Israel: Dichotomy

Experiencing the Mediterranean for the first time.

I am made up of so many contradictions. In fact, I think everyone is made up that way. I returned a week ago from 6 days in Israel. I had a wonderful time, and found it comforting that there are places made up of contradictions too. I wish I could tell you about all of them, but you’re here for history, right? So I’ll tell you about history, because boy does Israel have both a lot of history, and then almost none at all!

Not that long ago, back in early December I think, Stephen got done with a conference call for work and spoke up to say he might have to go to Israel. I think I ran over to the couch where he was sitting and almost tackled him. I surprised myself with my own ferocity in declaring that if he was going to Israel, then I was going to do everything I could in order to accompany him. More than 5 years ago now we went to England, and I was amazed at the amount of history sitting on every street corner, behind every hill. Compared to England, The US has no history. The land that is now the state of Israel can date human settlement back to Cro-Magnon and Neanderthals. They can date their written history back to, you guessed it, biblical times. Compared to Israel, England has no history!

Our niece got to come with us, her first time out of the country, so she was game for whatever sort of sight seeing I had in mind. Since Stephen had to spend most of his time working (poor thing) I got to plan the itinerary. We were staying in a brand new modern city, less than 100 years old, but still I tried to do as many things history related as possible. Alysa and I visited the “old town”, flea markets, produce markets, and museums in town. One day we got really ambitious and rented a car to see some of the sights outside of the city. On the last two days all three of us visited Jerusalem and spent time in that really old city as well as at museums and the Holocaust Memorial. I am still overwhelmed by all that we experienced, and am processing it slowly. I’d like to tell you about a few key experiences, I’ll break them out into individual posts over the next week(ish.)