Israel 3,
March 16,2024,
Hi Everyone,
It is always somewhat difficult to get used to a 6 hour time change. Coming to Israel and sleeping more or less on a 10 hour flight was no different. The seats and the space between the seats gets progressively smaller and inversely proportional to the inflated airline prices. Nevertheless, I should not complain as El-Al is the only airline to keep ferrying paying customers into a war zone with no interruption of service.
Yesterday, I spent most of the day walking up and down the beach. There is a boardwalk extending for miles along the sea. The boardwalk is lined with expensive and medium priced hotels. There is an endless supply of restaurants, snack bars and cafes to choose from. Young men and women are jogging on the boardwalk and on the sand. Volleyball is the favourite game here and there are dozens of nets where people play. Everyone is having fun on a warm spring day away from the war.
Further down the cost is Gaza. It has the exact same sandy beaches. In 75 years they have managed to build, no hotels, no restaurants, no cafes, no snack bars, no boardwalks and no volley ball nets. There is of course a tunnel system that could be used for a future metro. If I owned 10 meters of sandy beach on the Mediterranean, even with my poor investment knowledge, I certainly would know what to do to bring in the tourist dollar.
I woke up late today and had my first good night sleep in a week. I had breakfast at the hotel and chatted with several people who had just finished their first week of volunteering. I am excited to start tomorrow. I got a call from my cousin who had made Aliyah some 20 years ago. We drove to a Memorial Square for the kidnapped men, women and children. It is very sad. Their pictures were posted on a wall and there is a tunnel, mock-up which you can go through and write some words of encouragement. My cousin bought me a ‘bring them home’ tee shirt written in Hebrew and a similar supportive dog tag. We then went back to her house for lunch where I met her charming family. They will be coming to Montreal this summer.
Every house, apartment and hotel has a bomb shelter or safe room. Theirs is no exception. We went down into the basement which is an unfinished room with cots and some kids designs on the walls. The atmosphere was damp and there was some water leakage. The family takes shelter in the room when the sirens go off which has happened many times. I still can’t understand why ‘they’ make ‘us’ live this way. I can still remember my father saying to me ‘children don’t hate, adults hate, adults teach children to hate’.
This evening I will meet my Hebrew tutor at the hotel and we will go out for dinner.
Love,
brian
gobriantravel 