The Trip

Folks - I got home at midnight but at 6 a.m. I could not sleep any more and got up and emptied the suitcase and went grocery shopping. Now it is almost 1 p.m. and I am waiting for the plumber. The sump pump stopped sumping while I was gone. No damage, however, Alleluia. The mail lady just was here and left a ton of mail. The dogs are back in the house. The computers are turned on. I am still bleary eyed but unwrapping the souvenirs little by little.
How was it? First the good news. The trip itself: fantastic. This was a Catholic pilgrimage with two Catholic priests and an American Lebanese nun and a Syrian Catholic Israeli tour guide and a something else, unknown, Catholic bus driver. We stayed at two wonderful Catholic pilgrimage houses - one in Jerusalem and one in Galilee. We traced Jesus's steps from Bethlehem to Nazareth and around Galilee to the Cenacle and across the Mt. of Olives and back to Golgotha. We carried the cross. We supported every Christian souvenir shop known to mankind. The weather was sunny and balmy except for the last day when it rained on and off. We stuck our feet into the Dead Sea. We could have swum there, it was that warm, but did not have a bathing suit. We visited the Qumran caves.We took a boat ride around the Sea of Galilee - in a Jesus boat. We visited Kapernaum and ended the official tour on Mt. Carmel with Mass. We bought wine in Cana - of course! It is cheap wine. Remember, there was plenty of it......The label "Wedding Wine from Cana" was irresistible. We had a special visit with the Franciscans in the Holy Land in Jerusalem who explained to us the political situation. Note on that subject: We felt totally safe. We repeatedly went by bus over to the West Bank and the Palestinians were nothing but friendly. We saw the Wall from the Israeli side - clean - and on the Palestinian side - full of graffiti. The Wall is an abomination. The many check points are a pain. There are Israeli and as well as Palestinian check points. However, the Gaza situation was further in the south and we never saw and troop movements or anything that would have in the remotest indicated that there was a problem in the area. Last Friday we were supposed to go to the Wailing Wall. That was cancelled. Only on Sunday did I read in a newspaper that someone had left in the hotel and that I could READ that there was stone throwing at the Wailing Wall on Friday. Yes, there was TV but it was in either Hebrew or Arabic and did not do us any good and so were the newspapers. We kept asking about Gaza and were told every day that the ground invasion was still going on but it did not affect us in the slightest. The two hotels were great. The hotel in Galilee was founded by a German! At breakfast they even had sliced ham and everything was bi-lingual: English/German. We ate a lot of chicken schnitzel everywhere and I loved it. On the bus we prayed together and our tour guide read from the Bible all the interesting parts that connected with each site. We were fed: body and soul. What was terrible? The flight itself. It was a flight from hell. Before we left here, we had to sit on the plane for three hours before we took off. We were taken off the plane for ten minutes at one point, went back on the plane, sat in the plane again, had to go back to the terminal for more fuel. There was another delay in New York, another delay in Istanbul and when we arrived in Israel we had no luggage - FOR TWO DAYS. So friends pitched in with toothbrushes and toothpaste and clothing and we washed underwear and socks at night. Of course we could find everything in the room. Once the luggage came, we could not find anything any more. There is a lesson in this somewhere. On the way back my luggage had to go twice through X-ray in Israel at the airport and then I had to take it apart. Did I have any poultry? No, I did not have any poultry. Sorry, they meant POTTERY. Yes, I had tons of pottery. Souvenirs from the Holy Land, plates, coasters, cups, bowls. All wonderfully wrapped in Palestinian newspapers because we got it in a Christian store in the West Bank. Where did I buy this pottery? How would I know when I can't read either Hebraic or Arabic. After all, the store did not say in English Sam's Pottery Store! "I bought it where our nun told us to buy the pottery." There.....end of questioning. Delta collected $175 for excess weight in New York on the way back for the suit case. I still went free of charge. The Turkish airlines were more accommodating and let it pass until New York when we had to switch to Delta for our connecting flight. Now to the most important part: We prayed for all of you everywhere. We also prayed for certain people at certain places. We drew names each day for that. That was great fun. We could go to confession. Somebody in purgatory is supposed to benefit from my plenary indulgence. It was an incredible experience to pray and to realize that we were praying at a site where Jesus prayed. We prayed for peace.