren plains and mountains in every shade of grey, beige and brown. Here and there a rebellious lonely plant, bush or small tree raising its defiant head as if saying:

"OK, this is desert land, but I insist on living and surviving in spite of hostile surroundings!"

Sounds somehow familiar, doesn't it?

We rode along the Dead Sea, which looks pale, anemic and deader than dead.

We visited a church or two, and we saw the impressive collection of clocks and watches in the Islamic Art Museum. We also saw the Davidson  museum of archeology, but I must shamefully admit that old stones don't do anything for me.

Nizza's organization was just perfect, she held all the strings in her hands; hotels, sites to visit, complaints of a hard to please public. She herself had the bad luck to lose her cell phone. Trying to help, someone rang her number and she distinctly heard her ring tone, which moved from place to place. She ran after the ringing telephone and it escaped her again and again until she finally realized that her phone was in her pants pocket.

Another mishap happened to Miriam. She phoned the desk and complained that her TV was not working. A man advised her to press some buttons, but as I know from my own experience, the buttons don't always want what we want. A technician finally came up to her room. He, too, pressed buttons without result and then at last he took a key out from his pocket, inserted it into a secret place on the TV set and lo and behold, picture and sound were on. When the man was about to leave, Miriam asked him:

"So.. whenever I want to watch TV, I have to call you and your key?"

Frankly, I myself think that three days without depressing TV has its good points!

We had a marvelous oriental meal in Abu Gosh before heading for home. I never knew that this kind of humous existed! The service was quick and friendly, and I suppose we ate too much. Back home I had a burning sensation around my chest which got me worried. But then came illumination:

"Aha! I thought, this must be the heartburn that my aunt Alice complained of all her life!"

Now there's no heartburn, just a lot of mail, phone messages, laundry to be done and phone calls to be made. How can three days disrupt my life and why is it a bit of a struggle to get back to routine?

Lucca