Carlton Dead Sea Ein Bokek

... to say about her country and one of her observations which stayed with me particularly was when she talked about the problems of how people react here. When Christians loose hope, she said, they tend to leave the country – when Muslims loose hope, they tend to become more radical. This seems to be exactly what all the difficulties are being engineered towards – and this is why it is so important for people to react in a different way. There is another option – this ...

... and the Nile Delta. The mosaic
contains the earliest extant representation of Byzantine Jerusalem, labeled the "Holy City." The map provides important details as to its 6th century landmarks, with the cardo, or central colonnaded street and the Holy Sepulchre
clearly visible. This map is one key in developing scholarly knowledge
about the physical layout of Jerusalem after its destruction and
rebuilding in 70 AD. This map wasn't high on the ...

... Court. Normally, we might not be interested in going, but it figured prominently in an Israeli film we just saw ("Lemon Tree"), where a Palestinian woman goes to the Supreme Court to appeal a decision to destroy her beloved lemon grove. Alas, we missed the English tour, and the building was by then closed to the public. So we settled on some pictures, hailed a cab, and headed downtown.


We went to the Ben ...

... warmed up a bit without getting too hot. You can tell the Pope's coming. There are papal flags all over, but especially here close to Christ Church where the Latin Patriarchate is located. I don't know if there are more Roman Catholic pilgrims than normal, but they're all over. The best part of the day was coming home from that walk very tired. I had time to just sleep and be quiet in the late afternoon. That's a good sabbatical thing to do. Just to rest ...

... re so high in the water. We floated along with our hands behind our heads with no minimal effort, like we were floating on an inflatable raft. You can even read a book while floating along, a good photo op. The other activity at the Dead Sea, besides floating, is to give yourself a mud bath spa treatment. We saw many people emerging from the sea covered head to toe in mud, they would let it dry a little and then rinse it off. Of course I couldn't resist trying it ...

... why it is so integral to middle eastern socializing. We have a sheesha pipe at home that Lani gave us years ago but Andy has never been keen on getting it out (feeling it had connotations of smoking drugs) but maybe now that he has seen how acceptable it is he might be inclined to try it occasionally at home just for fun to accompany a middle eastern meal. After a quick stop at Mount Nebo (the place Moses is ...

... We enjoyed the tour and then went through the museum on our own. It isn't busy, just the odd small tour coming through. We then take a walk down the hill to find where we get the bus. Real easy with the paper and the words written in Arabic to get to the bus station. There is a bus waiting, but we say tomorrow. They tell us it is 7 a.m. Hopefully there are several busses through out the day, don't think we will make the 7 am one. Came back up the ...

... into the border crossing security area. Formalities on the Jordanian side went quickly and smoothly. As David Baker and I paid the 5 Dinars to purchase the exit tax passport stamps for each member of our party, one official asked where we were from, to which we said the USA. He smiled broadly and said "Have no fear the Americans are here!" and then laughed in a relaxed and friendly way. Then he told David Baker and me with a conspiratorial grin "You are ...

... la mer morte, allez savoir pourquoi...), nous nous sommes baignés et avons flotté comme de vulgaires bouts de bois et sommes repartis. C'était rigolo (vous jugerai par vous-meme en voyant les photos...). Nous devions nous rendre a Massada, place forte de l'histoire juive, mais nous nous sommes trompés de route et nous sommes revenus sur nos pas, et dans une ville nommée Arad nous avons tourne pendant environ 3/4 d ...