This has been probably the most productive trip I’ve been on in terms of hours spent doing and seeing stuff per hours in the country, represented by the following highly scientific formula that I just made up:
(Hours doing cool stuff) ÷ (Days in country X 24) = Trip productivity
Thus far our trip productivity quotient is very high. We suffered a setback yesterday thanks to a full day of cold, wind, and rain in Jerusalem. Also, despite the weather, there are many more (other) tourists in Jerusalem than anywhere else we’ve been. This is a hindrance generally, both psychologically and physically. An example of both: yesterday we wound the tiny streets of the Old City to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. We arrived cold and wet, already somewhat beaten down by other near-misses and failures we had already suffered that morning, to find scores if not hundreds of tourists and pilgrims (tourgrims) milling around the church. It would have been impossible to see the church without getting elbowed and pushed by these loud groups who exist for the sole purpose of ruining places for everyone else (yes, just like the trip I was on last year).
So we left, and we are heading back this morning, a few minutes from now. It is just past 6 am right now in Jerusalem; hopefully we’ll beat the tourgrims and much of the church, which opened at 4 am, will be quiet and empty (or at least more so than yesterday).
On today’s slate for after the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is to walk the Twelve Stations of the Cross (which I’ve also seen described as Fourteen Stations – I’ll try to figure that one out and get back to you) and tour the Mount of Olives -- all before sundown because we're doing shabbat. Tomorrow we have the Temple Mount and the Dome of the Rock (which we also tried to get into yesterday and were thwarted, first by the Temple’s policy of sometimes completely arbitrarily closing and then by hoards or tourgrims) and the Israel Museum. Sometime tomorrow evening we will return to Tel Aviv to catch our flight early Sunday morning.
I have started a couple posts now and again recounting the days between arriving in Eilat and now, but my free time has been virtually zero. This is a good thing and it is how we wanted the trip to go, but I thought that somehow, as on other trips, I could squeeze in some writing time. I hadn’t factored in the secret variable that I relied upon to find time to write on other trips: hours spent on public transportation. Since we’ve done all the transporting ourselves, and I have done all the driving, the choice has come down to pounding the laptop or adding precious hours of sleep to my already scant supply, and I almost always choose sleep. I have many notes that I will convert into posts and, of course, the pictures. Here are some recent ones, then it’s off to continue the whirlwind.
(Hours doing cool stuff) ÷ (Days in country X 24) = Trip productivity
Thus far our trip productivity quotient is very high. We suffered a setback yesterday thanks to a full day of cold, wind, and rain in Jerusalem. Also, despite the weather, there are many more (other) tourists in Jerusalem than anywhere else we’ve been. This is a hindrance generally, both psychologically and physically. An example of both: yesterday we wound the tiny streets of the Old City to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. We arrived cold and wet, already somewhat beaten down by other near-misses and failures we had already suffered that morning, to find scores if not hundreds of tourists and pilgrims (tourgrims) milling around the church. It would have been impossible to see the church without getting elbowed and pushed by these loud groups who exist for the sole purpose of ruining places for everyone else (yes, just like the trip I was on last year).
So we left, and we are heading back this morning, a few minutes from now. It is just past 6 am right now in Jerusalem; hopefully we’ll beat the tourgrims and much of the church, which opened at 4 am, will be quiet and empty (or at least more so than yesterday).
On today’s slate for after the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is to walk the Twelve Stations of the Cross (which I’ve also seen described as Fourteen Stations – I’ll try to figure that one out and get back to you) and tour the Mount of Olives -- all before sundown because we're doing shabbat. Tomorrow we have the Temple Mount and the Dome of the Rock (which we also tried to get into yesterday and were thwarted, first by the Temple’s policy of sometimes completely arbitrarily closing and then by hoards or tourgrims) and the Israel Museum. Sometime tomorrow evening we will return to Tel Aviv to catch our flight early Sunday morning.
I have started a couple posts now and again recounting the days between arriving in Eilat and now, but my free time has been virtually zero. This is a good thing and it is how we wanted the trip to go, but I thought that somehow, as on other trips, I could squeeze in some writing time. I hadn’t factored in the secret variable that I relied upon to find time to write on other trips: hours spent on public transportation. Since we’ve done all the transporting ourselves, and I have done all the driving, the choice has come down to pounding the laptop or adding precious hours of sleep to my already scant supply, and I almost always choose sleep. I have many notes that I will convert into posts and, of course, the pictures. Here are some recent ones, then it’s off to continue the whirlwind.
