Today was a travel day. We are on our way to Jerusalem—in a roundabout manner. We left Nazareth in the morning, drove north through the West Bank, and then to Haifa, the northernmost major city in Israel. Haifa is very close to the Lebanon border and the city was hit with rocket fire in the fighting with and in Lebanon last summer.
Just south of Haifa is the city of Caesarea, which was built by the Israelite King Herod and later taken over and improved by the Roman emperor Hadrian. The ruins contain a large theatre that overlooks the Mediterranean Sea. The sea is bright blue and lovely to look at. The water looks so inviting, kind of like the ocean water of the Bahamas, although after swimming in the Dead Sea the other day, I’m not sure I want to venture into salt water again so soon.
At one of the national parks on the way to Jerusalem, I separated from the group when I went to get a drink at the park office. I walked around the corner of the building and ran into a very nice Golden Retriever, who looked remarkably like of first Golden,
Quest. His name was Duke; he loved to chase rocks, sticks and pretty much anything you would throw for him. Duke was an Israeli dog—he did not understand the first word of English. I would say to him “Come boy, come” and he would just stand there looking at me. Duke is owned by a 60 year-old Jewish lady and her daughter. She showed me some of his tricks. She is the manager of the park. She told me that Duke likes to walk around the park socializing with the visitors, and that whenever visitors have barbecues, they usually feed Duke as much as he wants. She doesn’t mind except that he “pukes up all kinds of bones” and such on her carpet overnight. That sounds familiar.
We arrived in Jerusalem in the early evening. We are staying at the Notre Dame Hotel that is located exactly on the border between East and West Jerusalem (theoretically separate sovereign territories according the United Nations mandates). This large facility was a huge monastery until the mid 1950’s when the Catholic Church considered selling it. Pope John Paul decided that the church would no longer sell any church property to either Jewish or Muslim interests. As a result, part of the monastery was made into a hotel, which helps pay for the cost of maintenance to the facility. It is a lovely facility and carries with it such a colorful history—you can’t walk the spacious halls without getting a sense of the monks having walked the same halls over the centuries.
